Traditional labels to describe sexual identity and gender were certainly not right for you, but in all areas of your life aren't you someone who does not fit or who does not like being put into categories?

Joy S. McDiarmid: Yes, you're nearly right. To fit, for anyone, is to be stale, perhaps even boring. As human beings we need challenge to prepare us for growth. That achieved, each of us is closer to our potential. At age seventy I am now more satisfied with my progress in areas where I have been tested.

In your imaginary "journeys" on the Clickety Clack Express, did you ever envision a safe and secure destination?

McDiarmid: Security is not a human condition. My train journeys were actually adventures, as well as being a search for human warmth and acceptance "in my corner of the world." To me the "destination" is not a place but a state of satisfaction.

In the book you describe becoming an enthusiastic photographer. However, while photos of you appear with early chapters, they are absent from later chapters. Why?

McDiarmid: When you leaf through a photo album, what do you usually find? People. Smiles. Life at a given instant. The content is unknown to you, unless the photo­grapher sits beside you, giving explanations. What's missing is reality and context.

          When I was a child, I asked my mother for photo albums. What I got was the cardboard frames of her wedding. No albums at all. I deduced their life was lacking in activity and people.

          When I was older I wanted to be a photographer who travelled in search of people of all lands. I also decided that the albums of photos I had of younger years-the tough years-did not tell a story of consequence. At the very least they told stories of an unhappy child, in turmoil, engaged in "have-to" activities. Many of those photographs taunted me back into spaces of my mind where I did not want to go.

          In any photo I took I wanted to see truth. I wanted to feel what I saw through the lens. I have a few photographs by which I can remember certain times, but true to my way of life, I have a "clean house." The photos of yesteryear have been burned, literally. I unleashed the turmoil of yesterdays.

What qualities do you believe are needed by readers who identify with pain and suffering like you've endured in your own life?

McDiarmid: Courage. Belief in self. Willingness to open up, to lay your story flat out so that honest help becomes available.

What did writing these memoirs teaches you about your life?

McDiarmid: I didn't set out to write my memoirs. I began this book as a story of a lost child and how that child weathered storms beyond her ability to influence them. That said, I did learn from the writing of the book. Teachings to take away from the experience include this major thought: you are what you are. Live with this productively.