Self Measurement

Treasure Island, Florida 1962

For a number of years, I made it a point to read Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek  and found, just as the author of this article did, the lines, phrases and stories that captured my attention in 1975 were very different from those that had meaning twenty five years later.  And how I'd love to return to the hotel and beach where we vacationed as children!  If,  "the regular re-experience of certain buildings can be a kind of emotional or intellectual marathon for the people who come back to experience them" what insight might we gain into Avery's need to visit the same places (store, aisle, and merchandise) each time we are out shopping?  It's easy to label that need as obsession, but might she, in fact, be measuring her physical and emotional self?