Summary

In the first part of this chapter, which is titled “The Place I Was From,”, the author discusses the sometimes-conflicting perspectives and settings that defined her life, including “the city and the country … a somewhat conservative upbringing and a liberal adulthood … the physical world where I talk to people and the formless dimension where I talk to you” (247), you being “August.” She describes feeling torn between her life in the city at school and her life on the farm with Betty and Arnie, and how much she loved watching the formation of tornadoes, commenting that in spite of how dangerous they were, they always felt to her like “some sort of pressure was breaking” (249).

The author then goes on to describe how at one point, when she was in high school, Betty decided it was time to reunite with her son. Accompanied by...