Protected: 2011: A Fleeting Glance in the Backward Direction Sometimes Referred to as a Retrospective.

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Recently, one of my literature classes required that we reflect on our own life’s journey as it related to the works we’d read. Also required: reading three pages aloud in class. I tend to be a private person. My posts may seem to defy that declaration, but I assure you the real dirt, the things that are fundamental to how I relate to the world are very personal and rarely revealed to anyone not bound by doctor/patient confidentiality.

I had written something passable, only to chuck the whole thing the day the reading was due. It was the right choice. As my classmates read their lives aloud, I was astounded by the thematic repetition. We share more in kind than not, no matter our age, gender, nationality. I think this is what makes the arts so vastly important, the ability to convey to another an aspect of the human condition to which we can all relate.

So in the spirit of sharing, here’s my (probably) final draft. Please note that references to characters from certain works will pop up: Moby Dick – Ishmael; Into the Wild – Chris McCandless (film by Sean Penn, heavily influenced by Penn’s romanticism of the story); Blue Highways – William Least Heat-Moon; Revolutionary Road – Frank and April Wheeler (also a wonderfully rendered movie with DiCaprio and Winslet); and The Crying of Lot 49 – Opedipa Maas.