What a lovely surprise it was to find this reader’s tender heart expressed in the opening pages of Bella Grace, Winter 2021:
“This feels like a ‘longtime listener, first-time caller’ moment. I’m currently reading your Autumn 2020 issue and it feels like how I envision Fall should be. Donna K. Wallace writes about more than simple pumpkin spice thrown around like salt, and I need this. …I have learned more than a few things and the number one thing is how often I put my own life on hold. My cares, my beliefs, the things that make me who I am.
I buy Bella Grace for the call that the writers and artists share inside: the call to exist as I am and not how I make myself to be to fit in. It doesn’t shake me to my core to read this; it gently waves from the shore to come sit and have a cup of tea and maybe release the tears I’ve been holding in, or breath in air that isn’t from an air conditioner.
Thank you for calling out to me, though you don’t know me. Thank you for being more than pumpkin spice, but not throwing the spice out either. They say there’s a whole world that calls out to you, and in this time where the world is basically closed for maintenance, I have found this feeling like it was ending for me to see how much I, first and foremost, need me…
-Amy Allen