Our Town is an ordinary town, just like any other.
- Thornton Wilder

One of my obsessions, one I'm willing to acknowledge, is Thornton Wilder's 1938 play. Our Town. On one occasion, I drove 350 miles to see a production of it; on another 500 miles. If it's performed anywhere near my home, I am in the audience. If it's presented on TV, I watch. I read it almost yearly. As I am writing this, I have a ticket for a performance in three months in Oregon. As I said, I'm obsessed.

I first read the play as a fifteen- year-old in my sophomore year of high school in American Literature class. You probably did too. Somehow, that play got to me in a way that was deep and permanent. That often happens to us in those early adolescent years- something makes so strong an impression that it lasts a lifetime.

Some critics don't think this is a really great play; perhaps it isn't. No matter; it's mine in a very intimate way and, to me, it is great.

It's a harmless obsession. It's mildly annoying to my partner (Please don't ask me to it through that again!) and mysterious to my friends (Yes, I remember reading it in school. You've seen it how many times? Why?) I have no answer to these comments and queries; there is no answer. Our Town is part of me in a way that is permanent and mysterious. I love it.

Here's another admission: every time I see it, I cry. It's not really anything I can control and it's often embarrassing to me and to anyone with me. There are several points at which tears may well up, but the one sure spot is during Emily's monologue in the third act: " Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me."

What is your obsession? A place? A book? A poem? Some other written work? An occasion? A person or people? An age or period of life? Shapes or designs? A piece of are? A color? Or...?

Awaken to what is in you personally, deeply, permanently.

Excerpt from Awaken Mind by David Kundtz