Dear Letitia Arrival in England in the middle of winter is both a shock and a respite after the inferno that is Australia right now.
England–Hertfordshire
My country is on fire–literally and I almost feel guilty for leaving but I do what little I can from afar.
Australia—Lake Conjola, NSW.
I have to confess to losing confidence in my ability to record your life. Living so far away while all the research material lies in the archives of the Wellcome Collection in London, makes such a proposal seem like a fool’s errand. None of the material is digitalised, nothing may be photocopied or photographed. Tomorrow I go forth to London with notebook in hand. I have been delving into the archives, which are, thankfully, online and have ordered various documents from the five boxes where your life has been stored.
I plan to spend tomorrow reading and hopefully, by the end of the day, I will decide if I am biting off more than I can chew. After that, it’s off to Sardinia for a week of hobnobbing with successful writers, mostly from New York, hoping some of their brilliance wears off onto me. When I return to London, if I have decided to stay with you, I hope to meet up with your niece. She sounds lovely, but contacting strangers has always daunted me. I can see you rolling your eyes and hear you saying, ‘What a mouse!’ And so I remind myself that this year I have no excuses. I will hopefully be able to return to London later in the year. And with you as a role-model, how can I remain a mouse?
