Howdy do. Sprinkles of nuttiness swirling about here, per usual.

Toss the nuts because…

Something absolutely splendid and wonderful and AMAZING happened at 1:54pm on January 13th and I have waited entirely and very much too long to tell you!

No, not that.

THIS: Sweet Nellie wrote a note to me! She WROTE TO ME y’all. I am still DYING with excitement about this. Such a wonderful unexpected shiny bright spot amidst the absolute shitstorm of serious cRaZy in the world.

YOU GUYS, can you EVEN? omgawd

This is what she said:

Hello Ms. Herisme,

I received your incredible gift of the Sonnets From the Portuguese 
with my father’s handwritten Meditations enclosed in the book. 
I was completely overcome with chills down my spine to see this 
and hold it in my hands. Thank you so much for sending it to me. 
I must say that I am shocked at how much research you were able 
to do on my parent’s history, along with your beautiful ruminations 
of what their history was in those days, and your touching 
description of what their romance may have been.

I would love to be able to talk with you, if possible about some of the things. 
I must say I never heard of a Nellie Hunter. I was told that my namesake 
was a Mrs. Nellie M. Powell, who was a school teacher in Winston-Salem, 
whom my father had met at the Baptist in Winston-Salem, whom 
he had met when he helped her going up (or down) the front steps 
of the church, since she had difficulty with walking. Ironically, I was also 
a teacher for many years.

Another curiosity: you mentioned a Ms. Edmondson who is at the 
Edgecombe Public Library. I wonder if that could be a relative of my 
maternal aunt’s husband, George Edmondson, who lived in Scotland Neck, NC, 
near Tarboro.

Again, thank you so much for sending this to me. 
I look forward to talking and/or corresponding with you.

Sincerely,
Nellie (Nell) S.

I am so thrilled that she was able to receive the book and sonnets. I am so relieved that they brought happy memories (one never knows). I am humbly overjoyed that she appreciated my make believe about who David and Emily may have been in their worlds. I am insanely over-the-moon that she reached out to tell me these things.

I love all of the love that happens out there. It is a deep leaden grief reinforcement for me, of course, but also a comfort knowing that it does, and did, exist out there somewhere and is being passed on through generations.

Having that book choose to interact with my world has been quite the magic of this wintering. Thank you, Nellie xoxo

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

ps YOU GUYS… I am… I am… this has been lovely. Thank you

pps I pitched in to do a morning pick-up for two siblings the other day. Their mother is an early morning postal worker, their regular ride fell through, and our school does not have transportation. They are sweet kids – boy, 13, 7th grade and girl, 10, 5th grade. They sat in the backseat while SonHerisme sat in the front seat with me. The 10-year-old girl has a full personality and talked nonstop on the way to school while eating SonHerisme’s leftover after-school potato chips from the prior day. She emphatically explained that unlike another girl at the playground in her neighborhood, she was most certainly not a pickme girl, and never would become one. I asked, “What’s a pickme girl?” Her explanation: “A pickme girl is the girl who says she isn’t like other girls, but she totally is. She is the girl who thinks she’s cooler and better than everyone else when she wears her boots, but her boots are like all the other girls who can afford them. She is the girl that pretends that she likes a sport the boys are talking about but she doesn’t know very much about it really and never ever wants to play it with anyone. She also has her hair the way everyone else wears it but says she’s the only one with it like that. She is rude and only pretend friendly just trying to get the boys to notice her and pick her to talk to. She is the pickme girl playing games and I do not like her.” And now you know too. Don’t be a pickme girl because little Miss 10 is not standing for any of that nonsense. I did not tell her I felt like a different kind of pickme girl because a book of sonnets picked me. I did not want to ruin her fantastically epic sassy rant (she might be a covert pickme girl too and I love it!).

ppss In cleaning up, I stumbled upon a love note SonHerisme has written to a crush. I did not tell him because it is none of my business and I do not want to break his trust. I tucked it into the nearest book it had fallen out from and let it rest there. His love-emotion muscles are flexing! Teenagering it up all over the place lol