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“Carefully Caught Regrets” Linger While Also Bringing Hope
On December 12, 1992, a date that would have marked my sister Renée’s thirty-eighth birthday had she lived more than a few days beyond her seventh birthday, Mom wrote me a letter commenting on copies of black-and-white pictures I had sent to her. “You said it is good to remember. I don’t know. I try not to remember. I saw those pictures again, I remembered I kept saying, ‘Come back, Little Blue Legs’—after she died. Hadn’t thought of that in many years. We used to play a game: I would say something about your red legs or black legs, whichever. And Renée would say, ‘Say something about my blue legs.’…
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Nelle Harper Lee’s Writing Continues to Bring the South to Life and Life to Readers
“All I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama,” Harper Lee said in an interview. Why Harper Lee wrote is as important as what she wrote. “As you know, the South is still made up of thousands of tiny towns. There is a very definite social pattern in these towns that fascinates me. I think it is a rich social pattern. I would simply like to put down all I know about this because I believe there is something universal in this little world, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing.” Harper Lee, quoted in Mockingbird, by Charles J. Shields…
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On Daring Greatly: Starting Over
Ta-dah! Daring greatly to start over, I attempt to post regularly on this site. Why Footnotes2Stories? Why not a brand new blog title? Why move from my previous blog site where I have blogged since 2009 (albeit with intermittent posts and random topics)? I believe our stories are connected. I have never turned loose of this idea. “So in the long run the stories all overlap and mingle like searchlights in the dark.… And my story and your story are all part of each other too because … we are at least a footnote at the bottom of each other’s stories.” Secrets in the Dark Frederick Blechner, Secrets in the…
