And Then There's Gatsby

There are days when college seems absolutely ages ago. I'm not going to go into any specifics, but a decade does come into play if I'm going to be honest. And in the time that has transpired, I have moved around a lot. It's not just about changes in place, but changes in focus and life and oh so many other bits and pieces of transformation. At the same time, when I think of the me I was then, I still feel like I know her, like we're connected intimately on so many levels. She's still a person I would want to take the time to consider a friend.

I can't deny that I allowed a bit of snobbery to affect my school persona. I was one of those student types, and I took it on completely, sometimes to the detriment of kindness when I felt the ideas of others were subpar. But time has passed, and while I've had the chance to proof read a couple university thesis papers for former students over the last two years, it's been a long time since I've had to do any sort of elevated writing. I'm sure that if I pulled out my college essays I would be tragically amazed by what I knew that has now just floated away into the dimmest reaches of my mind. Not that I've fully sunk to idiocy, but the days when I basked in the glow of the Intelligentsia...

A few weeks ago, I saw a preview for "The Great Gatsby." It was a purely magical display of color and light, typical of the Baz Luhrman theatrical style, and I was instantly caught up in the desire to refresh my memory regarding this glorious achievement in American Literature. I picked up the copy I read back in my Simpson days, and found myself instantly immersed in memory. My wiggly underlining and scribbled side notes recalled the era so clearly. Though my actual recollections of the story are hazy, just reading the opening lines drew me back into the me I once was. Of course, as I read it now there are different lines that pique my interest, new themes that draw my attention in, life experiences that color the way I view the characters and they way they interplay with one another, but the beauty of the language, and the clarity of thought with which F. Scott Fitzgerald weaves his story still captivate me utterly.

It is so easy to get so caught up in the daily routines of life that the freshness of each new day becomes dull. Life becomes little more than the passage of days scratched in the walls of a prison cell. The hopes of the future are dim wishes, clouded by the struggles of keeping a business running. I find myself removed so far from the me I thought I was that I scarcely know who I am any more. But reading this book brings the past back poignantly, even though it is impossible to repeat it. Reopening the door, taking a walk, seeing things anew in varying shades of light.



I suddenly realized not all the pictures I wanted ended up here. Hmm...Let's see if I can find the rest of my self promoting poser shots...



Okay, that's better. I have now successfully demonstrated that the girl with the spiky blue hair that I knew to be me my senior year of college is more a figment of my imagination at this stage than any sort of reality...