And I am all of them. I think.

Like, I’m pretty sure I don’t think like other people. Aside from the things I see when I’m making art, I bet I spend way more time than most people thinking about things that could exist versus all the things that do exist. Like once I spent a week dreaming about all the different ways an elephant could look. Like what if their ears were softer and covered in fur and stuck up in the air?

When I was six, I had an imaginary friend named Danny, a purple unicorn who was also a lawyer and a model. And I would spend all this time talking to Danny about fashion and my dreams, and my moms would have to remind me that he was imaginary so I would calm down about getting him to his auditions and court appearances on time.

“If Danny’s not there, who else is going to stand up for the little creatures of the magic forest?” I wailed, on a particularly vexing day. “Who will grace the cover of Unicorn Fair?”

“Oh, sweetie,” Lucy cooed, “why do you insist on using your imagination to worry yourself into more problems?”

I had a friend once who was obsessed with knowing which of my moms I was “actually related to.” Which to me was and is just absurd (and I would never tell her, which is why we stopped being friends). Like, honestly, who cares? One, we’re a family; two, they both have to look after me—it’s not like biology changes that; and three, I am so clearly the result of both of their influences and obsessions. Like how Lucy likes to learn as many new things as possible. For example, the whole reason I learned how to roller-skate was because she saw a movie about roller-skating and then she wanted to learn how and teach me how.

The gift that keeps on giving.

And Millie is the artist who likes to try to look at things from as many different angles as possible. Like how she takes pictures of people from a camera mounted over their heads or at their feet, which is the series she started working on before we moved to Greenville.

As moms, sometimes I think Lucy has more patience for my stuff because she’s a teacher. But I think Millie gets me more because she’s an artist. Like, I think Millie gets why I need to make a thing because it’s in my head and I want to see it in the world. Even if the trip from my head to the world can be. . .rocky.