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Donna Mae DePola - Guest Speaker Chat ...May 25th 2013 ... for more information please read this!
There is still plenty of time and spaces if you'd like to sign up for the Guest Speaker Chat scheduled for this Saturday!
There is still plenty of time and spaces if you'd like to sign up for the Guest Speaker Chat scheduled for this Saturday!
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Editor's note: since Isabelle died I lost my voice. I tried to come on here a few times, tried to write, tried to focus, tried to put words to 'it', but nothing really came. No entry to publish. Or rather, only entries I didn't want to publish. Here's one:
I've been quiet the last few weeks. Didn't have much to say. Isabelle being gone; her double death: dying and then being killed again in the media - a lot for one person to take. And her friends; fake friends all just wanting a piece of her. And then, my dad. My dad who didn't know who Isabelle was until she died; who'd never made the link between her and the author she was; who went out and bought all her books; who came back to me with questions, questions I was hoping to never have to answer. To protect him.
I went over to his house the other day, with wine and cheese. It was his birthday. I left for the last time when I left his screaming at me behind. It was just so surreal. I heard him screaming all the way inside my car in the driveway...
Isabelle's first book was called 'Putain' or Whore. The subject is pretty evident; it was the one book I really didn't want my dad to read. It didn't help that he'd read another book and said that she wrote 'pornographically'... She didn't write that way at all; there was no sex in any of her books, nothing to get turned on by. But she wrote in a very crude way; in a way that makes country people blush and want to shield their virgin ears. I don't remember how we got in the argument, but I do remember the substance of it. He'd asked when I'd met her. I said 18, which was true. And then, for some reason we got to talking about 17. At 17, as I've written here before, I wasn't living with him. I was living in Montreal, but according to my dad, I was living with him.
I said 'I think I remember my life better than you, dad'. And that was the trigger. My dad has always had a rage issue - he snaps with a snap of the fingers. He started calling me a liar: 'stop lying! That's all you do! You've lied all your life!' I just got up. I told myself I didn't need to take this; I gathered my stuff, which made him - and I knew it would have that effect of him - get even more enraged. I tried to walk myself to the door but he got up and got in my face. Started yelling all sorts of things: you think your the center of the universe... you and your degrees... you always have to be right... you think I beat you... you think you're better than me... you think I'm crazy... you think, you think, you think... I didn't say one word after 'I think I remember my life better than you', except for 'stop'. I said it a lot: STOP. STOP. STOP. I felt like the 4 year old he used to terrify just by the fact of raising his voice. When he screams he becomes like this giant. He didn't stop. I got out. I cried all the way back home.
Back home I wanted to write him, but I decided not to. I think that's my forté: not writing things in times of anger. Just worsens the situation. So I shut up about it. I shut up about the fact that I understand why he deleted a year of my life. He deleted it because if I was living at home, there's no way what he knows - I know he knows - could have happened: I'd have been safe with him.
I've been quiet the last few weeks. Didn't have much to say. Isabelle being gone; her double death: dying and then being killed again in the media - a lot for one person to take. And her friends; fake friends all just wanting a piece of her. And then, my dad. My dad who didn't know who Isabelle was until she died; who'd never made the link between her and the author she was; who went out and bought all her books; who came back to me with questions, questions I was hoping to never have to answer. To protect him.
I went over to his house the other day, with wine and cheese. It was his birthday. I left for the last time when I left his screaming at me behind. It was just so surreal. I heard him screaming all the way inside my car in the driveway...
Isabelle's first book was called 'Putain' or Whore. The subject is pretty evident; it was the one book I really didn't want my dad to read. It didn't help that he'd read another book and said that she wrote 'pornographically'... She didn't write that way at all; there was no sex in any of her books, nothing to get turned on by. But she wrote in a very crude way; in a way that makes country people blush and want to shield their virgin ears. I don't remember how we got in the argument, but I do remember the substance of it. He'd asked when I'd met her. I said 18, which was true. And then, for some reason we got to talking about 17. At 17, as I've written here before, I wasn't living with him. I was living in Montreal, but according to my dad, I was living with him.
I said 'I think I remember my life better than you, dad'. And that was the trigger. My dad has always had a rage issue - he snaps with a snap of the fingers. He started calling me a liar: 'stop lying! That's all you do! You've lied all your life!' I just got up. I told myself I didn't need to take this; I gathered my stuff, which made him - and I knew it would have that effect of him - get even more enraged. I tried to walk myself to the door but he got up and got in my face. Started yelling all sorts of things: you think your the center of the universe... you and your degrees... you always have to be right... you think I beat you... you think you're better than me... you think I'm crazy... you think, you think, you think... I didn't say one word after 'I think I remember my life better than you', except for 'stop'. I said it a lot: STOP. STOP. STOP. I felt like the 4 year old he used to terrify just by the fact of raising his voice. When he screams he becomes like this giant. He didn't stop. I got out. I cried all the way back home.
Back home I wanted to write him, but I decided not to. I think that's my forté: not writing things in times of anger. Just worsens the situation. So I shut up about it. I shut up about the fact that I understand why he deleted a year of my life. He deleted it because if I was living at home, there's no way what he knows - I know he knows - could have happened: I'd have been safe with him.
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