Dear Morrison,
When you wrote, “Don’t ever think I fell for you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.”, the only person I thought I could ever say that to, was you. Nobody but you deserves those words, for only you’re worth of the magic you weave. I always thought, I would tell you this over a cup of tea with the same quote, for you write my thoughts better than I ever can.
This is what drives me close to you, every time I sit under a lonely dark sky, your books become the yellow warm street light right over my bench. There is no one else, who can make me feel less alone when in guilt. Your words bring smiles, tears, goosebumps, gasps making me wonder if you intended this.
Did you? Did you intend any of this? To make me feel alright at my worst? To not make my flaws look ugly? Could you come back once if I were to show you the strength that you build inside of me and a million others?
You pull out deep rooted weeds of judgements and binaries ingrained in my mind as if you are plucking dead flowers and making a way for the new ones, you make space for wisdom in those very sickening thoughts which you throw away, with every word, every sentence you build a better person out of my skin and bones.
Bluest Eye, Paradise, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz sit on my shelf today, looking at me a little disappointed. I promised each one of them, to have your signature, I promised them that I would show you, the exact words which touched me. They’re unsigned, a little hurt. But they’re still yours so I’ll keep them closer to my heart, hug each one of them as if they were you. You live in every page of your books and speak to me through a Jazz that’s now become my new Paradise.
Saying thank you for all that you have done just belittles what I actually have to say. But I guess that’s the least and the most I can do right now? To thank you, for building a strong, bold woman out of me.
You are writer to be read, who solved my problems (throwback to an introduction for Sula, where you wrote “I was rather a problem to be solved, than a writer to be read”)
Yours,
An obsessed fan.
The image in the graphic is taken from: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/08/07/reader-center/06MORRISON/06MORRISON-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600-v3.jpg
Suchitra Harnahalli 
