In some ways, living on the outskirts is perhaps in my genes. As a child, I was endlessly preoccupied with the mystical and the “occult,” despite having a staunchly atheist academic dad and being raised in an overwhelmingly secular environment. I have to think that despite this secular upbringing, with my mom essentially renouncing her Judaism at the request of my atheist father, my Jewish heritage helped propel me toward a spiritual quest. I could sense there was something impoverished about life as I knew it, in the mostly conventional American way of life.
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