Finding What Is

Willie has always lived an unconventional life. Surrounded by the sensual, ethereal images of her artist-mother, she fantasizes about the half-wolf, half-human, but all-gorgeous face that stares out at her from her mother's wall, and drinks in her mother's stories of past lovers and adventures. She shares her home with a man who calls himself "uncle" (who stalks her through the house, naked). Her closest friends are a band of misfits who've forged their own way in life-including Xavier, who has carved his name in her soul- and her heart is torn between him and a college professor, a fellow artist who wants more than a student-teacher relationship. Willie stands on the brink of womanhood poised to follow in her mother's footsteps, with a gleaming future as an artist looming before her, and a maturity beyond her years that has enabled her to be the protector and caretaker of others, a mender of wounds. But as a devastating illness rips her mother from her life, Willie is left bereft of a home and of a sense of self. Guided only by her instincts, Willie wanders from her Professor's arms to the home that Xavier shares with his live-in girlfriend Nicole (who insists that they can "share"). Her path becomes a search for peace, for family, for a love that's real, and for her place in this world. Finding What Is chronicles the journey that we all must take-to find ourselves, to reconcile our past, and to get back to that place we once called home.