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Joanna Colrain, pages 385-391
I thought about this project for a long time before anything went on paper. How to represent my relationship with my sister?
I kept seeing a red bolt of lightning.
Being a part of this project got me in touch once again with the sadness in that bolt. Sometimes we lived on the same side of the bolt and sometimes we didn’t.
Anchor 1
My sister and I were always allied against my brother. My father never had enough affection to go around, and my sister became my competition.
She and I shared a bed long past my ability to tolerate it. I wanted to be close to my sister but not that close!
When I asked why my brothers had separate beds and we didn’t, I was told “because they’re boys.”
At 14, I violently kicked my sister out of the bed in the middle of the night and finally got my own bed.
After high school, my sister and I grew apart and never bridged the chasm. She could not accept my identity as a lesbian; I could not accept her non-acceptance. The chasm widened into indifference.
The sister I love now is the little blond girl who used to play dolls and share a bed with me.
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Click on image, then on to enlarge.
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