Hello out there in the World!
Dear Charlie…
No…I have not fallen and can’t get up. Well…not AGAIN anyway!
I am, however, stumbling about in this Museum of Art & Oddities, trying to make order out of chaos, and gradually making some progress as I adjust to the silence of life without Wilson. Nobody can quite describe what it’s like to have the focus of your every waking moment disappear from one instant to the next… replaced by memories that present themselves in tender reflection…or with unexpected hilarity. But those are the vagaries of the mind. Disorderly & unpredictable. I welcome the funny, endure the tearful and sometimes am gutted by a deep, cavernous longing that nearly brings me to my knees. I’m reminded of a short period a couple of years ago when my doctor prescribed an anti-depressant for me. I thought it was going to make me feel better, but within a few weeks I was way WORSE. So I stopped taking them. One day I raced away from Wilson to hide n the bathroom, muffling my sobs into a towel.
“Are you okay in there?” Rena knocked & cracked the door open slightly. I waved her inside, where she was surprised to find me grinning, with tears streaming down my face.
“Oh I’ll be fine…now” I said. “Now that I have my FEELINGS back”
I was miserable without them. I wasn’t exactly depressed…but neither was I ever exactly happy. I’d been stranded somewhere in an empty field where there were no feelings at all. TORTURE! I missed them. ALL of them. Feeling nothing was no comfort to me.
So I’m here in this unnatural solitude, jabbering on Facebook or Twitter, sometimes answering the phone…often wondering where the hell my PERSONALITY went? Grieving isn’t linear. The ups & downs have no pattern…no formula…time has taken me on this journey without a roadmap. I have no idea where I am in this moment…I’m not always in the driver’s seat. But looking back over these months I do know I’m making some progress. I’m just not entirely certain of my exact LOCATION right now.
The kindness & tech expertise of Zac Weinberg – clear over in Massachusetts – has reinstated the PayPal button, and made it possible to finally download photos on here again! Son of Jeffrey, Bookseller and publisher of a new book of illustrated letters from Wilson to Charlie Plymel – father & son got together today and solved these problems I was incapable of fixing for over eight months in under one HOUR. I am beyond grateful…I’m overjoyed! A soft-cover edition of this fabulous book will be available soon, at a lower price, so more people will be able to afford to enjoy the fabulosity of Wilson’s prose. He was an inventive master of correspondence. This book will make you wish you’d had him for YOUR pen pal, too. He loved SNAIL-MAIL. He began every morning with a cup of tea, some World Music, putting pen & wit to paper. His workday didn’t really commence until after he’d bounced down to the corner mailbox & sent his jaunty anecdotes off to some lucky recipients. It was his way of “warming up” for a day of drawing. I’ll add a photo here just as soon as I can figure it out!
Thanks for looking in on me. I’ll write again soon & share photos as I find them. Thank you to those who donate to the Trust! It still exists, and the needs are very much the same only a bit worse without Wilson’s Social Security checks. I’m barely able to afford WiFi without your kind donations, much less the telephone or shocking dental issues! My dentist quit after making off with the money I paid in advance, leaving me in the lockdown with what I SWEAR are somebody ELSE’S TEETH….so I’m concealing a shocking secret behind my COVID mask until I can find a new dentist with a creative solution to my PURÉED DIET. This is terrible for a Laughing Girl such as myself! Once COVID is over I’ll have to switch to hiding demurely behind a lace fan until I can afford to start over.
Be safe & stay well out there, all you lovelies!
