Thursday, October 30, 2008

Day One!

When I graduated from high school, my parents bought me a typewriter with a cartridge that could be inserted when I wanted to white-out a mistake. The typewriter seemed extraordinary. No more erasable paper for me! Today, with the help of Nikki Leigh, I created a blog. I decided to call my blog Pentimento, with a nod to Lillian Hellman and her wonderful novel of the same name. I think it is a fitting title for my blog, as well as a meaningful introduction to The Sinner's Guide to Confession. In some ways, all of our lives are shaped by layers of experience ane secrets these experiences generate. Pentimento, the process by which painters often use the same canvas for drafts is an analagous concept. The original painting is exposed when the top layer becomes translucent with age. Perhaps we all become more "translucent" with age, our secrets push to the surface, demanding to be heard, needing to be understood. It makes sense, then, that we choose our confessors even before we are ready to confess.

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