I pay attention as much as I can. I try to surround myself with other women with magical powers and a lot falls under the heading "magical powers."

The women in my family - my grandmother and my mother - have been both sources of comfort and terror. Protection was not always available.

Cats connote sexuality in standard dream dictionaries.

My relationship with my mother has always felt like the most complicated relationship of my life. I know I have a lot more writing to do on this.

Overwhelm, panic, and wanting to flee were states of being in my everyday life as I tried to figure out life on my own, in the city I had grown up in, after an entire life made in Olympia, Washington for the eight years previous.

I'd like to imagine that "dreamoir" becomes a subgenre of nonfiction, maybe ultimately because I'd love to read many more dreamoirs by other writers - poets and memoirists especially.

I imagine there's an undercurrent of the impact of early religious teachings and my break from what I was taught and expected to perform if I wanted to be considered normal in my family of origin.