ALS signed “XXXX Love (you win 4 [hearts], Janis,” eight pages, 5.75 x 7.75, September 2, 1965. A lengthy eight-page letter to her fiancé, Peter de Blanc. In part: “Darling, Sigh, I hope you don't mind my calling you that, but I've always wanted to open a letter that way & that's the way I am feeling this evening so I've thrown all caution to the winds. Darling…I went to the Doctor today, and everything's great! Oh, Peter, I'm so damn happy. I was so nervous! I really was petrified. I kept wringing my hands & I started crying twice even before I got there. After I was there & talking to the Doctor, I finally figured out why I was so afraid, it was because this was sort of my last showdown w/ fucked-upness-to see if I had really made it out or if it was still hurting me. And I really have made it, Jesus damn, I'm really alright & ain't nobody gonna make me ugly again! I am not anemic, there is nothing wrong w/ my liver or my blood & no gyn. problems that he can see now, although if I have any more problems, he said he would probably give me some hormones. (He suspects hormone imbalance because of the fact that I've never gotten pregnant). But talking about that kind of embarrasses me-as if I weren't really a woman or enough of one or something. But I suppose if I need them, I'd sure better have them. I'll bet if I do need them that if I'd known that about 10 years ago, my life wouldn't ever have been such a shambles. You know, maybe something as simple as a pill could have helped out or even changed that part of me I call Me and has been so messed up. Just maybe.
But anyway, back to my Doctor’s visit, he was very nice & young & interested & kept asking me about things. He's taken LSD & Ritalin a few times experimentally, & kept wanting to compare notes w/ me. (He told me that when he had taken it, he kept having sexual fantasies & I told him that Ritalin didn't do that it just heightened your interest in whatever you were interested in & then we both sort of smiled & he cleared his throat & we went on to other things…). He ran a blood test on me and I have no trace of mononucleosis…He said that I was really okay & I had survived the onslaught w/ no serious aftereffects. (But he doesn't know about this backlog of fear that I've got in my head, but that's another thing.) Except my tracks-which I did ask him about & he was shocked & he told me that they wouldn't ever go away. I've been sort of hoping that they would fade away, but he says no but that they will turn white later. He said that I was definitely fine…Guess I'll drive to the Post Office and mail this. Good night, baby, I love you. Call me Sunday?” In fine condition, with a central horizontal mailing fold to each page, and some mild rippling to a few pages. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Joplin's hand, signed on the reverse, “Miss Janis Joplin, 3130 Lombardy, Port Arthur, Tex.”
A remarkable letter, one of a series to then boyfriend Peter de Blanc, spanning the latter half of 1965, in which Joplin is shown to be a vulnerable, yet optimistic young woman, filled with a range of emotions typical for a 22-year-old in love. Despite the sobering reality of her addiction, Janis still aspires for a life of eventual, domestic bliss when she returned to her hometown to get her life back on track. She hopes de Blanc, a native New Yorker living in the San Francisco bay area, will be the stabilizing factor that might remove her from a life that has been alcohol and drug plagued since she left her hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, in December 1962, her sights set on a career in music in the bay area. By 1965, however, she was an out-of-control heavy drinker, sometime heroin user, amphetamine 'speed freak'; her emaciated condition prompted friends to throw her a 'bus fare party' for a return to Port Arthur, where she might have a chance to turn her life around. The intervention appeared to have a very positive effect on her. She avoided drugs and alcohol, enrolled as a Sociology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas, during which time she commuted to Austin to perform solo, accompanying herself on guitar. Her engagement to de Blanc seemed to give her purpose and hope for a bright future. Unfortunately, after traveling from New York to formally ask her family's permission to marry her, de Blanc broke off the engagement, left the bay area, and relocated back to New York. Joplin was back in San Francisco by mid-'66; her musical career back on track when she was asked to join Big Brother & The Holding Company, making her debut with the band in June 1966. Her abusive lifestyle exacted a toll that ultimately ended her life at the age of 27 in 1970.
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