Emily van Lidth de Jeude

  The audio version of this story is now also available on my MakerTube! https://makertube.net/w/4ikHDR1cK3fhjeNB7cxSm8 ~~*~~  Dear Little Emily, When you grow up, you’re going to keep singing with Mum, at the folksong retreats. Mostly the old ballads and work-songs that you usually sing, with all the spirituals that tie your hearts up into warm packaged balls of hope. And also sometimes songs Mum’s written. Like this one: Well I know your Darn Dog done been here, Done been here, neighbour, done been here! I know your Darn Dog done been here, He done blessed my yard and gone. Mum is really never going to stop writing parodies. This one is of “I Know My Good Lord Done Been Here”, and you’ll be mighty glad Daddy will be dead by the time she writes it, because he’d sure not appreciate the vain usage of his Lord’s name! Haha. Pretty sure you would have sung it to him if she was going to write it while he was alive. Sometimes you’ll be so embarrassed, though, and this is no excepti...

Dear Little Emily is a series of letters to my childhood self, exploring loss, love, and personal growth. ~*~  Dear little Emily, Do you remember Mum’s friend Katie? I mean, of course not, because we weren’t born yet. But I know Mum told you, with a sparkle in her eyes. When Mum was a girl, and lived in Mill Valley, Katie’s mother used to take her temperature every morning before school, in the little cookie-cutter house that was just like Mum’s, and sometimes Katie would bite the thermometer in half, and pour out the silver-heavy drop of mercury into her hand, and carry it out to play with. Mum and Katie delighted at the way the mercury rolled over their hands; wondered at the pure and clandestine droplet of magic. Funny to think that it was poison, when everything about it was so curative—the thermometer, the naughtiness, and the friendship. I was thinking of this while taking my temperature, today; looking for the fine line of silver on the old thermometer that has survived for ...