Something to write about...

"The writer first has to reread to see what is on the draft's page, what is not, what should be....When we read our drafts we are like the archaeologist who finds a fragment of a bowl, the preserved ashes of a fire, a sharpened piece of stone, and then uses a trained imagination to create a civilization." -Donald Murray

Here we are at the end of another spring quarter, the end of another academic year. My students are revising their final papers and portfolios -- all 74 of my students -- and I'm getting ready to read their final papers and portfolios.

I'm thinking, however, about the farm and how these past two weekends sifting through 90 years of clutter and treasures has spun my head so that I can hardly think about anything else.

Which objects "make" a life? Does the archaeologist judge the importance of my life based on the stuff I've acquired and hoarded, the jar of stones picked up on who knows what beach, or the brittle bouncing ball that once went with a set of jacks, the horseshoe saved, the copy of Katie Kittenheart with my name in a childish scrawl inside the front cover?

I like to think I know who I am, but would someone sifting through my things have her own estimation of my identity?