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Block Three visual identity — spiny devil

Contents of A Life Between the Layers

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Block Three

Returning to particular people and experiences, their later effects on memory, health and identity, and the methods that gradually made those layers possible to examine.

The music nun, the repeated piano lessons of my early childhood, the ritual of getting out silently, and the effect those experiences may have had on my relationship with music for decades.

Herbert Kemp, the safe place he gave me as a child, the protection and future he tried to provide, and the events that ended with his death in 1962.

The hospital doors, Bill Allison, the injuries that followed, and the way the meaning of that event changed as later questions were asked.

A psychiatric crisis, changing diagnoses, involuntary treatment and the evidence that later raised serious questions about the diagnosis which survived it.

Childhood experiences described as tests and exorcisms, the return of memories involving alcohol and water, and learning to preserve what can be known without forcing the gaps closed.


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