2019: The Wacky Wiegler Year in Review

Twenty nineteen - Not so wacky.

More like wack, as in not or no longer working or functioning properly or very bad. Of course, not all year, not all months.

The year began beautifully albeit somberly. My mother had suddenly passed away in August of the previous year, and as much as I was looking forward to graduation at King's, I spent part(s) of every day doubled over in tears. I was tasked with finding a job but given that I was still in Britain through the end of January, it was a little tricky. I conducted two phone interviews, one for a reporting job in Dubai (felt uneasy moving there) and Minnesota (read the weather report, so ditto). But frankly, the issue was the stage of my grief. I went to see a psychiatrist at King's, a wonderfully erudite and sensitive man, and in that one visit learned a lot: "Your confusion will not go away quickly; it will be more like months." This helped immensely.

January

On 14 January many in our small cohort of Eighteenth-Century "groupies", as we called ourselves, converged on the stage at the Royal Festival Hall at Southbank. I was delighted to sit next to senior classmate Richard that day, given that I knew he would make me laugh. Not only that he always had interesting comments, and given the similarity in our ages I knew I wouldn't look so much like "Mom" in the grad photos. When I shook Principal Byrne's hand I was on Cloud 9, and then as I walked off the stage kissed the sky, thanking Mom and wishing she were there. My brother watched the video later and bawled. I was touched that my aunt and uncle watched the live stream.

I met with James, one of my lecturers, in his office to discuss my academic future after what had been a very odd coincidence (if that's the right word). I was in Starbucks near the Virginia Woolf Building, which is at 22 Kingsway off the Strand (another coincidence, Mom had died on the 22nd of August, and she was 22 years older than I. Moreover, Perce Bysshe Shelley, husband of Frankenstein author Mary, was drowned off the Italian coast in 1822, which will mean something to this story in a minute.). Anyway, I was sitting there drinking my latte and decided to email James and send him a screenshot from Mom's journal: "November 19, 2017, Kensington Palace. James - nice teacher." Mom had scribbled notes from our Facetime chat. I sent that to James along with my ideas for my PhD proposal with questions about prospective supervisors. After hitting send, I looked to my left and my jaw dropped. It was James. He was there at Starbucks. It was the one day he was in London, having been on personal leave that semester. It was chilling but not as chilling as what occurred next. He got up and told me that he was going to be leading a talk on Frankenstein in a couple of weeks, did I want to go? The British are less emotive than we Yanks, but I hugged him quickly and started to cry. "Mom wanted this to happen," I said.

After graduation I continued getting resumes out but also ran around London trying to soak in as much as I could. I took another trip back to the Tate, accidentally taking the tube to Tate Britain instead of Tate Modern (grief confusion) but enjoying it nonetheless. Months earlier I had taken Mom on a virtual tour there, delighting her with the Turners and Blakes, in particular. Time evaporating, I relished each moment, a cocktail of so many emotions that they are difficult to describe - pride in my achievement (graduating with Merit); deep sadness over the loss of my mother; a sense of foreboding, which turned out to be right, that I was returning to a country from which I had grown estranged; and curiosity about what the future held.

Wally and I tumbled on to our Tap Portugal flight, with just a small bump in Lisbon when he peed in his carrier. Thank you again to the kind staff who threw down a plastic tarp rather than scold me or shun me on that flight. Even brought him a small dish of water, without my asking. So kind!

February

I was back in Connecticut. It was cold and sometimes snowing. I felt a little lost. I met with a woman who worked at Yale British Art Museum, who had earned her PhD in Scotland. This helped, a bit, as I was trying to sort out whether I should work as a museum curator, journalist or teacher. Overall, I was experiencing not only deep grief but deep depression about being back in the U.S. So many things reminded me of my mother that were not part of my everyday life in London, from WalMart to Chili's to the TV show "Mom". Memories came flooding back and I was locked in a battle with myself, struggling to find joy. It seemed the joy I had found in London had eviscerated.

March

I was still physically back in Connecticut, but struggling to find meaning here. I worked on my Connecticut Green Living blog, which helped some. I enjoyed hitting some of my old haunts, eating egg and cheeses (which somehow they did not know how to make in London), watching the seagulls swirl overhead as I walked through Milford. I enjoyed seeing some of the same old librarians and I read some, finishing "To Kill a Mockingbird". I probably had read it as a teen, but had forgotten it. The story of looking at life from others' points of view resonated. I also scribbled rough drafts of my ideas about "Frankenstein" and thought of the coincidences at King's before I had left.

April

This may have been the month (I am losing track) when I went to New York for a proper job interview. During this interview I realized I was being judged more for how I looked and my age than my qualifications, for toward the close the interviewer (my age) said, "Well, you do write very well." He said it the way I would say to a child prodigy acting up in class, "Well, he does play the piano well." I knew right then that I was up against a greater hurdle than I had ever imagined. A woman at the hotel where I stayed referred to me as "old lady". I was experiencing not only culture shock and grief, but ageism. I started regular grief counseling. This started to help me.

May, June, July, August, September, October, November

All these months run together. I moved to Branford and began working part-time at a whole foods type market. I had been visiting this store during extreme grief and found it comforting. Mom loved such places and I sensed her essence here. I liked the manager very much and was delighted that he hired me. I also felt this was a fluke and I'd be working within a few weeks, at best, at any one of the journalism or teaching jobs to which I had applied. Oh yes, I had decided that since I didn't have a background in museum curation other than my coursework I was not in a financial position to begin again. I applied at Gateway in New Haven and several other community colleges. Unfortunately, an interview I was supposed to have had in Westchester County in early summer was shuttered due to flooding. I was never able to reschedule because I couldn't afford to rent a car again. I realized focusing on what I could manage, which was jobs that were closer, would help me. I also had not been able to pursue a reporting job in the northern part of Connecticut, due to my lack of a car.

December

By December, though, I was at least making a little money again as a freelance writer. My projects were successful, if I remained very sad about my mom. I knew soon after she died that I had the ability to compartmentalize my grief, as shown by my achievement in finishing my dissertation. Not only had I finished it, but I had managed to secure a second trip up to the Royal Archives at Windsor, delving deeply into the original manuscripts that would define my thesis. Seeing King George III's handwritten directions on how to mount a watch was fascinating. I sometimes felt, during my struggles in 2019, that I was akin to him in some ways - fascinated by how things work, my heart crushed by a parent's death (his father died when George was 12), the world an abrasive force interfering in my scholarly pursuits.

The sad bit now about December is that I will soon take Wally, my beloved companion of over 15 years, to the vet for long overdue bloodwork. He's lost weight. He has been on a special diet for kidney function for several months. I know that we will not be together forever. I am hoping that whatever muscle I've strengthened from dealing with Mom's death will serve me well as I maneuver this future grief, and losses to come.

It has definitely been a hard year, but I am alive, boast a cracking Master of Arts degree from one of the world's finest universities, and was just yesterday complimented on my French. I am not fluent, but that one bit of praise has inspired me to keep at it. Mon coeur est seulement au départ.

Images: Top, from Mygraduationfilm.com; Other: Frontispiece to 1831 editon of Frankenstein, Theodor von Holst; Photos by Laurie Wiegler; painting - from Tate, "The Cholmondeley Ladies", Artist unknown 1600-10.