Voting on the Shoulders of Strong Women

"Are you planning to vote?" my mother asks.
"Vote?  When?" I answer.
"Next Tuesday.  Nov. 2nd.  Election Day," she continues until she sees a glimmer of recognition on my face.
"Oh, right.  I forgot all about it," I lamely reply. "Who's running?'
She hands me a sample ballot.
I could use the excuse, "I've been out of the country," to plead my unpatriotic response, but we do get CNN in Moscow plus every online newspaper in the world at our fingertips.
I glance over the names on the ballot, recognize only one, then skim the indecipherable amendments to the Arkansas constitution at the bottom. 
"Maybe I just won't vote this time," I hear myself mutter.
"Just won't vote??!!" "What are you saying?" my socially aware, do-the-right-thing conscience asks its lazy, apathetic, poor-excuse-for-a-citizen alter ego.
I slap myself around a couple of times and say, "Whew!  That was close. Thanks."  
I stuff the sample ballot in my purse and head home to google a few names.


It's only been three short years since I watched the Ken Burns' documentary, "Not for Ourselves Alone," about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and vowed I would vote in every election for the rest of my life.  And now, look at me.  Please forgive me Susan and Elizabeth.  
                                   

                                       Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
                                            Courtesy of the Library of Congress


The video ended up on my Netflix queue as an afterthought, something that looked interesting as I was clicking through the PBS offerings.  I had vaguely heard of the two women  in connection with women's rights.  Wasn't Susan B. Anthony on a coin a few years back? Any knowledge beyond that, however, was dismally deficient, which could only mean that I was absent, or absent-minded, for the minute or so in American History class when their names might have been mentioned. But within the first three minutes of the video, I was mesmerized.   

"In the middle of the 19th century," a woman's voice narrated, "women were, by custom, barred from the pulpit and the professions, prevented from attending college, and those who dared speak in public were thought indecent.  By law, married women were prohibited from owning or inheriting property.  In fact, wives were the property of their husbands, entitled by law to her earnings and her body."

The idea of women voting - unthinkable!  Yet, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, among a handful of other women, not only dared think it, but acted.  And they acted for over 50 years. . .  

     Beginning with the First Women's Rights Convention in 1848, where  Elizabeth and anti-slavery activist,  Lucretia Mott, penned the "Declaration of Sentiments," a modified version of Mr. Jefferson's famous words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. . ."

   to Susan's famous quote, "Failure is impossible!" during her final speech in 1906, 

                                                 these friends persevered.

Writing, speaking, making public appearances throughout the United States and abroad, organizing, publishing a newspaper -The Revolution, strategizing, fund-raising, leading, and constantly problem solving "how?" and "what next?" Susan personally appeared before Congress every year from 1869-1906 to advocate for women's suffrage.  The pair, along with their fellow reformers, were often harassed, laughed at, shouted down, called names, and in Susan's case, even arrested, as she attempted to vote under the umbrella of the 14th Amendment.  It states that, "all persons born and naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States," and as citizens are entitled to the "privileges"  of citizens of the United States. Susan interpreted privileges to include voting. The court did not agree, in the case of women.   

Elizabeth died in 1902; Susan in 1906.  Neither lived to see Congress pass and states ratify the 19th Amendment:


"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Twenty-eight words sum up 72 years of struggle, "the only non-violent revolution in our country's history."*  What else would you expect emanating from such intelligent and thoughtful women, dedicated to equality for all women, no matter how long and excruciatingly frustrating the process?

On November 2, 1920, 8 million women voted for the first time.  On November 2, 2010, I will follow in their footsteps.     

Please join me!

                                                    Courtesy of the Library of Congress

*"Women In History"http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/anth-sus.htm
Susan B. Anthony House (http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/her-story/biography.php#camp)
The Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership http://www.rochester.edu/SBA/suffrage_sba_ecs.html

Atop Mt. Magazine

Serious mountaineers, who check 14,000+ foot peaks off their "To Climb" lists, might call a 2753 foot elevation "puny, pipsqueak or even peewee."  Such men and women who scale dizzying heights and don't even get dizzy, might flick such a lowly "incline" off a list of true mountains like a fly off a sandwich.  "Don't waste our time on such trifles," they might exclaim, if asked to don a pair of L.L. Bean hikers, grab a picnic lunch, bottle of water and follow an "ordinary" trail upwards to what they might mockingly refer to as a  summit. But they would be missing the point.

I scaled one of those so-called pipsqueak peaks this week.  The highest point in Arkansas - Signal Hill - atop Mt. Magazine.  Well, granted I drove the gently curving, scenic state highway 309 for all but the last .6 mile, but the climb was not "the thing."  It's what surrounded me, or more accurately, what enveloped me for the 20 hours of my stay.  A cocoon of white clouds caused the Arkansas River Valley below to vanish, intensifying the world of the mountain top, forcing me to pay attention.

My friend, Marian, and I arrived late in the afternoon, checked into The Lodge, and were content to relax for the evening.  But the sun edged over the top of the cocoon at dawn inviting us, hurrying us outside, lest we miss the morning's glory.   

Mist followed us, or perhaps we followed it, as we walked the loop around the base of Signal Hill and Cameron Bluff Overlook Drive, the damp air frizzing our hair and glittering the spiders' webs.  We breathed deeply of damp leaves, cedar branches, pine needles and air cleaner than a morning shower, keeping a steady pace, until we were stopped by the sight of. . . 

retreating clouds revealing vistas of solitude

craggy rock faces yawning, "Good morning"

                                           

 camouflaged pair of deer posing in grayness 

(look closely in the lower, center     

foreground)

                                        show-stopping trees performing the Can-Can

                                               and blinding light bursting the cocoon

Nature led the way to the mountain's top while reminding us that a destination, regardless of its size, is of little consequence. . . if the trail leading to it is ignored in the rush to advance.  

   

                                                     We couldn't agree more.       

10 hours 53 minutes and counting

The right engine's on fire!  The left engine's on fire!  The plane is losing altitude - faster and faster, hurtling towards the ocean.  "Prepare for a crash landing!" the pilot yells over the intercom.

Sitting calmly in my aisle seat 34, 000 feet above the Atlantic, I take a deep breath and say to myself, "Now, there's a serious problem."

Allowing my imagination to run wild for 10 seconds, I catch it before it has a chance to get totally out of control, and drag it back to reality. No flaming engines, no frenzied voice, other than perhaps my own, searching for a way to put minor irritations into perspective.  On my way back to Arkansas, I'm into hour five of the 10 hour and 53 minute flight from Moscow to Atlanta. . . and I need an attitude adjustment.

The beverage carts have squeezed up and down the economy aisles a couple of times, the pasta or chicken dinners have been passed out, two of the four movies have aired, and people are beginning to get restless.  The lines to the toilets in the midsection seem particularly long, about 7-8 people deep on both sides of the center aisle, but I decide to stretch my legs and wait it out.  Fifteen minutes later, I discover the reason for the slow-down, a yellow rectangular sign hanging from the knob of toilet #2 stating, quite matter-of-factly, "defective."  Defective?  You mean for the next 5 hours and 53 minutes, all these people in all these fully booked seats, have to share 3 tiny toilets?  Is there no plumber on board?  I take my turn, then stop drinking for the rest of the flight.

Adding to the toilet traffic are the drinkers in the back. A frazzled flight attendant, with fading make-up and strands of hair escaping from her once perfect bun, confides to me, "Several men are having an issue with their alcohol."  By their alcohol, I wonder if she means that  they are consuming duty free purchases, the ones I saw 4 or 5 of them toting on board in the clear, plastic, suppose-to-stay sealed packages.  By the boisterous laughter and unfettered voices that bellow from row 40ish to where I sit in row 25, it's obvious they're taking the pilot's advice seriously to "sit back, relax and enjoy" their flights.

Popping up out of their seats, three children a couple of rows ahead of me decide that it's "Exercise Time!"  Running up and down the aisles, waving their arms and screaming is great fun.  The leader, a  boy who looks to be around eight years old, turns to face the crowd and blasts out a song, then another, then another.  Perhaps he's taking requests. The noise awakens the peacefully sleeping baby in the center bulkhead row, who harmonizes, with gusto.

Minor irritations. Minor irritations. Minor irritations.

I picked up the mantra several years ago when I heard Michael J. Fox interviewed on one of the late night talk shows.  The host asked if he were afraid of being typecast in the Alex P. Keaton/Mike Flaherty kind of  character he portrayed in the t.v. series, "Family Ties" and "Spin City."  Fox replied something to the effect that every day thousands of people around the world starve to death, die of treatable diseases, and are killed as innocent bystanders of war.  The possibility of being type-cast? "A minor irritation," he said. Today he has Parkinson's Disease.

But still, even minor irritations can be so IRR-I-TA-TING! Like the lady sitting behind me whose swifts kicks to the back of my seat feel like a massage chair who's out to get me.

Deep breaths. Think of 5 things you're grateful for.  More deep breaths.  Now pop those earphones in, turn the volume to high and watch "Crazy Heart," for the third time.

Minor irritations.  Thanks for the reminder, Michael.


  



  

Levitan's Lesson

Continuation of "A Picture Perfect Day in Plyos, Russia"


The tea has simmered, the walk has ended; it’s time to open the envelope in my pocket and discover what the perfect day has to teach me. . .  
  
It involves a man I've never met and will never meet.  A man who spent time in Plyos, 120 years before I arrived. A man whose work touched me before I even knew his name.


When I visited the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow for the first time, I bought only one item in the gift shop, a 5 X 7 print of Golden Autumn.  Of all the paintings I had seen that day, it was the one that I wished I could enter, to sit on the grassy river bank, to hear the jostling of the yellow and orange leaves as the breeze played hide and seek among their branches, to feel the sun on my face, to be warmed by Nature. A perfect day.


I wondered about the man who created it.  Issac Levitan, a painter of landscapes.      

"Self portrait," Issac Levitan
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

I encountered him again in Plyos, as I wandered from room to room in his museum, seeing a re-creation of his apartment/studio, a small collection of his paintings, and learning about his journeys to the town to paint.  I imagined him climbing up a wooded hillside, strolling along the Volga's embankment, balancing on a precarious log across a meandering stream, searching for landscapes that "spoke" to him.   

My lesson does not lie in the telling of Levitan's story, except for three facts.  He experienced extreme poverty in his early life; he died 3 weeks shy of his 40th birthday, and he left "more than 1000 oil paintings, water colors, and other works on paper." 1000! (Issac Levitan)

When he was hungry and homeless in Moscow, why didn't he get a "real job," something, anything, to pay the bills?  Why not delay his passion for painting for a few years, when his life was more stable?  Put it off a while.  He was young.  There would be time for such an indulgence when he was older.  What made him think he could be a successful painter anyway? 


Doubts. Reality. Choices. For Levitan, the drive, the necessity to create, must have outweighed all the "cons" on his "What To Do With My Life" decision-making list.  The force of nature and his deep connection to it, must have propelled him forward, leaving little choice but to act.  Nine hundred and ninety-nine or so pieces of his art depict nature, devoid of any human forms.  Only one, Autumn Day Sokolniki, shows a woman walking on a path, dwarfed by the blowing trees and swirling clouds. Yet his own words reflect his feelings of inadequacy in doing justice to what he sees around him or feels in his heart.


"What can be more tragic than to feel the grandeur of the surrounding beauty and to be able to see in it its underlying mystery. . . and yet to be aware of your own inability to express these large feelings." 
-Issac Levitan

Still, he persevered.


 Levitan's lesson to me as a writer is to forge ahead, to honor the words that need to be voiced, valuing my uniqueness to express them. As his short life reveals in the gifts of art that he left us, life may not wait for the perfect day to get started or to keep going.


And what about you? Is there an envelope hidden in your pocket?

"Golden Autumn," Issac Levitan
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

To view more of Levitan's work, check this website:
http://www.artistsandart.org/2010/08/russian-landscape-painter-isaak-levitan.html






      







          

A Picture Perfect Day in Plyos, Russia

Tucked into every perfect day, there's a lesson, like a tiny cream-colored envelope with a hidden message inside.  You may not discover it until days later when you absent-mindedly stick your hand in your pocket and feel its pointed corners, pull it out and wonder, "Where did this come from?

I had a perfect, or as near-perfect day as I could imagine, last Saturday.  Try as I might to find one piece of it that I would change, I'm at a loss. Pictures of the perfect pieces fill my camera.  The lesson is still being processed.

Drew and I took a weekend trip to Plyos, Russia with our friends, Ann, John, Zhenya and Matvey.  Rumor has it that travel time between Moscow and Plyos is a mere 5 hours by car.  We decided that an over-zealous worker at the  Plyos "tourist commission," started the 5-hour fabrication in order to lure travelers to come and spend money.  Friday afternoon traffic out of Moscow, which accompanied us miles past the city, added another 4 hours, making our arrival time in Plyos at 1:30 am.  No, this was not the perfect day. It started the next morning with homemade blinis filled with blueberry jam and sour cream.

Maya, our hostess at "The Volga" hotel, sent us off with a cheery, "Have a lovely walk," after filling us with plenty of coffee and tea to keep us warm.

  Zhenya and Matvey, who own property in Plyos, guided us up a hill past homes with gingerbread-house window frames.

  Turning around as we reached the top, the view was beyond the words, "picturesque, breathtaking, beautiful, wow" we used to describe it.  Silence among beauty is sometimes the only worthy response.  I snapped a picture of the Volga River, framed by the autumn hillside dotted with rooftops, and took a deep breath.

Trees, proud of their new fall frocks,                                              
posed for pictures.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        



                    






              

                            

                                                             Black and white birches brightened the dense woods like prancing zebras.                         

                                                                                                                                

Churches pointed their candle-wick domes skyward.

Flowers, unaware of the change in season, continued to bloom. . .
,                                             joyfully.

Watering holes waited for (real) feathered friends to sip and chat.








Returning to afternoon cups of ginger-lemon-honey tea and sweets, followed later by plates of pelmeni, we ended the day with warming sips of Plyos' Cranberry Tincture and more tea in front of a crackling fire.
                                               Quite the perfect day with. . .                                                                                                                                                                                  

and Drew!

Matvey, Zhenya, Ann, John

                

But what of the lesson?  What did I find in my pocket?  Lessons need time, time to steep like my cup of chamomile, before they can be fully understood and appreciated.  I will write about it in a day or so.  Check back. Now. . . for that tea and a walk in the woods.