Breaking for a Historic Moment

Two posts ago, I shared my main goals for the rest of the year and included a timeline. As I write my first draft of the last book in my Awakening series, having that timeline out there for all to see has helped me return to the keyboard even when I'd really like to binge-watch the next three Agents of Shield episodes. (I decided to watch the series on the recommendation of two other participants in the creative retreat described in my last post.)

Hattie Caraway, the first woman elected to the Senate.

But yesterday I got an email from a friend who has raptly followed the conventions of both major political parties. The roll call was likely to be at about 4 p.m. central time, he told me, so if I wanted to see a historic moment, I should tune in.

I wrestled with taking a break for something that held no real suspense. Sure, there was a question of what, exactly, Bernie Sanders would do, but he'd already endorsed former rival Hillary Clinton. She was going to be nominated. And yet....

A woman nominated for president of a major political party is something that's never happened before in the United States. It's something that my mom, who was born just three years after women got the right to vote, didn't live to see. So I tuned in.

It took much longer than I expected. So long that I finally got my laptop and multi-tasked (something I generally avoid) by scheduling some advertising for August.

But it also was far more moving than I expected. Regardless of political views, hearing a woman born before women had the right to vote announce her state's delegates for the first woman to be the nominee of a major party...amazing. A Wall Street Journal article today talked about how far women have come, and yet I'm so often struck by how much as not changed. There are only 20 women in the Senate, for instance, despite having had the right to vote since 1920. Twenty.

Last night, though, I didn't think about that. I thought instead about how many girls will grow up in a world where it seems perfectly normal for a woman to be president. Where, perhaps, there'll be women running on both sides and no one will even comment on it.

For today, though, it is groundbreaking, so I felt the need to take one more break to write about it.

And now...back to work.