Unsent letter to father - 1992

Dear Dad
In your fifth decade how different do you feel? Did you learn anything?
Have you realized yet that your world is not the only world? Your world, to me, seems to consist of office paperwork daily, paperwork at home in the evenings, paying for a number of houses and cars. . .I guess it�s that I wonder why you�d rather work on office paperwork rather than do what you really want to do.
My difference is that I�d rather be poor and draw to my heart�s content than work at minimum wage waitressing for rude people or phone soliciting at unwilling recipients.
There�s not many jobs that require my talent.
My other difference is that it�s not money I want, it�s a home to call my own and land to support ourselves. . . I want a community to live in that cooperates with everyone.
Anyway, what I�m trying to tell you is, in all your 50 years, (you have 25 more years experience than me) you still believe that you have to make money. I�m not saying that�s wrong, the need to make lots of money is your lifestyle and you chose it to be so. I, on the other hand, want to travel and experience other places. Why do you object so much to my wanting to travel in a camper? You think it�s too dangerous. . . Think of how dangerous it is to live in the city. Your house would stand more of a chance of being robbed than my stinky old camper. Not many robbers would look at my camper, there�d be nothing expensive to steal. Your house though is a burglar attractant, along with all the other houses full of nice junk.
I don�t want a bunch of nice things, I want freedom.
You say you�re trying to help by giving me 200 bucks here, a hundred bucks there, good god dad!
Try giving me the same deal you gave my brother! Do you really not understand why I feel so ripped off?!
And because my brother screwed it up, you automatically think that we�ll do the same thing. It insults me. I�m insulted that you never took the time to think that I�m not that bad. The worst thing I did as a teen was being angry in my room and running away for a week. Both you and mom never let me feel justified. I was angry for a reason for your information, for a lot of reasons. And I had a right to be angry.
To tell you the truth dad, you don�t feel like much of a dad anymore; inviting us for leftovers three days after your "official" christmas dinner was insulting. The way you dropped off an unwanted microwave when we weren�t even home without waiting to see us or phoning in advance. . . Merry fckn� christmas!
That�s not what it�s about.
Have you forgotten the human element? Do you really have no time to see us? Are you really that busy to see us?
Instead of lecturing me on how to conduct business, try listening to what I�m saying, try to understand what I believe in.
In closing, here�s a little food for thought, as big as your family is, how come no one is handing family trees down to the kids? How are we supposed to know where we�re from? You probably don�t care but I need to know my cultural roots or genetic culture. It�s bad enough to not ever know mom�s genetic side, but your family is intact.
Well, happy birthday Dad
Maybe someday we�ll actually talk like friends.

Automatic writing - 1992

I feel like I think too much. Maybe it�s because I�m stuck with a baby all day and we�re poor. Not much to do except. . . Think. About how people won�t stop driving their stinky cars; will my son grow up having to hide from the sun? Will skin cancer run rampant? I think about how people seem to need any ol� politician to tell them what they�ll do, then they hate the one they elected. I think about how people get killed or whose lives get ruined because someone (corporations) decided that marijuana is bad for society (corporations). How ashamed I am of my race. I don�t want to be a part of their game. I don�t even want to watch it. I want to secede from society but I can�t because I�m a nobody and I�m on welfare. So I just cry. I do not attribute my melancholy to post partum depression. No. It�s the world around me. They are violating that which is the base of everyone�s soul.
I cannot breathe clean air because everyone is too piggish with their cars. I ride a bike. Do these office workers that drive all the time realize why they�re fat? Those paper pushers support wasteful industries.
If I had pyrokinetic powers, I�d burn burn every car that crosses my path. If I had the leadership powers that hitler had I�d turn the entire nation�s philosophy towards nature and health. But I don�t.
I don�t feel like I belong in this society. Never did.
I�m an artist. It�s not my occupation but I wish it were. I�ve sold airbrush T-shirts, mostly at sci-fi conventions in Vancouver and once in Victoria because my mom drove us there. That�s the reason why I want a car, to go to other conventions across the country. I�d much rather have a horse and wagon but until the rest of the world slows down, it�s impossible. I admire the Amish. They live the ideal life except for the monotheism.
I need advertising for my talent. But I don�t have any money. I can�t afford to even frame what art work I�ve got. I can�t put them in a show unframed. I�ve got talent but no money. I�m not a people person. I couldn�t sell water to a Dune resident.

I am an artist. I was born to draw, to paint and to create.

I can�t afford to do any of that stuff.
I don�t match the society I was born in.
I want to create but I�m supposed to have a job.
We�re all supposed to make money; we have to because it�s the only way to survive here, by being rich.
Underground water gets contaminated and the soil in the city is too. The local fish get poisoned.
It�s illegal to raise your own poultry within city limits.
There�s no room for gardens, and there�s no time to tend them because you have to have a job to pay half your earnings on some rich landlord�s rent.
I feel so powerless.
I want to sue the polititians responsible for this imbalance, and the people who voted for them.
They All Want Their Money and I Just Want to Sleep - 1992

I was woken up this morning after a measly 4 hour sleep by the doorbell, which also woke up the baby, which means my sleep time was officially over. The person who rang the bell was a courier guy with a returned shirt that I had sent to the Home Business Show people. They sent it back COD with a note saying thanks but no thanks; my shirt apparently wasn�t upper class looking enough. I had to pay the courier $6. I had originally spent $3.50 to send it , plus the $27 jurying fee. Once again I get rooked by Megabucks Corporation.
We�re poor and we�re broke.
A half an hour after that Jehovah�s Witnesses tried to persuade me to think like them; I told them I already have a philosophy. That usually satisfies them enough to go on their way. At least they weren�t asking for money. . . just our souls!
A few minutes later the bill collector called. I wasn�t home.
"Yes, I�ll be sure to tell her you called."
And finally, in the mail I got a medical bill for $744.
I�m so tired. I just want to paint or draw or airbrush for a living. It�s all that I�m good at. But I�m too broke to produce artwork.
I�m capable of supporting myself in the country with a garden, a few chickens and horses and a cow.
But we can�t even eat without money.

Why an artist cannot get it going on - 1992
I can�t afford to paint my blank shirts unless someone has a specific order. I can�t get any orders because noone knows about me. Noone knows about me because I haven�t had the opportunity to display in art shows. I never have enough resources to frame or properly package my work. I feel like I don�t have much to show anymore because I was too damn nice in high school giving away all my drawings and paintings. The good shirts I airbrush are always sold at conventions, which was only once a year. They�re cancelled because they�re broke too. I can�t sell worth shit. I need someone to take care of money matters, to tell or show me exactly what to do, to get orders for me. I�m tired of being poor and powerless.
Dear fellow people,
Every one is aware of the logging controversy, but they�re always arguing over the same things:
Logger: "I want to keep my job." Environmentalist: "we have to keep the trees" I understand that the bulk of the logs go to the pulp and paper industry. My fellow people, you must be aware that our ancestors made paper and cloth out of hemp. The hemp grown for paper has no drug value. The marijuana grown today is genetically developed to produce more resin, which is undesirable for paper making. The cannabis plant is very versatile and can be grown with long fibrous stalks with little or no THC.
Don�t worry forest workers, your jobs wouldn�t be destroyed; instead of clear cutting, some of you might agree to relocate and farm hemp. You�d still have a good job to feed your families.
There�d be more jobs because fabric and paper aren�t the only things you can make with hemp, the seeds have a high protein content and the oil extracted from them can replace petroleum products like plastic. The oil companies needn�t worry, they would just buy American hemp oil instead of petrol from foreign countries.
In the 20's and 30's the future looked promising for hemp until some jackass declared it a drug and made it illegal. That jerk lied and got away with it.
Hemp is not a drug; it is a useful plant and its spirit is friendly.
My fellow people, no matter what we call this land upon which we live, we must learn to share it with everyone, including non-humans.
The problem with you, society, is you think you need rigid rules. It�s like you�re scared of thinking by yourselves.
It�s just funny how you ignore a person�s problem simply because no one wrote a law about it.
None of you want to take responsibility. . .
It�s just that most of you don�t have the intuitive training we should all receive as children. Instead, millions of kids are getting told to believe what someone else says and their very own true feelings suppressed.
Dear fellow people, this country I was born in, Canada, is really pretty good. We�ve got free medical for low incomes (when paperwork doesn�t get mixed up). We�ve got welfare for moms and dads and people on the street (when paperwork doesn�t get mixed up).
The U.S. should copy us and not vice versa. We should copy Holland and decriminalize "drug use". There�s a lot to bitch about in Canada, but when you compare it to other places like Russia or Eastern Africa well, we�ve got it made and there�s nothing to worry about. That�s when it gets dangerous, when people don�t worry about stuff anymore.
That�s why the world needs artists because they are like canaries in coal mines. They are usually the first to notice when things go wrong; they are also the ones that get put away.
An artist draws from the collective unconscious and shows others what many people are thinking. Censorship is like lying to your self, when I think of folks that say something is full of "satanic" messages, I pity them for they haven�t conquered their own fears; they think the Bible is the only truth. It contained (stress past tense) some truths but the translations thru the ages distorted what was originally written. The "true" bible, I believe, is in the heart of each person.
The people that wrote the original manuscript might have known some truth, but the ones that interpreted it and translated it might have been just as confused as we are.
Automatic writing - introspection - 1992
what�s wrong?

-I don�t know but after all this thinking and remembering I�ve come to the conclusion that I�ve always hated myself and still do.
Why do I keep remembering so much? Am I reliving my childhood because of my son? What�s it gonna be like when he starts school?
My bullshit started with my brother; he was constantly hitting me, hassling me and telling me lies.
I don�t remember much about kindergarten but grade 1 was hell. I finished it but I never went back to that school. For some reason, everywhere I went kids would try to make me cry. They�d tease, push and call me names. I don�t understand why I couldn�t defend myself. Physically, of course, it was impossible to fend off the bullies. Verbally it was just as pointless. So I sat and cried. I guess I made a high pitched wail because some kids called me a siren and had a real good laugh. The teacher there didn�t even like me; once she pulled on my pig tails and called me a cow.
The next school I went to for grade 2, I made a couple friends but most of my class had a rule that they couldn�t touch me because I had "livergerms" because of my last name. Real great for someone already down. Kick her some more. My brother who never got picked on got Judo lessons. Did my parents let me do that too? Nooooo.
I swear my life would have been easier if I were either born first or as a boy. Boys, it seems, get taught useful skills like self defence.
I was always pronounced ugly at school. The last to be picked in team sports. I�ve always been shy. I never liked people or myself. When I was really little and my mom would rent a buggy for me at the shopping center and whenever we passed one of those mirrored pillars, I�d stick my tongue out at myself.

When my parents divorced I was sent to a boarding school for grade 6. The kids there were assholes. I think the worst school I went to though, was in California. Those kids were rich spoiled brats. I wanted to go to a normal public school, but my mom thought she should keep me away from "reality". She thought that somehow a private school would have "cleaner values". I wanted to at least wear cool clothes like tight jeans but my mom kept getting me ugly stuff, really babyish looking things. When you�re 13 and friendless it�s shitty. I made one friend there when I started but she moved away the following week. Another girl there was nice to me so I divulged my secret of having been raped by my brother but she went and told the other kids. I knew she did when a couple of the spoiled rich turds asked me if it was true that I fckd my brother. The man my mom married there was a diddler, evidently my undeveloped 12 year old body was a turn-on for him. Noone at that time knew how fckd up I was. Not even me, even though I felt like I was just part of my mom�s luggage. I wanted to die. My mom divorced again and we moved back to Montreal. She enrolled me in yet another private school. No art class. The school in California had no art class either; I went to the principal�s office once to ask if it were possible to have an art class and she said it was a good idea. The next day every kid that thought they were cool blamed me because one of their friends got busted for a bit of pot. They thought I went to see the principal to snitch on him. I told them they were wrong about that but they just hated me even more. It was completely hopeless. All this bullshit because my mom was a loser who fell in love with an even bigger loser.

When we moved to Burnaby I was thrilled to have met a couple of girls who lived together in the same foster home. They were cool and we were real friends. Only when I moved to BC did I finally get accepted. Four months into the school year a pair of twins that were part of the group I hung out with blamed me and someone else for stealing some money they apparently left on the kitchen table when we were visiting them. Maybe the other girl did steal it but I know I didn�t. It all quit mattering because I was ostracized from that group. The remainder of grade 9 was spent skipping out with a new friend from that school. We became best friends and had fun together.

My brother raped me a couple of times when I was twelve. I feel like I was stupid for letting him. It never bothered me before but now I guess it does. Funny how that works. I wonder if he ever thinks about it? I wish he would apologize. I�d like to tell my husband about this atrocity. I�d like to forget.
I�d like to have no emotions.
My step-brother reinforced a lot of negativeness when we went steady, "fck you�re stupid". I remember something else, all thru my teen years if I showed niceness or affection towards a guy, he�d want to fck. So I did. I never reached orgasm. How do I undo all this programming from since childhood? How do I learn to communicate clearly? How do I get people to understand what I�m talking about? When I was a kid I used to wish I was mute. I also wished I lived on a farm with lots of animals. Dr. Doolittle was my favorite show.
I think my mom tried to do too much at the wrong times for me, like yelling at the kids on a bus to leave her 7 year old daughter alone.
Where would I be today if I wasn�t so insecure when I was younger? When I was a kid, the other kids told me I was ugly.
I believed them.
They told me I had stupid ideas.
I believed them.
I believed my brother.
I stopped believing people by the time I was in my teens.
I didn�t believe them when they said I had a good idea.
I didn�t believe them when they said I�ll go far.
By the time I learned how to shut my peers out it was too late.
I just read in the paper an article about people, mostly men, that make it big in showbiz because of their imagination.
I was made fun of, mostly by boys, because of my imagination.

As a teen, if I was nice to a guy, he�d get the impression I wanted to fck him.
I couldn�t live alone because it�s too expensive. I never found a house with other groovy artists with a room for rent. I always came across guys that wanted to get in my pants though!
Of course now that I�m married I found a great neighborhood full of cool folks that share houses. Now that I�ve got a family.
I just want to be an artist.

My mom gave me shit in a letter she sent to us about the way we�re raising our son. He was only 6 months old. She was telling me about family values and her grandson�s self esteem. Self esteem.
She must have forgotten about mine; I pretty much have no self esteem.
I hate her for not using or not knowing of the power she had for raising me.
Every school I went to until grade 9 people teased me because I just wanted to be left alone. Why didn�t anybody notice? Why couldn�t my mom enroll me in karate lessons? Because I was a girl.
I had to take ballet lessons which made me feel worse because my toe was too big and I couldn�t point my toes enough.
My brother got judo lessons. He got his forearm broken.
I needed judo lessons to defend myself from the assholes that hassled me all the time, but I was never able to hurt them back.
No one ever taught me that I was worth fighting for.
God I wish I knew what to do back then. That�s what parents are for, parents are supposed to know what their kid needs to learn.
My son is not going to be a misguided little nerd like I was. If some one bugs him he�ll say �fck off� or �whatever�.
All I said was �don�t do dat�, which made them laugh even more. My dad always told me to say the stupidest things, like in grade 1, a couple kids took to calling me "cocombre" (cucumber) because of my name. My dad said to put a leaf on my head and agree with them and laugh. I don�t know if he just said that to make me leave or for the sake of saying something. My parents would say, "Why didn�t you tell us what was wrong?" I did but they never noticed.
I remember asking my parents if we could go see Indians at Caughnawaga, a reservation near Montreal. I was looking forward to seeing headdresses and all that neat Indian stuff. When we got there I felt like a total outsider. The dirt road was empty except for a couple of people that looked tired and sick. There was a longhouse. Empty. Deserted.
Couldn�t my parents tried to find out when the next festival or pow wow was happening? Why did they have to be so damned clueless?
I used to pretend I was an Indian by wearing my poncho on my head like a head dress and pretend to talk to the trees and wind.
I used to pretend to be a bird by using big heart shaped leaves and flapping them.

I feel like crying when I think of all the stuff I could have been taught had the right teacher come along. Sometimes in school a student teacher would strike a creative chord in me or say stuff that really meant something but then it was over and the usual boring teacher would come back.
I already had the gift of visualizing. I used to see images in mid-air as a child, I would draw them and erase them with my hand. The last time I saw stuff without having to take a hallucinogen was on a blank wall over ten years ago; it was an image of a man, a woman and a child pushing a fence through the Earth, making furrows with the posts.

What if everyone in this country had a teacher to show them how to know themselves? . . .

Dear mom, sometimes it�s easy to forget things from long ago; but when you don�t fix something that bothers you, it always comes back.
Out of everyone in our fckd up family you should understand how I feel. Why didn�t I get self defense lessons as a kid? Instead I got useless ballet lessons.
Why didn�t anyone intervene when you sold everything we owned including my personal things to marry some jerk you met a couple months before and moved us 3000 miles away?
I�m still mad. Actually, it�s more like I�m finally mad. I was upset then but you took it for granted and lumped all my angry actions and words as part of my personality.

  • If people didn�t harass me: grade school (picking on)
  • If my brother wasn�t such a prick: childhood, teens (picking on and rape)
  • If you hadn�t met Floyd: teen (molester)
  • If I didn�t get fckd with, I would be a happier person now.
I wouldn�t have run away whence I wouldn�t have met Jon who treated me like shit and you wouldn�t have married his dad who treats us like shit.
I wouldn�t have had such a low self esteem.
If I felt better about myself I would have made an effort at getting a job to get somewhere, I would have gotten myself a car without the fear instilled in me that I can�t handle anything.
How�s this for irony? John was (still is) an asshole; for his troubles he got his dad�s 67 Barracuda convertible. My brother made my life hell and took my virginity; for his troubles he got rent-free living in one of dad�s houses.
I was stuck with you and your husband.
John wrecked that car that was in mint condition. Now it�s a pile of junk.
My brother�s friends blew up dad�s house, it even made the front page.
What did I get? I got kicked out.
Oh well, let�s not be ungrateful: thank you for that shitty used ten speed bike you got for me, thanks for the ensuing skull fracture. Thank you for finally getting me bedroom stuff after making me live out of boxes for two years after the Floyd fiasco.
Thank you for enrolling me in a roman catholic boarding school for grade 6.
Thank you for paying for remedial summer school for social studies. Thank you for sparing me your problems and instead spilling it all to a paid professional who didn�t give a shit about you.
You never told me how you felt. You tried to protect me by hiding everything. How did you think I was going to learn about stuff if you never told me what was going on? So many people think kids aren�t capable of understanding "adult" problems. They are. I remember a lot from when I was a kid.
When someone has a problem of course they�re not gonna talk, especially if they�re teens. You have to remind them all the time to pour some of that excess feelings out. Otherwise you end up with someone like me.
Someone who�s so fckng angry.
Dear mom, remember that letter you sent telling us how our lifestyle really isn�t good enough and how is our son gonna get a good self esteem with us?
I want to know why you never thought of my self esteem when I was young.
Were you upset over the way your life turned out (suburban housewife) that you never saw how your daughter felt? You never told me what was going on.
I feel like I missed a bunch of stuff during you and dad�s divorce; I guess sending me to a boarding school half an hour drive away was a convenient way to "protect" me from reality. You tell me I�m not in touch with reality when you�re the one who "protected" me from reality.
That was incredibly naive and stupid.
You always wanted me to dress a certain way. You were too narrow minded to realize that I had my own tastes and preferences.
Your daughter was 13 and friendless in a hostile land (california) and you wanted her to dress like a little girl (nerd). I don�t think you wanted me anymore when you met Floyd; ever since then, my life sucked big-time. Talk to a therapist, you insist. I�d rather tell you because you�re part of the problem/solution. Why were you and your husband so intent when I was 16 on separating me and my best friend�s friendship? I�ve never heard of anyone else�s parents try a stunt like that.
She was my only friend and you made me tell her I couldn�t be her friend anymore.
You guys are sick. You and your husband are disgusting. You are hippocrits.
I guess I didn�t speak up enough.
I guess I didn�t yell and scream enough.
I guess I wasn�t enough of an asshole.
Your husband�s son got a car and money loans that he never paid back; but you were not allowed to give me a weekly allowance. Your bastard husband had the audacity to tell you what to do with your own kid.
That son of a bitch is a bigot: he hates "chinks" and women. I hate the kissy sex crap he tries to play with me. . . he should know better. . . you probably never told him about your last stupid husband diddling me. You�d rather save it for a therapist. How could I have expected you to teach me how to know myself when you didn�t even know yourself?
I wish I didn�t come back to Canada to give birth. I�ve tried to convince myself that you guys are cool and ok, but it just gets more and more obvious that you are stuck in your little reality and you think everyone else has to conform to it.

Last christmas John was a shithead as soon as he walked in, ranting about Sinead O�connor and about how dumb girls are. That sonofabitch had no right to say that crap, I don�t care how sick from mono he was. You know why he�s always sick? Because he�s so fckn� uptight. I�m tired of his crap. I�m really tired of everyone else being careful not to make him mad.
Fckng asshole.
He should be careful not to make me mad. That piece of shit thinks he�s so goddam important.

Ex-boyfriend/step-brother: Asshole = "here, have a car"
brother: Asshole = "here, live for free"
me: Not half as bad as they were = "here, get out of here, pack your bags, fck you."

I wasn�t told I was right so I went on thinking I was wrong.
Dear son, I'm writing this while you�re three years old.
My family (mom, dad, brother) never stopped me from succeeding, they only delayed me. At the age of 26, I�ve started what should have been started ten years ago, the recognition of my path.
I knew, when I was 15, that an artist was what I was to become. I had not the personal power, nor enlightened parents, to acquire myself real painting space and time to do it. Going to school, getting good grades and "dress nice for heaven�s sake" was what was expected of me. I wore jeans and T-shirts. Some of my jeans were torn. My hair was shoulder length usually, which was long for my hair. It had no particular style. I wore a headband because I liked the hippy style. My parents just couldn�t understand why I didn�t wear Eaton�s type blouses, or why I never joined sports teams or any team for that matter, or why I shop lifted (from major department stores, never from little mom n� pop stores) or why I got drunk sometimes, or why I hated school. I hope I don�t repeat . . . no, I�ve already changed a situation that my mom never did; she never got dad to help with the domestic duties so she could do her own thing.
She sacrificed her right to have a life, so she became bitter and disillusioned. She�s still uptight about clothing and hairstyle . . .
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