It’s taken all this time for me to come up with the word to express what I’ve been doing. It’s searching for resonance.

I’ve been seeking echoes in time, mirroring, repetitions of her in myself.

When Mom built the dollhouse, she was also building two young women. My sister and I both wound up in creative, yet technical careers. We love architecture and while I know a fair amount, my sister surpassed the master in knowledge. We love to make things by hand. Sally resonates in our love of gardens, antiques, real estate, historic buildings, museums, old photographs, and the belief that anything worth knowing can be found in a book if you look hard enough.

My mother made me into an archivist, and cataloger, determined to organize the giant amount of family letters left behind and finish her genealogy work. And here I am, documenting online, a place she could never be found, her private world of miniature wonder. I had to save it. Everything, you see, can always be saved.

I have one more essay in me. I promised you a story in the very first paragraph. Not quite ready to unpack it all but I believe I am close to solving this Nancy Drew mystery: The Secret in the Old Dollhouse.