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.

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.

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.

I wish to be a cat. I like to imagine I was a cat in a past life.

Cats connote sexuality in standard dream dictionaries.

I love indices! They are poetry in and of themselves, depending on the book.

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