this is for the last challenge from apples for poppy anne. i'm kind-of slow at my homework this week. i edited this thing a hundred times, and feel like i want/need to go back to creative writing class now. but whatever. this was good for me. thank you to the mystery woman in the photograph.

She was a rare bird living in Memphis, Tennessee in 1929. Here, she was 21. The photographer for this picture amused her because of the way he bounced his right leg with such speed and gusto, while sitting on the stool behind the camera. It was like he had to keep it moving to keep the flies away, the way a horse twitches it’s skin nonstop in the summer. When he snapped this photograph, there actually was a fly insisting on him, while he repeatedly swatted it away, and this whole scene, and the way he said ‘SCHEW nasty’, gave Ellen an irresistible urge to laugh. But look how cool she is, she held it in pretty well. And if you look deep into her eyes, you'll see the laugh peeking out.

Ellen was close close close with her younger sister, Evelyn. But Evelyn and her newish husband, moved away to Nashville in 1941. Evelyn’s husband, Charlie Brown, always imagined someday playing the country music songs he liked to write, professionally. He loved having Ellen and Evelyn sing his songs with him. Ellen had a lovely mysterious sound to her voice, and she usually sang the lower bit. Evelyn had a velvety higher voice, and they sounded so pretty together. Over the years, they did make a name for themselves, but it took 5 years for Ellen to get herself to Nashville.

For those 5 years, Ellen often deeply missed Evelyn. The days of having a someone to sing with, walk with, eat lunch with…the days of having a someone to sit and sew with while talking about all the strange things people do, were over. Ellen and Evelyn had made an arrangement before Evelyn and Charlie moved. To promise to keep sewing, and send the other whatever they made (They were the same size). That was how Elly, got through those sad days. Go to work at the Dairy farm, sometimes go to the library (she was reading when she wasn’t sewing), go home and sew.

Ellen had never married or really even had a serious relationship with a man up until the grand old, whopping, over the hill age, of 34!!!!…..

……… this one day, June 17^th of 1942 to be exact, on a routine trip to the post office during the first year after Evelyn and Charlie moved, Ellen briefly met Theo Greyson. a popular young jazz musician. They were in line together and when the post man told her the amount she owed, she was 20 cents short. Theo was the man behind her who held out his hand with the 20 cents. She said, ‘Oh, thanks so much. And I will definitely be paying you back.’ Theo was captivated by her intense, oceanlike eyes, and the pleasant earthy sound of her voice.

Ellen knew Theo would be her husband after she visited his home that first time to repay him. She had already noticed him to be a good-looking man, which really did nothing for her in terms of waking up that crazed-feeling inside, the one that makes it so you can’t stop thinking about another person every second you’re apart. It wasn’t until she saw him with his puppy, Eivie, that she noticed herself all of a sudden really liking the man. Theo was a gentle caring man, who did not think himself superior to smaller creatures, but was rather softened and charmed by them. Ellen actually wondered if he might be gay after seeing him with his pet, until he, feeling brave and turned on, kissed her on the cheek as she was leaving. It was the rare kind of cheek-kiss that gives the recipient goosebumps. And hence the crazed-feeling began.

They were both quite shy at first with new people, so it really took a scenario like this for them to move beyond their social-inhibitions. When they had children (and obviously weren’t feeling shy anymore), Theo had everything to say about their naming. It drove Elly nuts, all the opinions, and all the ways he sounded the names out, even sounding them out backwards. Her name backwards was, Nelle. Theo loved that her name was so magical that way. And nothing but a name that magical would suffice for their children. They named their two children Nelle, and Liam. They both loved what Liam spelled backwards, because after all, it was the mail that brought them together.

It was in 1946, when Nelle was 3, Liam was 1, and Eivie was 5, that the young musical family up and moved their home to Nashville. Theo had always wanted to move there. Ellen and Evelyn were together again after 5 years of being apart. They never lived in separate towns again. But it was their separation that pushed Ellen into her frequent visits to the post office.

Ellen Greyson lived to be 93 years old. She was a lucky lady, who died with her children, and their families all around. Nelle and Liam played some of Charlie’s country, and some of their dad’s jazz records at her burial. No speeches, no formal service. Just loud music at the green cemetery as they buried her themselves. In her next life, Ellen Greyson has become a gray whale, and is back with Theo, for the 56^th time (but their first as whales!), and they are psyched to be learning how magical it is to be whales. However, they can’t stop thinking about the very nasty polluted places in their watery home. They pray their beloved saltwater will not get any grosser. They are the most famous whales in the oceans today, singing these prayers at the biggest venues, always selling out.