As I will share in this book, I have built over time a deep kinship with species that have been maligned by other humans—venomous snakes, fungal parasites, soil-dwelling insects, slippery spineless beings—and the “undesirable” habitats they call home. Of these, snakes were my first love. Their habitats were also my refuge; their complication of category—somewhere between earthly and demonic—needed no explanation to me, a child who found herself within the dysphoric double consciousness of an amphibious personhood. Together we could slither between the rocky contours of the world, both natural
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