Nell becomes my muse

That’s Nell there with her hands on her hips, staring straight at the camera. This picture is how they found her, quite by accident, you know, although they were looking for her– or at least the idea of her, what with Minerva getting sick and on in age. The leader began searching for someone to find the truth and keep it for women, keeping it safe for those coming along. The truth was a hard thing to deal with, especially for men; and women’s truth was trampled on time and again, until the older ones decided just to hold the truths themselves.

They went searching for someone to hold the truth after Minerva, someone who would have the strength see it and keep it for the women. There were things that needed to be accomplished for women, and someone had to hold the record. Someone had to guide them. Someone had to be both found and created.

“She’s the one,” the leader said. She took a swig of her bottled Coke, pointing at the black and white picture of four mill girls below the fold of the small North Carolina town paper. “She’s telling me with her eyes and her hands."

The girls could have been no more than 12 or 13, taking a break during their 10 hour work shift at the lint-filled cotton mill. They were young, but they were part of the economy, the society, of the South. And Nell was staring straight at the camera man, smirking a little, enough to show her personality and strength in a world that had already decided who and what she would be– just a simple mill girl.

Nell never had much of an idea of her future. She knew she wanted something, but for the life of her, that something, that idea, remained elusive. Never in the best of daydreams, standing at the looms, did she imagine what would happen to her. Who she would be and why. There wasn’t much to imagine outside of the mill hill– work, eat, sleep, go to church. But she had a feeling it would come to her one day, calling her name.

Nell.

“Let’s go get her.”