“Dove” is infused with layers of family dynamics. What does family mean to you?
This is a big question, and one I’ve had reason to meditate on at great length in my life. I’ve long since deconstructed the Disney version of family and tend to see it now as a pod of strangers we’re cast into, more or less helpless to what they do, say, believe, and teach us. I recently read that between the ages of 2–7, children’s brains are in theta wave state — this is the brain state hypnotists induce because of increased suggestibility! Essentially, when we are little, we are in a trance, hypnotized by our parents and other family members. We download all their beliefs into our subconscious. Then we have to spend the rest of our lives waking up from the family trance — or not. You see, I don’t have many romantic views left about family. I like to imagine alternative ways we might be born and raised in the world. What ways of growing up might give our minds and personalities more freedom, flourishing, and possibilities unimpeded by the traditional family system and the trance-like “conditioning” that so often shackles us?
The image of the swing is crucial to the story. What does it represent in your writing?
The swing represents a way out. However, the ropes are tied tight, so hard work is involved, determination, grit, sacrifice. Dove’s wings only unlatch when strength is present, enough personal power and force of will be summoned. Dove, then, is not an easy way out. The swing represents the fight required, both external and internal, to get free.
“I must have sworn I wouldn’t leave you so early, without giving you wings.” Where do your wings come from?
My mind and my writing, which are in deep relationship and conversation with one another. When I’m thinking I’m writing, and when I’m writing I’m thinking, and this ongoing conversation is always a way to fight my way through and out, until the ropes fray, until the wings unlatch, until at last, I’m flying into something more true, into thinking that feels more like mine.
How autobiographical is “Dove”?
Very! Except my father was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and raised me in that faith. He was a curious questioner at heart, intrigued and enchanted by the mystery of consciousness, but that was suppressed by the narrative religion imposes and insists you accept. In this story, I reimagined him, who he might have been had he not surrendered himself to religion and certainty.
Would you call “Dove” a Midwestern story?
In part, yes! It would be hard for this story to be what it is without this specific place tangled into it—especially the Mississippi River and the east Iowa view of the Illinois shore. In Le Claire, the town where I grew up, one of the most iconic events is the summer Tug Fest, where participants from Le Claire, Iowa, and participants from Port Byron, Illinois, across the river, compete from their opposite shores, in multiple Tug-of-War rounds. It’s fascinating to behold as contestants battle on two sides of the river in different states. Of course, the losing side is pulled right into the Mississippi!
There’s some kind of magic growing up in east Iowa, always gazing across the river into Illinois, that lends itself to daydream and fantasy. Even if you’ve been over the bridge into Illinois countless times, at night, alone on your swing, trying to imagine your way into the future, into a different life, the glimmering streetlights of Illinois can hold all the hope, all the beckoning promise, of a far distant land.
“I am just so proud of who you are.” To whom would you like to say that?
So many. And when I say those words to someone, I see, by the way their eyes light up and shine, what a gift it is. Right now, I want to say it to myself. I want to say it to the little girl on the swing who felt so lost and alone and still dared to dream that her stories might matter to someone, somewhere, maybe someone in Illinois. If she could just get there. I want to say those words to her and to hear them back — to hear the girl on the swing say them to me, where I am now, so many years distant, so many rivers crossed — and take those words deep into my heart, and know, I would do it all over again — for her.
The art of Raphael plays a significant part in “Dove.” Which painting were you thinking about?
His iconic Madonna and Child paintings. He painted about 34 of these and so much tender longing comes through, I wonder if it’s because he lost his mother when he was a child. Some of us lose our mothers long before they die. This is a different sort of grief. One that doesn’t get talked about as much. I kind of feel like Raphael’s Madonna and Child paintings are 1500s Hallmark cards. No disrespect to his genius, however, they do present a deeply idealized version of motherhood and the bond between a mother and child. Add some pastel flowers and glitter butterflies and Hallmark would snap Raphael’s paintings right up for Mother’s Day!
You mention that you parted ways with faith, yet “Dove” is full of spirituality. What do faith and spirituality mean to you?
I parted ways with the Jehovah’s Witness religion in my late twenties. It took me that long to wake up from the trance! It was a lot of life, and time, and energy spent, trying to wake up, and break free. A grueling and painful process. One that I write about in my forthcoming novel The Impossible Why.
Spirituality for me is the long journey of returning to my own heart. Faith is the belief that I can find my way there.
Where is your Narnia?
All the different viewpoints the world offers.
Now that I’m free from religion, I’m free to explore — distant idea shores that were once forbidden I now delight to traverse! The key to Narnia, for me, is in my curiosity — questions about life, consciousness, the mystery — flinging open closet doors into new lands, filled with adventure.
What are your writing habits? When and where are we most likely to see you writing?
During the school year, I work as an online tutor, and meeting with students virtually in different locations and time zones, my schedule is ever shifting, all over the place. I have to fit in writing time when I can, and most often, that’s at my desk, a couple hours here and there.
In the summer, I write outside. My husband built me a picnic table, and I sit there, beneath the trees, beside the garden, and write. I sometimes call the picnic table my “ship” because, though it seems to be still, it is actually a golden vessel moving across waters filled with dreams, memories, imagination.
I hadn’t thought of it until now, but perhaps it is the ship that finally came in… a life where I can write, at peace, in a garden, is my dream come true.
