Yesterday's exercise in prose writing was an interesting thought experiment. I am enrolled in an introductory personal essay/memoir class which means that my mates are a hodge podge of experiences. During the sharing out loud portion of the class, one woman wrote of a first kiss, 2 others wrote about their relationships with their fathers and their dysfunctional families. It was painful to listen to and while the material of family (part of my current project) is rich for mining, it has always been very clear to me that it is a long road from therapy to transformation to art. I avoided any deep topics and wrote about the Japanese tea house where Kort and I met and fell in love.