The Wida's Walk: Aht! It's about the aht! (NSFW warning)

Art.

I'm giving it a Boston pronunciation in the title because Will and I once had a friend who made some jokes about a woman who pronounced it that way and so for many years, we would too. Because the last years were so dark, I'd forgotten, until the medium reminded me, how much Will and I loved to share certain kinds of humor. I guess it would be called "situational humor."

I spent a brief period in the Oughts being a real artist -- producing work, showing it, and even (gasp) selling it. I must have made, let's see, veritable dozens of dollars.

The basement has a large stack of my works that I only showed to Will. I'm hoping it will be "discovered" after my death and sold for more than dozens, though it will probably wind up in the landfill. I think much of it is as good as I've seen in contemporary art galleries but it's not "easy" or "beautiful". I think about Henry Darger and his room stuffed with reams and reams of his art, never showing it. Of course, I am far too lazy to produce a 15 thousand page illustrated book.

Anyway, besides the completed pieces in the basement, I also have bits and pieces of projects "lost" for years in various places (kind of like the novel starts that live on my laptops, most of them 90 to 100 pages in before I quit).

A few days ago, during my downstairs assessment of what yet needs to be cleaned up, I stumbled across four Polaroid pictures of Will (or rather, parts of Will) that I was conceptualizing as a future work. I'm not quite sure where the finished work is now (if I can find the finished product that eventually went up in a downtown show, I'll post it). Will enjoyed showing off his body in the right circumstances. And yes, as you might guess, he wore a Speedo at the beach. He felt so European! And look at those arms with their non-beach tan! Clearly, I took these toward the end of some summer.

Looking at these doesn't evoke sadness. Instead I have a sweet, peaceful memory of our love and connection as I remember how beautiful his body was to me.