Above is Jay Barksdale, the fantastic NYPL librarian who, among his other duties, shepherds the scholars and writers in the Wertheim and Allan study rooms, introducing me at the big event. He has been wonderful to me, amazingly helpful. Below I am energized talking about the website that means so much to me.

Dear Friends and Family,

I am coming down from a wonderful day. The best thing is that I met the challenge and had the energy to talk about the website and show everyone who was there what it is about. I have only done that once before, through Skype, when I was explaining to a grad student working for us what he needed to know.

I cannot count the friends who were in the audience because there were so many, maybe 30 of the almost 100 people in the audience, and many of our friends came back to our apartment, where we had sweets, cheeses, crackers and chips + wine and soda. The studio held everyone with some corners unoccupied. So it did not feel crowded; it just felt nice. It was warm and great. Harvey took a video of the whole hour of my talk, and he will give me a DVD next week when we are there for Passover.

When I woke up this morning and opened the shades, I saw that the Magnolia is still showing its flowers; the cold and pouring rain of yesterday and during the night have not blasted it. One April, we had a true freeze, and the flowers went. That was the year my father died, making April doubly the cruelest month.

I am going to close now because Jesús is in the kitchen, and he is leaving today. Tonight I will be going to see another Macbeth at BAM. I will write more in the next few days.

Love to all,
Bernice