I have to say, upon first glance I did not appreciate Berry's writing "The Art of the Common Place". I found it long and tiresome and ended up putting it down for a while before completing the reading. However, when I returned to it, I found that I really enjoyed some of the things he had to say. Berry made a lot of really simple but powerful statements that I could entirely relate to. He starts off his story by describing his journey back to his homeland of Kentucky. Though he claims to love the area, he says "here, in the place I love more than any other and where I have chose among all other places to live my life, I am more painfully divided within myself than I could be in any other place" (10). This phrase truly struck a chord with me as certain times when I venture back home, I can walk around my town and feel like I am reliving my past years. I can see a playground and immediately picture my friends and I on the swings on a late summer night, trying to cool down and escape. I can see everything, no matter where I turn, for better or for worse. Still though, "familiarity has begun" (14) and that in itself is reason enough to stay. Even though he may not have found everything he was looking for, it was clear that he was still able to learn from his stay. The regrets he had were not of his own journey so it seemed, but rather of the people who may have come before or after him, people who did not live in the same time as he, and therefore did not develop the same ideals. I can understand this process, this necessary journey, and for this I respect and really enjoyed his work.

As with Berry's reading, we only recieved part of Ondaatje's "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid," so it was slightly confusing as we did not have the full background of the characters. Despite this though, I found it very easy to pity Sally. Though she welcomed humans and animals alike and always offered them a place to stay, it seemed that she could never offer herself. Everyone who stayed at her home saw her as almost ghostlike, living her life in the dark. She followed the same routine each day in silence. One would expect a home bursting with welcomed strangers to have more noise and life inside its walls, but instead it was just the opposite. I feel bad that she is viewed like this by everyone she selflessly opens her home to. I also wonder how she can find it in her heart to allow so many people into her home, when it seems more like she truly wants nothing to do with them. I am curious about the rest of Billy's stays- was Sally always like this? How does he deal with that and morever, why does he keep coming back? I would be interested to see if these questions are answered in the rest of his work.

I really enjoyed the article "A Narrative Life" by Pagnucci. I liked his idea that the stories of our childhood shape us forever and that children are born knowing how to put all their thoughts into story from. My mom was laughing the other day as she was telling me a story about my work from a second grade assignment that she recently found. Each student was to write a piece on the topic which would be put into a collaborative class book. While some people had a few sentences, I had pages and pages of work. It was clear to me from that story that  my love for putting pen to paper and writing to "embrace my stories" as Pagnucci would call it, began even before I could remember. I definitely agree that writing is powerful. It can help you record or remember stories. While you are preserving your memories, you are also preserving a part of yourself. Stories are indeed magic, at least in my life. "If we tell our own stories, preserve them, study them, we can find in our stories some of the answers for which we're looking." This perfectly describes my life. Writing is soothing to me; sometimes it is the only thing I can do to clear my mind. It allows me a fresh start, for which I am forever grateful. I would be lost if I did not do this, as I think Pagnucci would agree.

Though I enjoyed Gopnik's article "Paris to the Moon" as well, I did not find it as easy to follow as Pagnucci's piece. There were a lot of interesting ideas, but with the combination of the storyline jumping around and the fact that we did not read the whole story, it was a bit confusing. This piece seemed to focus much more so on the imagery and tale ideas he wanted to create. As the author described the differences between Paris and New York, I could see myself in each of the places, even without the personal knowledge to back me. I found that impressive. I particularly liked the image of the merry go round and striving for the brass ring. Though this is not an entirely unusual idea, it felt very new and unique in this context. I also enjoyed the reference to it being an American metaphor; constantly striving and yet never quite grasping the desired object. Still though, I couldn't exactly see how this fit into his stories about Paris, unless they served primarily to emphasize how different the two places are. Overall, I liked his stories, but it did not have the same impact on me as Pagnucci's piece.