Dear Jandy,

If you're out there, I hope you can hear me.
If you're out there, I hope you get this.
If you're out there, I need you to know I think you're brilliant.

I read your book three days ago and I haven't stopped thinking about it. I can't get your words out of my head, I can't stop thinking about Gram, I can't wash the scent of lilacs from my skin and to be honest I don't really want to. What I want to do is run through the rain and meet Lennie for only a moment. I want to tell her she's imperfectly incredible. I want to tell her I wish we were friends, that I wish I knew her, that we can be sisters because I don't have a sister either. I want to tell her that everything is going to be okay, that Bailey is gone but death doesn't mean eternal unhappiness. I want to sit in her tree and listen to her play the clarinet and I want to punch Rachel in the nose. I want to eat ash with Big, I want to see Joe bat those lovely eyelashes and I want to hear him play guitar with John Lennon.

I want to smell Gram's roses for real.

I'm aching to sit in The Sanctum and lock myself in a closet with Lennie. I want to be the friend Sarah couldn't really be for her, I want to help Toby heal, I want to find my way to the bedroom in the middle of the forest and I want to paint my house orange.

I want to drink-in the stars you poured down from the sky.

I think your words are incredible. I thought your story was painfully beautiful. I laughed out loud and held back tears and swallowed the tangible emotions tumbling through your prose. I wanted to catch the words as they fell from your book. I wondered forever what it'd be like to vacuum up the horizon.

But after I finished the story I held it in my hands and wondered why I was so emotional and I realized then, I realized in that moment that I'd never again experience the thrill of meeting Lennie and Gram and Joe Fontaine and Big with his squirrel mustache for the first time and it broke my heart. I wanted to hide in Gram's pocket, I wanted to camp-out in the attic, I wanted to be the kind of human-being made entirely of letters, the kind of human-being crafted from words that would fit in the margins of your book.

Mostly, I wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for reminding me that one sentence can be just as beautiful as Joe's smile. Thank you for taking my breath away with the kind of love I haven't seen in so long, with the kind of ache I still feel in the pit of my stomach, with the kind of family so real I could reach out and touch them, each of them, hug them right around the middle.

Thank you for reminding me why writers are so important.

THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE broke my heart and stitched it back together with guitar strings.

You are incredible in so many ways.

xoxo
Tahereh