Probably my dad, he accepted me for who I was as a weird little kid, never pushed for conformity as far as I could tell. He got me grownup books to read when I was little because I read like a grownup. Got me spicy food, talked about economics, the Tao, the poems of Omar Khyam. My mom didn’t talk down to me or anything but just didn’t really connect because we were so different as people.

He died when I was a teenager, but I have mostly been able to do this for my kids, because it was modeled for me. You are who you are, you don’t have to conform or do “normal” things in the usual order to fit in the world, you are part of the world. Doesn’t mean it’s always comfortable, but that’s true for anybody.