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by L. A. Espriux (Author), Cendi Baugus (Artist)
"Mountains and valleys of changing contour, faces I remember, some present, some gone, captured in imaginings of light and shadow subliminal, all Reflections in a Paper Moon." There is special satisfaction of completion in writing a personal memoir unlike any other genre. In one sense, it represents the opportunity to set the record straight, a first-person narrative perspective on time and events experienced through a generation. Also, it is to be exposed, like striping away one's clothing piece by piece and making bare the pretense of self-importance. To tell one's own story is as much embarrassing, as it is cathartic, a confessional made public for all to judge. Sometimes the hero of a challenge--sometimes the villain--but always made humble by trials and elations based on conditions altogether human within context. Times when heaven brought down to earth through hunger of diminished appetite; and times fulfilled by heavenly blessing. Often an experience humbling when confronted by human weakness, human compassion, and the measure of divine grace. Herein lies the corundum of mortal existence. Remove indoctrination of socialization, definitions of gender, context of cultural values, then what is left? Are we only the sum of our experiences during this short sojourn? Are we merely the handful of earth and thimble of water that makes our biological whole in a fleetingly vast recyclable ocean recorded through a calculated number of lunar cycles? It is the chameleon visage of this familiar moonscape witnessed above, both lovely and frighteningly mysterious, which most haunts the living through constant passage through corridor of heaven. This autobiography set within historical context of an important transition in North American society, representing a loss of innocence and beginning of a New Age philosophy defining mechanical existence: the death of one culture and emergence of another.
