Technology has moved what is known as reality forward in such a rapid manner it’s sometimes difficult for me to reconcile life as I know it now with my early beginnings and my material reality growing up. It’s as if it couldn’t have happened like this, utterly surreal. I lived on a five acre farm with my parents and siblings a few miles outside of a tiny town. The house was also tiny and didn’t have central heat or air or a furnace.

It was originally built as one room and others were added on in succession, even the plaster kitchen. A wood-burning stove was at the center, and eventually we got a window-unit air conditioner. The dining area was sealed up with tarp or sheets on hot nights as it blasted, and we children zipped ourselves up in sleeping blankets on the floor, unable to bear it in our rooms, because it had to run so cold to keep the whole room habitable.

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