March, 10th

Sylvia:

When the inspiration muses drop by my shop they usually find me at work. Melanie calls my paint shop "the office", because I stick to routines and, yes, I normally work 9 to 5 and I rest on weekends. When I was younger I felt I needed to justify my career in art and explain why I am very disciplined but that's not the case anymore.

Lately the muses seem to have taken permanent residency; for the past days I've been working frantically spurred by an e-mail Margaret sent me in the early hours of Sunday. It was a reply to my condolences for the death of her mother, which I had carefully worded "your irreplaceable loss" and spoke about memories and growth.

Margaret's message is, in many ways, indescribable. It's long, of about 5.000 words, with quite a few typos and absence of any grammatical rules in some passages. It starts normal enough: that a former colleague of her parents is visiting, that her father is disconsolate and that she had prepared herself better, but then derives into a glorious mess the likes I'd seldom seen. What amazed me is that this apparent jumble of adjectives, commas and arbitrary use of uppercase do convey a clear message, one of unspeakable grief and isolation, of heartbreak and confusion, and mostly of fear: fear of oblivion and decay; a fear that included not only death but also life. It is so deeply moving and inspiring in its messiness that I'm bursting with ideas to develop into new series I'm planning.

I am under the impression that the message was a catharsis for some unpleasant experience but I will probably never know. Sunday evening she called and requested that we'd never discuss its contents (I will of course comply), but she didn't ask me to destroy it either. I printed it and have read it so many times that I'll probably memorize it soon.

There is a passage that particularly intrigues me. It reads: "The orange juice tasted of salty tears and pricked my throat like thistles, and then it fell like a plummet straight to my lie. I am sorry, I am so sorry. Do you think that orange forgave me for drinking her entrails instead of leaving it to its baby orange seeds? I wouldn't have forgiven me, because I didn't honour it and remained thirsty. I am so thirsty, this mask is so thirsty. Black dog, please forgive it and satiate it."

Margaret may not mention this message ever again, but this secret door to the innermost workings of her mind along with her breaking down the last time she visited, have brought about a suggestion I've been putting away for quite some time. Once Mel arrived from work (she does work in a real office, with wall to wall carpeting and secretaries), I discussed it with her and she agreed.

Melanie Sanders was the first person to ever buy a painting of mine. She then found me a dealer, and has managed my earnings ever since they could be called as such. She invested, bought, sold, and amassed my comparatively small (but definitively solid) fortune. Her blessing to my idea is all I need.

I don't think I'll dwell on it too much or too often once I've signed that paper. After all, I'm not yet forty and according to life expectancy statistics, I have almost as much to go.

Note: I do regret my shortcomings as a writer with every word I type, but this is the chapter where I regret them the most.