In a recent post, I wrote about developing aphasia and labouring to re-build my vocabulary. I am an editor and an independent scholar; both my work and my vocation depend on my ability to deploy words with attention to nuance and connotation. This post is a note of gratitude to Jaynie Royal, the person who helped me to revive my inner thesaurus.
Before I “met” Jaynie in LinkedIn’s Literary Endeavor discussion group (which Jaynie established), I had been playing “brain training” games and looking up words, writing down their definitions in tiny journals (I’ve long given up on the games, but I still keep the vocabulary journals). 
I read read read with a kind of desperation that alloyed almost out of existence any pleasure I might have taken in the activity. I also consumed articles and comments in on-line groups, and I did find some support and validation there, but no solutions.
And then, a little more than three years into my struggle, I started to get to know Jaynie, thanks to the magic of the Internet.* We became friends, and then, when she invited me to join her publishing house, colleagues. To keep our work and our personal relationships (slightly) separated, we started consigning our communications about editing and publishing to e-mails and using letters — the kind written by hand, on paper, with a fountain pen — to share news and thoughts about family, the weather, politics, recently read books, and recipes. (Well, it’s mostly Jaynie sharing recipes because she is a superb cook.)
Beyond the exchange of chat and epiphanies, Jaynie and I discovered just how much we share an enjoyment of playing with language, of indulging in what we think of as elegant prose and others might call florid ramblings. Since this is my blog, let’s go with elegant prose. (Jaynie’s style absolutely sparkles.)
Here was someone who laid out the riches of her vocabulary for me to delight in and who was willing to revel in the gems of verbiage I was able to unearth from the buried treasures of my verbal trove. Corresponding with Jaynie over these last four-plus years has helped me unlock rooms in my head that I forgotten were there. Letter therapy — unintentional, accidental therapy — has been what has brought me back some sense of who I am and what I used to be able to do.
I doubt that I’ll ever completely recover from the effects of the Prednisone (I am on the far side of middle age and I’m not sure of how much plasticity my ossifying brain is still capable), nor is there any compensatory silver lining nor new philosophical outlook that will make me a better person because of my aphasia. I will always resent the loss; I will always be frustrated when the right word refuses to trip off my tongue or slide down my nib. But I am relieved to have learned that I can get better. And I am tremendously grateful to my friend Jaynie for giving me the means to do so.
(I think I’m going to need a bigger box — or another one.)
*Jaynie and I have met in real life too. You know those movies where people find themselves living inside their favourite novels? Meeting Jaynie was like that, only I felt as if I had walked inside one of her letters.