I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider.

There's something about urban life - you walk out your door, and you're in a steady of stream of life happening around you, and it's very easy to get caught up in that stream and simply kind of keep on moving.

It's easier in an urban world to cast the blame outward. So I've learned a lot about my own process in that way.

I had spent my childhood and the better part of my early adulthood trying to understand my mother. She had been an extraordinarily difficult person, spiteful and full of rage, with a temper that could flare, seemingly out of nowhere, scorching everything and everyone who got in its way. [pp. 40-41]

I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider.

I've certainly faced some raw, real pain in my life. I lost my father to a car accident when I was young. My mother died ten years ago. My son was very sick as an infant. Eventually, I have attempted to transform this pain into art, to make meaning out of it.

The only graceful thing to do is recognize and embrace what is actually happening, rather than fight against it.