Wiley James: Journal Entry

I’m obsessed with the letter “W”. It is my mother’s fault. She named me Riley, but the story goes a maternity ward nurse misheard and recorded my name as Wiley. My mother didn’t bother to change it back and now here I sit writing this as Wiley…last name James.
That is the other problem. I have a last name for a first name and first name for a last name. When asked, “Name please, last name first.” I say, “James, Wiley.” 90% of the time the name taker assumes I am an idiot and records me as James Wiley, not Wiley James. If not for the hearing impaired nurse the world of my name and my registration in this universe would be much less complicated.
My “W” obsession began in the first grade. The room was encircled with the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet, you know, those ball and stick letters that are printed in the classrooms of the first and second graders and then slanted into a sleeker, slanted cursive in the third, fourth, and fifth grade rooms. My first grade teacher told me she picked my desk closest to the W as I was the only one with a W name. In fact, I was the last letter in the alphabet when she lined up my fellow first grade classmates. It made me special. I loved my home in the classroom stationed right beneath the capital “W”.
By third grade I felt physically uncomfortable unless I was seated close to the W. I don’t think I realized it then, but looking back I remember the sickness in my stomach every other month when the teacher would decide to move desks in the classroom. Then came sixth grade. The green and white alphabet letters were gone. I asked the teacher where the letters were and he told me, “James, you should know your letters by now.”
“Ah, Mr. Anderson, my name is Wiley, James is my last name,” I said sheepishly.
“Oh yeah, sorry, ah, Wiley. No more penmanship, buddy. You are a sixth grader now,” he said through his fake but anxious first-year teacher toothy grin.
I missed my “W” locale. I started substituting “W” words for my un-tethered desk position. I sat by the window, by the waste basket, and the world map. My friends were kids with “W” names. There was Tommy Wilson, Wendy Wadsweller, and my best friend, William (aka Willy) Winkerton. By ninth grade it was becoming an abstraction. My papers would fill up with wavy W’s rolling to the right filling all the blue lines of the notebook paper. My only sport was wrestling. It kicked the crap out of me, but ultimately it was the only thing that got me through high school and on to college.
My parents were proud of their son, wrestling his way into a full athletic scholarship at Western Wyoming State College. I trained, starved, sweat, and bled for the tiny little “WW” emblems awarded for each match ending in my pinning m opponent. It was all about those letters.
Okay, obviously I did work through all the classes and end up with a BS degree. I managed to take 80 percent of the courses taught by “W” professors. Most of them were in the College of Engineering, thus my degree in Civil Engineering, Hydrology…. yes, I am a degreed water expert.
I’m employed by the Washoe County Water District. Specializing in water management, my job is to assure the citizens of Reno have clean water flowing out of their taps, their lawn remains green, and their cars can be washed regularly. I’m a mid level bureaucrat spending most of my day behind my desk. I long for the days when I was first hired, those hours in the field, calibrating weirs, calculating water flow, and predicting snow melt. Those were my clean water days. Now my desk has me fully immersed in waste water management. My field days are limited, but I do have a county issue bright yellow hard hat that reads, WCWWM (Washoe County Waste Water Management). I find myself gazing at it, hanging there with all its “W’s” printed in an official font.
During college I met and married Wanda. We were together long enough to spawn Wesley and Rita. Her insistence on naming Rita proved the demise of our marriage. I just couldn’t pronounce her name properly and it always came out “Wita”. Wanda believed I was rubbing her nose in her decision and made the final ultimatum. It was to be either our marriage or my love of the letter “W”. Needless to say, I’m now a single man hefting a good chunk of my paycheck from the WCWD to Wanda and the kids, Wesley and Wita.
After the divorce I decided to try therapy. Of course, I could only see “W” therapists and there were only a couple listed in the phone book. I began seeing Dr. Wendell White. I felt his approach was a bit odd. He would have me sit in front of a mirror naked and utter the letter “W” over and over again until I was too cold to go any further. Then I was to jump into a hot shower and scream, “I HATE W!” until I was warm again. His theory was to associate the cold, naked, loneliness with “W” and zap the obsession when I’d had enough of it. I practiced this exercise for 2 months and found no relief. Luckily there were no side effects to this torturous experience.
Still feeling helpless with this obsession, I started acupuncture with Dr. Wong Woo. I’d lay prone on his flat stone slab. He’d insert needles in my elbows, my neck and in the second joint of my big toe. He’d leave the room, dimming the lights. I was to visualize the little “W” critters high-tailing it out of my body via the holes pierced in my skin. For good measure, Dr. Woo would wedge open my mouth to allow any stray “W”s to find their way out of my digestive system. After 30 minutes he’d return, remove the needles and the wedge and pronounce me clean of the “W” curse.
The effects of this “W” skedaddle lasted a day or two, but would return as strong as ever. I’d find myself parked at the grocery store gazing at the sign noting Watermelon, 49 cents; at the movie theater marquee advertising the Saturday kids matinee, Willie Wonka; and in my own parking space at work, W. James, WCWD.
I write this to discover the achy source of this obsession. Who knows? Is it physiological, or psychological? Am I a victim of an odd electrical hiccup in my brain’s circuitry? It is part of me, like the bunions on my feet, the extended canine tooth in my mouth, and the single dimple on my left cheek. I admit it is an odd quirk, but I’m maybe it is harmless if I embrace it. Fighting it gives it power. Blaming my mother and my little name snafu doesn’t explain or excuse it. Perhaps it is the difference between addiction and obsession. Addiction is the fight, the battle that consumes the psyche trying to fend off the obsession. I’ll quit the fight as I’d rather live with obsession than addiction.
My thing for “W” is part of me. I like the symmetry of the letter, the inversed double hump. The “O” is boring, the “Q” too complicated, the “X” so angry, but the “W”, the luscious double dips lavishly consume the space on the page. I can’t explain it other than the calm I feel when looking at it and the peace that floods through me when I press my pen on the page and loop a string of “W’s” across the paper.
Letting it inhabit me seems, at this point, to be the best solution. I’ll let this little “W” nestle down into my being, carve out a spot in my spirit, and perhaps, in making it comfortable, it will sleep peacefully and let me realize the fullest life possible….in the universe with the other 25 letters of the alphabet.







June 25, 2009