Another Ryan Adams Blog Post

These are Ryan Adams’ invisi-pets, Barnabus and Wilson.

Dear Wilson,

I know you have been skipping school ( I was once your age too although I am old now and I know you think I was born old and that is the essence of youth dear invisi-pet sheep dog) BUT, I am not upset with you. I just want you to know that. I can tell you are trying desperately to hide that fact from me on the phone since I have been away. I also saw the phone charges on your “fictional-not-real-animal-cell-phone” you got for your last birthday, and I am not sure who you are calling at those hours (?) but as long as you keep it to once or twice a week I am sure it will be fine- but remember- if it someone you admire, some invisi-pet across the globe, that writing a letter can be sometimes far more effective and also, a personal touch- an actual document is regarded very highly to a friend or a possible crush- as we are now (even for some time before you were born)- in a world of fleeting digital sentiments and they can sometimes make for disconnections-( trust me )- there was once only us living things and our handwriting and our memorized telephone numbers (we had to do that, i knew TONS by heart) to pass along our story, day to day, year to year.

Please listen to Baranbus, he is older and he understands a great deal more than you think even if he comes off “bossy” (your words not mine) but this is because he cares a great deal for you as you are his younger brother and PLEASE make sure Dumont is taking his medication. I noticed when he started to get “a little quiet” a few weeks before I left for work. I worry about him. He reads far too much Sartre and I think as much as he loves you and Barbabus and home he really feels far away inside. He has some of the same issues I have- and you must be careful with him.He is and will always be French through and through and his issues are his own. He is proud and noble and it is his nature to hide things from you when he is feeling very unwell and sad. Be patient with him Wilson, you are by nature full of hope and as much as he seems put off by that, when you are not looking, it does rub off on him and I see a slight smirk in his posture, sitting there not moving as invisi-pets often do when they are lost in thought.You have to just try and understand your adopted inivi-brother and accept him for who he is, and love him all the same on his good days and bad.

Work has been very trying and I miss staring blankly at you at home and sleeping for four or five days in a row. Also, I miss movie night and even though you are always so happy to eat fruit-salad with me on the t.v. tray on the bed while I suffer my depressions, I think it’s marvelous you have taken such affinity for Elizabeth Bowen. I will buy you copy of “The Heat of the Day” while I am abroad and I’m sure you will like it as much as “The Death of the Heart” although, I did notice you are reading it AGAIN- (you do that a lot when you like a book- and you think, “oh dad, he’s so self-centered he doesn’t notice”) well- ha! and just look, pops has some life left in him yet.

anyway, it’s cold here and I stayed at a hotel ( ) once stayed at and I left feeling just haunted. It is a lot of work growing up. The hardest part is not allowing it to happen to your heart, because, and Wilson, you will discover this in your own time, the real battle of life is not caving into letting go of your sense of wonder.

When you get to be my age you will discover that is what most of this “growing-up” is about. It’s about allowing yourself to know who you really are, forgiving yourself for how you let yourself think you were something you weren’t while you were settling in for that very moment of realization, and not letting that destroy the thing you were before all that “thinking” and “self-analysis” get in the way.

Anyway, I miss you even though we are both invisible things no matter how much light we might pass under, if only for those moments, and I want you to be sure that no matter what choices you are making with your school work as long as you are feeling good and okay about just being “you” I will be happy and I will always be here for you.

after all, we are family-

and it is much easier to not exist comfortably together as long as we are together.

I am off to work now, please send my love to your brothers and tell them I will see them soon and of course, I love and miss you very much- and you may read the books you requested in my locked book-case on the condition you DO NOT write in them (they are not paperback copies to be thrashed around) and also that you replace them where you found them as they are in a specific order and I may need to reference them in a hurry when I am working from home, just so we understand each other- ok. The key is in the mouth of the fake real looking skull above the book drawer next to the picture of Humphrey DeForest Bogart, your father’s favorite actor besides Johnny Depp who is amazing in everything. To open the skull (they used it once in classes at a university ib the 40’s so the story goes) you press the side- the springs holding the jam to the head will unlock and you CAREFULLY reach inside and, ta-da- there is the key. Barbabus may also read whatever is inside but please keep Dumont away from the Existentialist and Classical Romantic Novels as he is depressed enough as it is. Maybe you could ask him if he’d like to go to the park some afternoon. I think some fresh air would do him good.

Yours Always,

Pops