little bride in the big woods
I grew up on folklore and fairytales. My Italian grandmother would fill my head with songs about fairy queens and trolls. As a small child, I spent a lot of afternoons at her house, hunting for evidence of a fairy gathering in the yard. She would call me her kindred spirit, but I think it went past a general liking of the same things. Even though there's 60 years between us, I think she saw something of her longtime ago self in my eager imagination.
When Katie told me she wanted photos in her grandmother's wedding dress, I was hit with all sorts of reasons for saying ABSOLUTELY. That word, "grandmother," has been so huge for me lately. As my grandmother's health deteriorates, I now find myself committing to traveling to Pensacola whenever I have a free weekend, to clean her house, visit with her, and make sure those hair appointments are scheduled, because if you know my grandmother, hair is very important. And with these visits, stories are coming out of the woodworks. Stories I never heard after 25 years of listening. Stories my mother never even heard. I've been writing them down because they're so vivid, so real, filled with love and suffering, far better than stories of fairy queens and trolls.
