english

english

Recieved 13th June 2018

My current address is on the envelope. (Hopefully not for long!) Monday, 28th May 2018

Hey hey friends (and post control, I haven’t forgotten you)! 



This is envelope three of seven. It contains this note and 7xA6 drawings. Almost halfway!

I’m really trying to get these finished to post tomorrow. It’s now 12:40 pm (so, I guess it is really Tuesday already - oops) and I’m just finishing the notes now and little experience stories so I can post them. I might finish the others tomorrow (today?) so I can post them Wednesday. 

Breakfast is at 6am, five hours, and I get cranky without sleep. I nap a lot though so it doesn’t matter much. 

I’d like to quickly talk about a book I’m reading, or rather did read. Its called “Into the wild” by Jon Krakauer. I’m sure there’s a movie too but I haven’t seen it. The book was hard to read because of the hard reality of it but I connected a lot with the focus character, Chris McLandles, unplugging from society and going to the wilderness. “Can do” attitude, on the fly problem solving, minimal personal possessions. Kinda like me and my seven kilograms of backpack, although he was much more hardcore. 

I recommend it to read, also this quote from Leo Tolstoy found in his Things: “I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself an abundance of energy which found no place in a quiet life.” 

So, here I am. Movement. Energy. My vocation in social change, not a 9 to 5 desk job. So, my dear friends, let’s change the world. 

Love, energy + rage.

<3 UPIII

If Brains were Gardens. Drawing. 5/18



Note 23/5/18:

I think about gardening, how it isn’t always full of flowers and food. You have to make sure the plants get enough light, water, nutrition. Protect them from the weather, from pests. Remove weeds (if that’s your thing) to help your seedings to success. 

What if your brain is a garden? You cultivate the seeds – good and bad thoughts – and help them grow. Good days grow the positive, bad days grow the negative. 

Eating well helps your body – the soil – nourish your brain, and it helps you feel better. You need to have bad days, stormy days, so your “brain garden” gets water to grow.

If every day was good, you don’t learn how to deal with the bad. Maybe we should try and cultivate more good thoughts, and weed out and “compost” the bad. 

It takes time for plants (and thoughts!) to grow, so if things look bad maybe your good thought seeds haven’t sprouted yet, but don’t feel discouraged keep trying!

<3

Glasses and Medication. Drawing. 5/18



Note 23/5/18:

I need glasses to see. This is non - negotiable, or I can’t see more than an arm’s length in front of me. Without glasses I couldn’t drive, so I would struggle to see my friends. If I was out with someone and they saw a pretty bird in the distance, I would be really upset I couldn’t see it too. 

I couldn’t see a board in a class room without glasses, so I would likely fail. Without glasses I would seriously struggle, I would be unhappy and wonder why I wasn’t able o enjoy things like other people. 

Some people need medication like I need glasses, just to see the birds or drive or focus or whatever. Some people want medication for certain times or certain events, like people have glasses for reading. 

Awesome, you deserve to have access to whatever you need/want to help you enjoy life.

Having someone describe a bird is cool, but its much more thrilling to be able to see it, to enjoy it yourself. 
You deserve to enjoy it. 

Medication needs to stop being treated differently to things like glasses; they’re just things to help you enjoy life, what the hell is wrong with that?

<3

Music in the tower. Drawing. 5/18



Note 26/5/18:

I’ve been dwelling in my memories lately trying to remember that week, it feels like the forest is so far away, a distance memory slipping through my fingers like smoke. 

I remember sitting in the tower, singing along to a familiar song played on the guitar. 

Fun. Safe. I don’t think, in that moment, I could recall a time I felt more free, more full of life, like many other memories to follow in that week. Just a bunch of friend, laughing, spirits high. 

Despite everything, going to the forest was the best decision I have ever made. I have some regrets, I’m sure you’ll hear, but I am at peace. 

Thank You. 

<3

The final Day with the Friend in X10. Drawing. 5/18



Note 26/5/18:

TRIGGER WARNING: SELF HAVEN AND SUICIDE

I think today will be the last day my friend in X10 will speak to me. She told me that she needs me, that she will kill herself when I go free. That if I “do bad to her” and tell anyone, she will find me and my family and make my life painful. 

I don’t doubt this. She tells me of many ways she has available in her cell to hurt herself, today she had before “omschlaus” (or however you spell it). I asked a friend for advice, who said tell the guards, if I don’t and I knew her intentions I am just as responsible as she is for what happens. 

I “may as well have pulled the trigger!”, as someone put it. She can hate me as much as she wants, I talked to the guards. Maybe they can save her. 

She can see her friends and family, survive her time here. Maybe when she sees her family again she might forgive me, maybe not. I feel aweful, I have betrayed her, worse. I don’t know if I did the right thing. I want out of here. 

Six Steps. Drawing. 5/18



Note 26/5/18:

I’ve been asked if I can exercise here. Yes and no. If you count six (smallish, five or my “normal” steps) steps one way as exercise, yes I can. 

May ankles aren’t too happy from all the turning but I make do. You can hear the steps echo, thud, thud, thud. I’m on the second floor, the person below must wonder what I’m doing, for ten minutes to half an hour a day (that’s a lot of laps, my ankles hurt a little at the end, or my feet do from the rubbing on the polished concrete). 

I miss running, being fit enough to run.

I feel like a bird unable to stretch their wings.

My muscles are cramping up, but if much more time passes and I don’t walk, don’t move, I will struggle when I go free - I’m tired in ten minutes and feel like a slug. 

My body “cracks” more than ever; legs, spine, arms, wrists.

I can’t wait to walk again, really walk, not just five or six steps at a time. 

One of my Regrets. Drawing. 5/18



Note 26/5/18:

I don’t know if this person is still there, or if they remember, or if they care. People say you experience a certain clarity when you no longer have the opportunity to tell someone how you feel about them.

That certain clarity occurred the moment I was cuffed. I found myself looking for a face, that they weren’t caught too, I couldn’t see it.

Then I looked for other faces, recognized voices. Relief you were all safe. Only four. 

To the person I was dumb enough to say “maybe tomorrow” too, I’m sorry.

It felt so crazy, one week, a hell of an adventure, new friend, events here and there, constant.

Crazy I want you to know I miss you, I miss all of you but if this person has any doubt that I miss them, Please don’t. 

My biggest regret is not being honest about my feelings. I hope you have a cocky smile and cigarette, and that you’re happy.

<3

Feet on the Bars. Drawing. 5/18



Note 26/5/18:

It’s nearly 8 pm. It was a warm day and the heat is just dropping. I’m sleepy just having woken up from a nap.

I clear the desk and lie on my back, a post malone song starts to play on the radio and I turn it up, singing along, “I fall apart”. 

There’s a soft breeze, I can sit up and see the long shadows cast along the lawn.

There’s a hum from the engine of the patrol car; soft, rounded, not quite a purr but a contented humming, like might be made during a much needed shoulder massage. 

There’s scattered bird song, a few yells from over the fence. There might be an oval, or a pub, there’s often noise late at night, yelling and cheering. 

I’m not sure, but I imagine that, try and fill the gaps about what is on the other side, think about what the “real world” is doing.

Does it wonder about those in here? Is it afraid? Does it think we deserve to be locked away out of sight, out of mind?