A Letter to the Citizens of Neoneli

Emilie Miller

New York City

USA

Everyone in Neoneli: Past, Present, Future

Neoneli (OR)

Italia

Dear Neoneli,

This is all for you of course. But we really should be realistic; this may very well be impossible. True? You are waiting and have been waiting for my words, waiting to hear and to read all that I have to say. About this place you know so well. This place you call home, this place your parents called home, this place the parents of their parents and all the parents before them, also called home. Home: this place, where you sit here waiting. I am waiting too. Wondering, worrying—how can I do this? I fear I have made a mistake. Because now I care so deeply, for you, for this place—I may have lost all sense of journalistic objective perspective.

So how do I do this? How do I explain the heart to the heart? Do I write of the magic and sun and stone? I have lived where you live. I have seen who you love and how you love them. We have danced. We have walked down the streets in the hot sun, behind Saints, singing. I have eaten from your gardens at your tables in your homes. You have welcomed me; you have let me in. Inside. Dentro. Again and again and again.

What has quietly softly been transferred back and forth in this particular Sardinian Italian American cultural exchange? What has begun? What will history have to say? I am back in New York City, my loud chaotic electric home, but I think of Neoneli all the time. Amidst my city’s shouting and sirens and buildings that scrape the sky and people rushing, always rushing—I will think of the sweet stillness of Neoneli.

I will think of that particular scent of your earth cooling when the summer’s day first becomes dark. All at once, the new night’s air filling with minerals and herbs and a sudden soft humidity—like a sigh at the end of a long hot day. I think of the sound of the civetti birds calling throughout the summer’s night—like sonar—forever searching for something just out of reach. I think of the hottest brightest part of those long afternoons in July, when I would rest quietly, my belly full after lunch, atop a hand-embroidered lace comforter. The beautifully intricate and painstakingly woven symmetrical patterns would make imprints upon my skin. Somewhere in town, a mama is yelling for her child to come inside. The dry hot wind is pushing its way through the trees and all of the tall yellow grass, which blankets the hills. And far away, and always, the steady sound of those twinkling bells on the sheep.

So to you Neoneli—here it is. Here we are. This is a thank you letter. This is a love letter. This is a record of my time in a place—your place. Words may not be enough. Yours is a tiny town, but the impact, the imprint, you have made is huge.

With love, with gratitude, with respect,

Emilie Miller