I loved Victoria B.C. I just couldn't make a living there. I struggled for 4 years to work on my cartoon strip while I housesat and worked at various jobs to pay rent on my studio space, provide for basic necessities, art supplies and fund mailers containing full sized packets of cartoons - 6 weeks worth of dailies, Sunday pages, character bios and an introduction into the world in which they lived.
In need of a break and some family TLC, I scraped together enough money to return home to visit with family and friends. At an evening get-together as my friends talked about their homes, husbands and children or of exciting single lives with well paying jobs it became apparent to me that the reality of my life was something they could not imagine. Maybe I really was, as a sister-in-law had thought of me at that time - a Don Quixote of sorts.
A year after I wrote this poem, at the age of 34, I gave up my quest, made my way back to Ontario and moved in to my folk's place in search of a new beginning. I did not know then the unexpected turn my life would take.
Cartoon and poem © Nance Thacker 1985
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