Letter to Francisca:
fish_part - second book of a letter to Francisca.
Living to find the write letter to right.
Finding one to love.
fish_part_01
Book 2
Francisca:
I love words. My high-school teachers may find it hard to believe but it is true: words are my ticket. Ticket to where? From here to there. My roommates are thespians. I guess you’ve met Sandra. Tricia is a beautiful singer. I love her too. The same love as I have for you but not the same way. She’s taking a bath now. My room is next to the tub. -I’ve decided after much thought that I must give up trying not to love you. So admit to me you love me and we can forget about the whole thing and get on with our lives. -I’m sorry to say most of my writing is in bed - thus it is not so neat. This may be why I’m developing a curved spine. -I thought about it again today and realized I enjoy writing to you more than writing just for myself or the world. Would you, if you could spare me a small favour and allow me to dedicate this to you. -I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before - I love you. -Don’t ask why. Why is not a question that relates to a thing so illogical as the madness called love. -How’s this - wait a second - I don’t want you giving me a hard time if I tell you you are beautiful. There is no denying it and you think some dumb thoughts sometimes. -This is book two. You better not be reading this without having read the first one. -I’ll tell you something about writing. Listen up now. It’s a chronic passion. It’s a drug that gets better the more it’s used. And it gets more addictive and much harder to kick. -First, let me say. I don’t care how we spend time together. If you live with someone else, let us be friends. It is fair to love a friend and not be lovers. If you can’t bear the sight of me, allow me to send letters and respond with a post cards saying - ‘all’s well, my husband’s a drag but he’s nice. Please write soon. Love, Francisca.’ -Something like that. Let’s have a relationship. -If you like, I could say I love you a little less. -Did you really read this far? I’m surprised. Sure am surprised. I didn’t think I’d give it to you. -I want to say something like this: I love you and you are beautiful like a trip to the country on a bright spring day with the sun shining it’s love on the new blooming flowers bursting from the moist earth in celebration of your return from the winter of darkness. Step lightly. Although there is nothing to fear, you may alarm yourself if you advance in haste. Touch the breeze that talks to your skin. Kiss the buds that are blossoms within. -I was wondering how to go on but I was too tempted to rhyme it like a silly song. -I’ll stop for now - 20th Nov. 92. -I refuse to get out of bed until I know you love me. -I haven’t had a bath since - Friday I think. But I have washed my armpits and face and bum. -I’m going to visit the doctor today. -Francisca. I feel dishonest when I show interest in other women. -I’m not going to say anything more now. I’m going to read. Just a short entry tonight. I’m a bit jittery from the stupid drugs they got me on. I can’t even write properly. I am getting well though. Less coughing. -Had one hell of a hockey game tonight. Must have had 75 shots on me. You would have been proud. ‘That’s my boy.’ you could say. But since nobody is there to watch, nobody would hear you. But- But this. -Did I tell you I cut my hair off? -I deposited 346.00 in my account today - the balance was 325.00, whoops. Looks like I was in the hole. -All my roommates have a boy in their bed tonight. -Okay. It’s time to read a book. I’ve been reading more lately than before when I wasn’t reading as much. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioning this to you, Francisca - I love you. Dec. 9/92. I hate it when Sandra or Tricia come home and the TV is on before their boots are off. When the TV is on and they smoke their American cigarettes, I’m confined to my room. I guess it’s dam time I was on my own or living with a girlfriend or married or living in the woods. I met one of my stereotypical favourite kinds of women. -Tall, sexy, attractive, a little crazy, bright, from a foreign country, English is second language, long blond hair, talented, long fingers, attentive to me - But unfortunately, her boyfriend from Germany has come to visit her for two weeks. It is dumb for me to be sexually interested in her but I fear I have no choice. You can’t tell your hormones how to act. There are very few people that interest me sexually and I’m sure my consciousness is not in control of it. I’m listening to a tape she gave me. It’s in German, so I don’t understand the words. I’ve been accused of only being attracted to people that I can’t commit to - i.e. someone who is married or living with someone or someone who is leaving the city soon or someone who leads a self destructive life style or a thespian (the worst). Maybe love isn’t something that’s - of course it isn’t. There is nothing tangible about it. I sense a crash. I’ve been high for the last few days. Tonight and tomorrow will be morose. Wiebke, allow me to tell you about her. (I still see you when I’m attracted to women - ready for this corn - it’s from a terrible song covered by a good musician - here it is: ‘I married her just because she looks like you.’ Oh no. That is pretty sad. Especially for the poor woman he married.) What I mean to say is she reminds me a little of you. Obviously her face isn’t quite as beautiful as yours on account that no one’s or hardly anyone’s is - she’s pretty, almost as tall as me and I have to take a shit. Amer took me to Squirrely’s for Wednesday burger. Yum. I like meat once in a while. Did I mention that my grandparents are all in the age of death? On my wall is a picture my grandmother took when my dad was a little boy. He’s walking up a dirt road in Bear River N.S. with his grandfather. I guess that’s Howard Snell (it isn’t, it’s Granny’s father*). That’s where my second name came from. My first came from my mom’s father. Guess what his name was. I have other photos on my wall. One of Randy in Duffern Mall. It’s a fun shot. B and W. Patricia’s head shot from a few years ago. Kind off, like, cheesie but too cute. Wet your pants innocent slut look. - A shot Amer gave me from our trip to N.S. This was near the Rocks in N.B. - A print of Emily Karr’s - it’s a tree. - A shot I took of Tricia and Amer. It’s a tourist shot. You know - sun glassed, hat, on the wharf. Smile at the camera, kids. There’s another shot from the trip. It appears as though Kristen is poking her finger in Tricia’s bum. It’s on a beach just outside of Halifax. The town of my birth. Nothing seems significant tonight. In a frame, I have a few pictures. One of me looking psychotically disconnected from civilization, a shot of Brian in grade 9, my grandfather and me eight years ago. - My long time friend, Geoff with a patch over his eye and an eye cut out from a magazine on the patch. That’s 5 years old. My cousin Janet. I haven’t talked to her in a few years. She thought I was crazy and wrote me off. She wanted to see me this summer though. We didn’t. A shot of my grandmother and me 8 years ago. A shot of Amer and Trish in one of those photo booths. On my other wall is my Batman gravestone T-shirt and a painting of one of three bunnies being run over by a V.W. rabbit. I’m listening to hurting songs now. I’m going to stop writing for now - -Well, that was a nice trip. Dropped off into despair and alone apathy for 40 minutes. It happens once or twice in a while. I think I better go to Paul Toyne with my game to see if he can help me. No more writing to you tonight. Later - Okay, It’s Dec. 16 - actually, 17 now. I guess you man never get this letter. The more I think about it, the more I realize you would rather not hear from me. Even though you never could stop loving me. I think someone else is falling in love with me. And I think her boyfriend suspects that it may be so. I bumped into Wiebke, Timon and Sue at the Squeeze. We went to Squirrely’s for supper and then I went home for a nap. We met again at the Boom Boom - Christmas is almost here. Or the return of the sun. Maybe I don’t want to write or read. Sleep may be the course I must take. I don’t know if I even mentioned this to you Francisca but - bla bla bla. A few things happened in the last few months. It is now March 16 (turn into 17 now). The woman whom I suspected was falling in love with me is now engaged to me. Shortly after the New Year we started to see each other. A week later she asked me to marry her. I said yes. It happened so fast that most of her friends and especially her boyfriend, thought she had gone mad. Instead of moving to Vancouver or Costa Rica, now it is Germany. She, Wiebke, is here to learn English better by living in an English speaking country. She has a few more years of school, so I’m going to move over to Germany. Maybe I should tell you a little about her. In a couple of ways she is similar to you. These are the things that are first apparent. She is beautiful, fair and blond. She was born in a Foreign country and knows more than one language. She has a good knowledge of 4. I am madly in love with her as I could have been with you. The big difference is that she truly loves me. If I had been permitted to create the woman whom I would want to spend my life, she would be as Wiebke is. If I was to allow paranoia to rule, I would suspect that they made her like this so that I couldn’t refuse her. Every little detail has been worked out. Everything from nose picking to philosophy is compatible. Somehow, there is so much love that it is hard to function away from her. She is so sexual that I can’t tear myself from her body. And she is as crazy about me as I am about her. There is so much passion that it may even border on dangerous. If we aren’t careful, there could be a large explosion. I have no idea what is going to happen. We’re getting married in Germany next March 3. That’s 94. Neither of us has much faith in marriage and the rituals of it. We are going to do it mostly for the celebration of our love. For our honeymoon, we will travel from Northern Germany to Italy then back up to France along the Mediterranean. I’ll keep you posted until shortly after that, then I’ll send you this letter. I’ll be married then. You won’t have to worry about me trying to steel your love. For now, I have nothing else to say. I may look back on a few things later. Now I’m going to pack it in. Good night. I still love you. Lets start with bunnies. They’re really nice. Jumping shit, holy Jesus Christ. I’m going to learn to spell and read; I said I am. If I don’t do it soon, I won’t express how wise I am. I want to curse, blaspheme and yell. I want to tell you all to go straight to hell. But instead, I’ll smile and wave at the children passing by. Just thinking about home and homemade apple pie. I woke up in the morning, my head all full of puss. Of fuck. I have no more to spout. Just senseless meter I just want to shout. Let me out. I’m locked inside. I know it was me who decided to hide. Forget the printing; forget the rhyme. I’ve things to say, with little time. Let’s try a story: Once upon a time there was a little boy. His head all full of ideas that gave him little joy. He didn’t get the picture from the things he saw. Most often, he Stop. Feb. 8 When you kiss me I’m not as ugly As I used to be Book 3 idea. The boy who falls in love with the girl. His fear and problem about understanding weather or not women are good or evil. If they are manipulative and an assault against his anonymity. He has to learn to understand the balance between the bliss of muse and the joy of love and hope. March 3 Well Francisca, I’m lying here wondering about weather or not there is any validity to intelligence while I stare at the little cracks in the wall and listen to a mixed tape of traditional songs. Wiebke’s ‘X lover’ just call to tell Wiebke a few important things. Trish answered the phone so I couldn’t tell him much. He is a bit bitter. He’s upset that she dropped him for a raw fish eater from the country of frozen lumberjacks. They had been lovers for 3 years. I have a feeling that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Obviously, if Wiebke is intelligent, she would chose what was best for her. If a stranger from a strange country can gain her love, than there is a problem with the other relationship. I was never impressed of interested in those fuck relationships. We think if we’re not getting laid that we’re incomplete, so we fuck whatever we can find. It doesn’t cut it. Before I forget about intelligence, let me rave just a bit before returning to what the hell is with people and their confused concept about what they believe they should be doing with their genitalia. I want to develop the thought that I was laying here wondering what if I wasn’t to do anything, like on so many other days when I don’t do anything. There’s many things I could do that would just be a waist of time; so I’d rather enjoy doing nothing. I could be making money but then I think: why bother to worry about that today. I’ve got enough for the next month. Worry about money later. Then I got to thinking: when do we get these ideas about what we should and shouldn’t do. I understand the need for a living being to survive because that’s what it does. Everything beyond that is - what is it? It’s nothing specific. You may chose to act. That’s what one of my roommates wants to do. Why? There is only in it what has been put in it. It represents life? I’m not sure about that. It may represent man’s ego having a hard-on about it’s self. Is intelligence anything more than a way for a large brained creature to lie to itself to compensate for self doubt. What am I trying to say here? And it’s just a question, I’m not proposing that I would know. Maybe what I’m saying is that if I don’t feel like getting a job and playing the game everyone else is playing, it is perfectly probable for me to believe I have decided, out of my abundant intelligence, that what everyone else is doing is bullshit. And what of it isn’t bullshit, just doesn’t interest me. I have to return to the question of what is offered. If we understand what is offered, we can better decide if we should bust our balls, or tits, to get a little piece of it. Although I may be veering onto a tangent on ranting, let me start with Coke and cars, movies and bars, cows and pills, TV and thrills. Most everything we see is worse than pointless, it’s taxing to the eco. system which we are ignorant of. Tell me, what the fuck does any of it have to do with survival? Most everything has to do with destruction. This mad big business consumer hunger is a race to early death. Humans have got to go. Where am I here? Let’s get back on track. The point is: we misuse the meaning of intelligence. What we’ve done, most, almost all of it, is not intelligent. Mankind is completely fucked up, lost and a danger to himself and the world he’s come from. The system has no foundation. Sure as shit stinks, it all has to stop. If I can’t be bothered to go get a job and participate, it isn’t because I’m too lazy, it’s because I see the whole thing as a lie. Intelligence means ability to lie to yourself. Even though I won’t send this letter to you, Francisca, I am thinking of you as I write. I did love you and still have love for you. April 1/93 Every time (well, twice now), I get on the bus to go to London they are showing the movie Steel Magnolias. Such a shit movie. Most movies are shit though. They caiter to the shit brains that their society tends to produce. Fuckin’ stereotypes portraying stereotypical characters of idiotic bullshit situations. Hollywood is fucked. But let’s not rave about that. It’s hard to write on a bus. Holly shit. Look at those waves. Must have been some wind last night. Well Franny (sorry, I had to call you that once.) I’m off to London to pick up a car. It’s cheep. Wiebke and I are renting a car and taking a road trip to Nova Scotia. I want her to see it before she goes back to Germany. One day I want to take her back to Nova Scotia with our children. I remember now that I mentioned we might run into each other in N.S.. I described my wife and if I remember, I described her much like she is. It’s cold and raining. The man beside me is nodding off. There are only a couple of conversations mixed in with the soothing gentle roar of the road under the bus. The movie rants silently for most of us because we didn’t purchase head sets. Did I tell you I was in love? Wiebke is excellent for me. She loves me madly and drives me crazy. She will help keep me burning. I had always burned before but I may have been slipping into darkness. Sometimes I think that things are much different than they appear. The more I get to know Wiebke, the more I think she is too perfect for me to have been a chance meeting. It feels like I was screaming out for her and she came for me. That’s silly, but so is love. I enjoy this trip to London less and less. I’m tired of it’s bleak familiarity. The same old nothing. Life shall take a big change for me when I hit Europe. The business opportunities will be great. But truthfully, nothing matters to me but the chance to learn, see and become a better writer. Of course I will always strive to be a great husband and father. I want to take some English literature in Saarbrücken. I’m limited to English anyway because all other courses are in German. And I get to speak such a language. And why are men so fascinated with tits. It’s enough to drive a man crazy. Luckily for me, Wiebke has two of them. One on each side. She likes attention to both. This I don’t have a problem with. I suppose I will give her attention anywhere she wishes most anytime she wishes. We both need copious amounts of physical contact and even more mental contact. This summer may be hell. I will go visit in June so that 2 months will be the longest wait. Oh shit. Is that snow? Goddam. Don’t need that. No just freezing rain. The traffic is unbelievable. Fuckin’ crazy. I never did like the 401. At least not the last 10 years.
by Joanne B. Washington
read on. fish_part_02
© 2001 | the jose wombat project