“All I can say is that I’m grateful that in many ways they just let me be. They didn’t want my rough start to cast a shadow on my childhood. From my earliest days they allowed me the kind of independence that many of my peers didn’t have—whether it was my period of digging, or the times in early elementary school when I went solo camping in the mountains several miles above our home. In solitude, I felt more deeply immersed in my surroundings. It felt natural.”