One item in particular caught my attention today: A binder filled with classwork and journals from my last couple of semesters at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. One section was devoted to my required ENG 313 course: the Art of the Essay. I don't know if that was its actual title, but it was the one we used.
It was during that class that I truly developed my writing style. Despite having taken other writing courses since then, I still largely hold to what I learned in that class. Its textbook is, by far, the most annotated text that I own, filled with highlighting, margin notes, and dog-eared pages. As I scanned through my writings from that class (from which many of my personal essays on Chicken, Alaska, originated), I found myself in bittersweet nostalgia. It was nice to get a chance to "talk" with my younger self, a man half my age. Unfortunately, some of that discussion found my current self lacking.
One of my reflection writings about what sort of writer I want to be plainly stated that I had the "determination to rock the world some day" with my writing. I often shy away from this particular dream as it burns a bit when I look directly at it. I have contented myself with smaller successes, and I am genuinely happy with my life. Still, I would like to feel the fire again that burned within me those many years ago.