the last pages

I finished Isabel Allende's memoir, "My Invented Country," last week, but was hesitant to place the book on my shelf -- out of reach of my attention -- because I still wanted to linger on the last couple pages. As anyone who has fell in love with books knows, there is nothing quite so satisfying as a really, really good ending.

I really took to this book, as I mentioned earlier, because it honed in on two central themes of my life thus far: writing and home.

The last two pages tie up those two themes in a way that I found neither forced nor overly sentimental, but poignant and perfect satiating. Probably, because she had spoken so directly to my experiences and my own world view. Of course, we can't help but be drawn to the things that so eloquently articulate us and what we know:

In the slow practice of writing, I have fought with my demons and obsessions, I have explored the corners of my memory, I have dredged up stories and people from oblivion, I have stolen others' lives, and from all this raw material I have constructed a land that I call my country. That is where I come from.

&

I am a writer because I was born with a good ear for stories, and I was lucky enough to have an eccentric family and the destiny of a wanderer. The profession of literature has defined me. Word by word I have created the person I am and the invented country in which I live.