Normally verklempt is the kind of word that I avoid altogether. It implies a lot of emotions and a semi-pretentious vocabulary, neither of which I really desire to posess most of the time. However, recently I’ve had a few too many moments at work where that is legitimately the only way to describe how I feel and why I absolutely love where I am - a whole freaking lot, in fact.
Yesterday was one of those moments, and in tribute to my true inner nerd, I wanted to share it.
Each month we have an all-staff meeting at work. Each month, I leave our meetings feeling as though I am simultaneously drowning and skipping across magic clouds. The task before us is magnificent: create a museum. Raise money, build a collection of artifacts, design and construct a building, develop a narrative, conceptualize that narrative, create educational outreach programs, increase visibility, expand our [tiny] staff, fight for funding in Congress, avoid the next GSA scandal… you know, the usual. But we also have moments in these meetings where the reports stop and staff comes together – these are my verklempt moments, when I realize how outstandingly brilliant these individuals are. When I realize that we are creating a museum that my children will one day walk through. When I realize that we are making the story and experience of a group of people relevant to all Americans.
Yesterday, one of the curators shared a recent acquisition: a palm-sized copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed January 1, 1863. One hundred and fifty years ago, there was no internet (shocking, right?) – no Facebook, no blogging, no online news, not even daily news in many parts of the country. When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation freeing slaves, the news took days… weeks… to reach many areas. In order to spread the news, roughly a million palm-sized, portable copies of the Emancipation Proclamation were distributed by Union soldiers as they traveled. Our curator read the account of one abolitionist serviceman, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, as he shared the Emancipation with his troops on a Sunday morning:
Then followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected and startling, that I can scarcely believe it on recalling, though it gave the keynote to the whole day. The very moment the speaker had ceased, and just as I took and waved the flag, which now for the first time meant anything to these poor people, there suddenly arose, close beside the platform, a strong male voice (but rather cracked and elderly), into which two women’s voices instantly blended, singing, as if by an impulse that could no more be repressed than the morning note of the song-sparrow.—
“My Country, ‘tis of thee, Sweet Land of liberty, Of thee I sing!”
…I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. Nothing could be more wonderfully unconscious; art could not have dreamed of a tribute to the day of jubilee that should be so affecting; history will not believe it; and when I came to speak of it, after it was ended, tears were everywhere…. Just think of it!—the first day they had ever had a country, the first flag they had ever seen which promised anything to their people, and here, while mere spectators stood in silence, waiting for my stupid words, these simple souls burst out in their lay, as if they were by their own hearths at home! When they stopped, there was nothing to do for it but to speak, and I went on; but the life of the whole day was in those unknown people’s song.
Almost one hundred and fifty years later, our entire staff sat silent and reverant in our meeting when the curator finished this account. This tattered pamphlet bears the mark of the first time many Americans knew they were American. Felt they were American. And it is sitting here with us now, this piece of freedom. It bears the mark of a strong beginning, and a long road ahead – a road that still stretches in front of us.
There are many things that employees complain about at work each day. Supervisors are incompetant, people are rude, the water cooler is empty, there are no windows, lunch breaks are a myth. I, too, find fault in my workplace at times.
But then we have those moments that bring us back to the Museum, to our vision, to our purpose. And that is when I am verklempt. Overwhelmed by the task at hand, but even more overwhelmed by the magnitude of intellect, drive, and passion around me each day. Each day I am challenged, frustrated, overwhelmed, engaged, excited, amazed, and grateful.
{That’s a lot of feelings for an ice queen, in case you hadn’t noticed.}
So, dear friends, I’ll leave you with one final piece of my work today:
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
{Martin Luther King, Jr.}
