Conversation with Sparkle: Part One

​This is an excerpt from a taped conversation Sparkle and I had in 1995.
She calls me “Jill”—my “Bunny name”.

Linda: OK… let’s move this conversation from nostalgic reminiscences about our lives in
Greenwich Village, Playboy, and the 1960s to these current lives of ours…because time
is fleeting. It’s 1995. And, to put this into awesome perspective: on April 18th, you
reached your 51st birthday.

Sparkle: And I never thought I’d live this long.

​Linda: You know, in all these years of hanging out on the planet, messing up, learning
and unlearning stuff, I’m finally starting to figure out that it’s time to clarify some goals, some visions, time to project them onto the future. Visualize them. Visualize something
that...something that will walk me—walk us--into a powerful future.
Try to film something in your mind…like a movie on a big and flickering screen…

Sparkle and Jill

Sparkle: Good idea. Unfortunately, I've never been good at that. Maybe it’s time. Maybe.
Without sounding totally trite here, what I really believe is that I have to take my life one
day at a time, Jill. I'm very much into that. All my past problems stemmed from getting
too worried about too much, too stressed out about what the future had to offer me.
That's what I'm still working on, Jill. That's what I'm working very hard on right now;
finding something to be optimistic about. That’s what I'm doing.

Linda: I use the projection into the future idea to move me into something I want to
make real. ‘Cause, yeah, you can inherit money, or you can marry rich, or you can win
the lottery, but you're still going be alone and you're still going be responsible for what
happens to you and how those things come about. Aloneness is the constant for me.
Personal optimism and crazy determination are what I rely on. I mean, face it, you and I
are never going to be 21 or 35 again. So, we don't have any choice about those years.
We don’t have to know how to do 35, or how to do 42, or 50!

Sparkle: That's right. Maybe I can figure out how to do 51 and a half, or how to do 52.

Linda: Uh huh. And we both can figure out how to do 54, 55. And beyond.

Sparkle: But I have to remember that I'm an alcoholic and an addict. I can’t be
responsible for the past or for any of that anymore. I can just be responsible for today.

"​I can’t be responsible for the past or for any of that anymore.
​I can just be responsible for today."

Linda: Well, you can be aware of tomorrow and tomorrow—because you know how they
creep in!

Sparkle: Yeah, “lighted fools and dusty death”

Linda: Me? I started my whole gallery fantasy with almost nothing ---with coal, air, and
water. And somehow, I created some kind of a business. I created illusions. Pushed
myself. Many times, I woke up terrified -- and I would think, oh my God, everything's
going wrong. But---pause, pause—I would ask myself, ‘Am I going to be OK today? Just
today? Do I have enough money to get through today? Is there any bill that's going to
be due today that I can't pay? Is the bank or someone going to come knocking on my
door asking for money that I don’t have? Am I OK for just today?’ That's been my kind of
one-day-at-a-time thing.
Okay, so if this is Wednesday, I can only do Wednesday's work. What is Wednesday's
work? But maybe Wednesday's work can be about ...

Sparkle: ...preparing you for Thursday’s work, preparing you for next Wednesday.

Linda: Right. Or for helping me complete or get a handle on something big. Like these
conversations. And, actually, putting together a book about all the bad things that
happened, all the scary things that happened as well as all the great things that
happened. All the mistakes -- for both of us, in different ways. Maybe our stories have
the possibility of making a positive difference. Somehow. Somewhere. Well, in our lives,
at least, if we can understand and forgive ourselves or laugh or regroup. But, also for
other people. To be an inspiration...to be a cheerleader for others.

Sparkle: Yes, yes, I understand it. I understand exactly. You know, it's about... For me
right now, all I know is it's about working towards the light. All right? Getting out of the
darkness. You know how people always say, well, at least you can see the light at the
end of the tunnel? Well, for me, the light was always a train coming, heading straight at
me, you know.

Linda: Yeah.

Sparkle: It wasn't the end of the tunnel at all. Now, I definitely see light. I don't...I'm not
surrounded by this darkness anymore. And I'm working towards having more light in my
life than darkness. And one of the things I would like to do, and I hope, through what
we're doing here, is maybe helping somebody else get out of their darkness and see the
light. Because maybe they can see a similar bond with me or my experience or maybe
they’ve had or seen a similar experience. Maybe they can see that there is hope and
that there is an end to despair. There is an end to...

Linda: to the bottom.

Sparkle: Yes, there is definitely a bottom and, when you fall into it, you can start climbing
upward again.

Linda: Exactly. Exactly.

Sparkle: And it's a really good feeling. You don't have to think that you've got to catapult
up to the top, you know, skyrocket to the top. Just climb. Take it slow.

Linda and Sparkle (together): One day at a time.