"Thank ya, Lord"

I couldn't have been anymore excited this week when I realized that we finally had an assignment to read that wasn't poetry, which I am sure is pretty similar to the response Latmott's agent had when Latmott finally sent in something new. I'm not much of a poetry fan, so this was a great new speed of pace for me.

I picked up Bird by Bird and didn't want to put it down until I had finished. Ann Lamott is very fun and brings to life much her suggestions on writing. I countlessly "laughed out loud" while reading through the first 60 or so pages. And although I enjoyed everything I had read, her character chapter stuck out to me the most.

The suggestions she made about allowing the characters the freedom to be who they are rather than making them be someone for a book is great advice. I'm excited to sit down and write in that way.

Another thing that I found interesting is that she said just sit and write, write everything you can remember from your childhood. Because it's ok to be bad at a rough draft, no one is going to read that anyhow, except of course if you happen to die before you can finalize that work.

Just reading through the first third of the book has motivated me to start just sitting down and writing everything that I can remember as far back as possible. I'm excited and look forward to this section of the class!

Division of Things

I really liked part 2 of "Sit In What City We're In" the best out of the rest of the parts of City Eclogue. Most of the time when I was reading, I wasn't inspired to think beyond the text and dive into what the meaning behind the poems were. However, this part of the poem actually took me into more of the meaning and what I think the author might have been trying to say.

I'm not sure that I actually completely understand what the author was saying, but I've created meaning for myself out of it. I especially liked this line, "You can't smash the mirror there but it break here. And in it you see that you can't see your own back, your angel of unfamiliar, of that not like your face...See." What I take from that is that we are constantly learning new things about ourselves and that at no point in time we will know completely who we are. There is always going to be some part of ourselves that we don't understand.

Which I can relate to life in general. As I've gotten older, my thought process has completely changed itself over time. Obviously, age brings changes. And who I am presently isn't who I will be in my future, so I feel like everything is going to constantly be changing and nothing is going to stay the same for awhile. So in the poem, not being able to see your own back, kept me thinking about these parts of life.