Pages from my autobiography

One day a few years ago I was listening to NPR and I came across a story by a man talking about his daughter’s search for the right college fit. He was blown away by the entire process – and his daughter’s l’aissez faire attitude about spending tens of thousands of dollars based on “feel.”

He talked about being awestruck by campus visits and intimidated by the application procedure. One college asked her to submit page 364 of her autobiography. He said he was 50 and his autobiography would fit on an index card. Undoubtedly that’s not true but I’ve used that idea – of summarizing your life on an index card – in a number of ways since then.

The other day I thought back to that story, which for whatever reason has really stayed with me. I was thinking about what page 364 of my own autobiography would read like. As it happened, this occurred to me on an eight hour road trip where the idea really had time to percolate. You are now reading the beginning of the results of that road trip.

I will be posting one page out of each chapter of my autobiography over the coming weeks, from my birth in Ann Arbor, Michigan through my early years in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, teen years at an alternative school, college in the Big Ten, my history with mental illness, choosing librarianship as a profession, married life, on being fat, a lifelong quest for religious meaning, and final notes.

I hope you will enjoy this ride with me.