Meg Notes: A couple of trips to the (old) Southwest

Monday, October 12, 2020

A couple of trips to the (old) Southwest

Soooo, 2020 hasn't panned out the way I thought it would. I wrote that knowing that was 1) a huge understatement, and 2) can be applied across the globe.

But really, it hasn't. I expected to be traveling to various archives across the world and across the United States this year. (My proposed research plan has me coming back from Berlin right about now.) I can't even go to the Library of Congress, which I could literally walk to from our place in D.C.

I know this sounds like nothing compared to what others have gone through this year, but there is grief associated with not being able to go to those archives like I planned, see friends across the world, get to spend extended amounts of time in places like London, Paris, Moscow, and Tangier. There is also SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY around the time lost not being able to get to these archives I need. I have felt like I am in perpetual "back-up-plan mode," thinking of so many different possibilities to somehow get the materials I need, rethink through chapters, etc. It's hard. It's really, really hard.

So, I've seen any archival trip this year as a win. And I have been able to do a few. In August and September, I got to travel to Nashville, Tennessee and Lexington, Kentucky to do a bit of archival research there. And even though they're not Berlin, it was nice to travel to places I never had before.

A Nashville Photo Essay:

[I unintentionally was in Nashville on the centennial of the ratification of the 19th amendment. Tennessee's claim to fame is that it was the 36th state to ratify the amendment, thus giving women the right to vote.]

[the state capitol. across from the state archives.]

[microfilm, microfilm, microfilm.]

[my friends, vera and tyler, gave me the best food recommendations, including puckett's. it was also great having a socially-distanced picnic with them.]