I Echo Her Silenced Voice

In my previous blog I wrote an entry about my 2007 encounter with an old barn in Vale, Oregon with the quote "I must keep writing to remember who I am. ~ A Pioneer Woman" painted on its side. Vale is one of the hundreds of small towns on the old Oregon trail. I was deeply struck by this quote and wondered where it came from, who wrote it, why she wrote it, etc. A couple of weeks ago we again drove through Vale on our way home from Oregon. All morning I anticipated seeing the barn again with the big white lettering painted on the side. As we approached town I started looking and searching for it. I needed to see it again to shake my own writing malaise. We drove through town, I looked and looked, and just as quickly we drove out of town. I realized the road had been redirected. It now passes by shops and cafes. Economic reasons, perhaps, moved the road closer to places to spend money and away from the place that challenged my writer's soul. The barn was nowhere to be seen. The pioneer woman's words are no longer visible. Her voice from another century is silenced. But, I know it was there. I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own heart. Her words may be gone from the side of that old barn. The barn itself may be gone. But, her truth has been passed to me and now I try to echo her voice saying, "I must keep writing to remember who I am."