I taught workshops at universities. I wrote for magazines. This took time and insane amounts of juggling, but it's how I earned a living.

I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her.

My whole life sort of ended when my mom died.

My mother's death put me in touch with my most savage self. As I've grown up and come to terms with her death and accepted it, the pieces of her that I keep don't exist materially.

My mother saved hundreds of animals in her life. Wherever she encountered and injured or needy or abandoned animal, she brought it home.

A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.