A House in the Mountains

North Vancouver, June 1989
My dream has come true. I am living in a split level ranch house in the mountains with my wonderful husband John and our two girls, Jessamyn and Kathleen, aged 8 and 5. John is a successful software entrepeur. When he realized I was going to have a child he gave up his job as a tree spacer and taught himself computer prgramming on a PET computer which ran on a cassette tape. His first program was the I Ching. Since that time he had become a wonderful father and provider. He worked his way up from the threadbare skinny brilliant visionary theatre director that he was when I met him at age twenty three to a computer software engineer and manager of his own department at a major telecommunications research company. His sadness at adopting this conservative lifestyle, albeit financially rewarding, is the subject of much discussion. How can he have his creative freedom and still support a family. It is the same dilemma my father faced as a government accountant who became an award winning photographer and film maker in mid life. Both of us feel trapped in this dilemma. We love our freedom as much as we love our children.
So, despite John's success, our lovely children, and our beautiful home, and our privieged life, the marriage has become strained.

Shortly after we moved into the house, John faced the task of reconstructing his softwre business over the prior four years when he was building his own software company. He had had some success, selling to the Ford Company and the Ohlin Company, but his records had been lost by an accountant at major accounting company, Touche Ross, which had befriended John. In his struggle to establish our family economically, he had neglected to pay income taxes.

Three months after we moved into the house, he completed the task of reconstruction, and realized he owed $90,000 in back taxes, After much soul searching, he declared bankruptcy. In order to save the house from being repossessed, we have had to borrow money from my mother. This caused a great deal of turmoil in the household as my mother did not want to give us the $25,000. I begged and pleaded, terrified that we would lose everything we had worked for ten years to accumulate. These upsets on the phone begin to permeate everything in the house. There is constant worry and stress and fighting over money.