Change

Today I was in advanced writing where we read these creative nonfiction essays and basically have class discussions over it. I sort of got into a little fight with a lumberjack looking bald guy with a sandy beard over the importance of a piece and its drama. He found the story with the action and literal death in it to be of more importance and more weight than the ones of subtle changes. "Because in the other ones," he said, "the descriptions at some points were lame."

I'm not saying death is not a weighty thing, I completely agree. But I was trying to convey to him that even the most subtle of changes can carry big meanings. For example, although the descriptions could be cheesy at points I loved the "Cloud Crossing" piece by Scott Russell Sanders the most. I love nature for one and I think clouds are very pretty. But the biggest theme in the story was definitely this "seize the day" concept. The piece starts with a man whom takes his 1 year old son out for a hike up a mountain when his wife had advised against it.

He relates it subtley to the period of time when they damned up the mahoning river and it covered the hiking trails he would go on as a kid - when he lost the ability to relive these things. He is basically giving his son a knock-off of the same memories he had.

This piece made me think of when I was very small, and although I can't remember it how my father used to carry me on his back by the train tracks that were still running by our house. That train is long gone now. Now it is an empty stretch of land that extends from Andover into Orwell and when I come back in 15 to 20 years to show my children where I grew up - that train track land might be a road with houses, a development, a bunch of buildings clumped together. Nature is temporary, Clouds, People, Moments, and also unfortunately the ability to share memories.