and citizenship takes place in contraband camps which deciding to do that was like entering the cyclorama, step into the enormous story and be totally overwhelmed by the details of what i was finding. the details of lives in these refugee camps. iwas overwhelmed by the particularities of women and children's experiences or any analytical framework or narratives arc to make sense of them with any conversation with each other or in conversation with congress or the president or larger story of how slavery ended to do. i was lost and it stunk. i kept going in circles. finally a basket of eggs, the first 200 distraction, and try an experiment. a basket of eggs was something i came across involving women in north carolina and she put a basket of eggs and her children into a canoe and walked the canoe 12 miles up the course to the union army to deliver those eggs and delivered herself and children to freedom and that story stuck with me. eggs in a canoe. the most fragile farm product you could think of. she had her kids in the canoe. if they were anything like mike in the eggs would be broken i