Shirley Diesel

I recently asked my siblings if they remembered my imaginary friend. Without missing a beat, each one replied, “Shirley Diesel”.

To my older self, the name makes perfect sense. My father was a truck driver. He drove the big semi-rigs that were often called diesels.

I had an aunt that everyone called Poochie. I called her Aunt Shirley, her given name. We never did get the solid story on where the name Poochie came from.

Shirley Diesel wasn’t the kind of imaginary friend that told me to do things I shouldn’t or got me in trouble. She wasn’t magical or constantly getting underfoot.

She sat beside me while I played house with my dolls, or sat quietly in class while I played school. Shirley Diesel came with me on long car rides where we would softly sing while watching the scenery out the window. I would read to her while curled on the sofa, or have her guard my stuffed animals at night while I slept. A true companion.

The cartoonist Lynda Barry has spent years arguing that imagination isn’t something children grow out of. It’s part of how people make sense of the world.

Shirley Diesel wasn’t evidence that I was lonely. She was evidence that I was already making stories.

Writers create characters, settings, and stories that stand between them and their readers. We take pieces of the world and rearrange them into something that never existed before.

Watching the movie IF made me think about what happens to the companions we create when we no longer need them. When Shirley Diesel went away, there was no trauma. Only her name remained.

She was the first sign that I would spend my life making things. She never disappeared. She only changed form. My imaginary companion helped build an imagination that later served me well as a birthday clown, radio personality, teacher, librarian, and now, writer.

When I was little, I had an imaginary friend. When I started writing online, I had an imaginary truck. Therapy Truck was never a deception. It was merely a vehicle, a way to begin. The truck was a companion for the work. For over a year, that name has helped me step onto the page.

Thinking about Shirley Diesel made me reconsider names. Therapy Truck served me well for a long time, but lately I’ve realized you’re not really following a truck. You’re following me.

So next week,Therapy Truck becomes Karen Davis.

Shirley Diesel wasn’t a disguise. She was a creation that helped a little girl occupy her world.

Therapy Truck wasn’t a disguise either. It was a creation that helped a writer occupy hers.

Both served a purpose.

Both outlived the reason they were created.

And in both cases, what remains isn’t the creation itself.

It’s the person who made it.

---

Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work, or

Buy Me A Coffee and help this truck keep rolling.

Either way, thanks for riding along❣️

---