From the mailbox

I feel like tooting my own horn right now. I want to share with you two random emails I have received from total strangers – these are not regular commenters, or even people who read my blog regularly. It appears that somehow they have tripped over certain posts I wrote … and got sucked in. It is stuff like this that make blogging one of the most rewarding and cool and … life-affirming … projects I have ever taken on.

People write me emails like THIS??? What? It is an awesome privilege. I’m doing my thing here. I do it because I love to write, and blogging is a fun hobby.

So to actually have people come across certain posts … and then take the time to write me letters … makes me feel all proud and humble at the same time.

Here is an email I received just the other day:

I just read 74 facts and a Lie. I didn’t see #5 coming, but when it hit me… oh god the pain, I already knew how it ended. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach (again). I’ll never stop asking myself why.

That was it. That was the whole email. A total stranger feeling “kicked in the stomach” over something that happened to ME. Extraordinary. I know I’ve felt the same way with other bloggers and the way they write … I get involved in their stories … I don’t NEED to know them … but it’s still amazing when it happens.

And here – in its unedited version – is my #1 favorite email I have ever received. I cannot even explain to you how WIDE my smile was as I read her words.

Brief background: i wrote this post about finally tracking down one of my favorite childhood books. I had remembered it as having the title “Bimulous Night” – which turns out was incorrect – and that’s why it never came up in any of my searches. But now – because of that one post – I cannot even tell you how proud I am that I am now number 1 on Google for “bimulous night” – so anyone else out there who might be yearning to find that book, and only can remember the words “on a bimulous night” … will now be able to track it down.

Through such teeny steps, the world becomes a better place.

Anyway. Read this email. I still get a lump in my throat when I read it:

ohmygod. i work at a preschool, and when i came in this morning, there were watercolor paintings set out to dry, so i asked one of my co-workers about the project, and she began, “oh, yesterday we read this book about a bimulous night, so – “and i interrupted with “OHMYGOD! A BIMULOUS NIGHT WHEN THE SKY IS LIKE LACE?!” and she said yes, and i was such a babbling idiot – “and something about pineapple?? and orange??” she kinda laughed at me, and gestured towards the book corner. “it’s in that basket. go see.”

when i saw the book and picked it up, my breath hitched. my heart sped up. i was literally shaking… wow, holding it in my hands after ALL THESE YEARS… it was so magic. i read it, slowly, cover to cover, twice, grinning in wonder and disbelief. it was such an amazing feeling to reconnect with that book after all this time. my hazy memories – of the feeling of magic and joy – have always been mere wispy tendrils that teased me, made me wonder if i was losing my mind. reading “when the sky is like lace” again today solidified and magnified the memories and feelings, as warm and real as a hug.

of course, i had to read the book to the kids several times today, whenever any of them would listen, and sometimes even when they wouldn’t. :) even when the kids wandered off, i stayed to finish the book! and when a teacher from another room came in, i even roped her into reading the book, and sat and listened more intently than the kids! oh, i just felt 7 years old again!!

and now i am dying to have a bimulous night so i can make spaghetti and pineapple sauce and wear no orange and feel the velvet-soft grass under my bare feet and sing about how katydidn’t and revel in the splendid-strangeness of the plum-purple and dance in the moonlight and stay up all night long!!

during my lunch break today, i rushed home, found the book on amazon, and ordered it! i can’t wait to have my very own copy! i may even make color copies of the illustrations to hang them on my wall!

Thanks, strangers, for taking the time to send me emails … and make my day.