Momaday's The Way To Rainy Mountain

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Drip by Drop

Your memory is a place that is sacred, it is where your imagination runs wild. Your favorite place may be the same feel as your favorite book. Your memory defines your sense of direction. Literature and place are both written and seen very descriptively, but you never see what isn 't there. The wind, for example, shows how your imagination can place you in a special atmosphere. When the wind stops, time does as well. When the wind is softly gracing against your skin, you may feel a sense of longing. There are many forms of capturing the essence of place, whether its in a poem, memoir, or an essay. In this way, you document the moment so it may last forever. Literature and place have been referenced throughout American literature for over centuries. It has been used in the writings of nature to express the vision that takes place in it. In the essay, “A Literature of Place,” by Barry Lopez,
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Scott Momaday, is a story of his past. Momaday explains how his grandmother was the last of the kiowas and that, in itself, made her special. He goes on to say that she still kept in touch with the tribe because he remembers how some kiowas, greasy hair and all, came to visit. Momaday was young, and this crafted how he saw his grandmother and the stories she told him sparked his imagination. When the time comes that his grandmother passes, he returns to the place that triggered his memory and drove his imagination. Momaday writes, “Your imagination comes to life and this (Rainy Mountain), you think, is where creation was begun” (p 521). After re-experiencing his grandmother 's past and remembering her on the porch of her house, he looks towards Rainy Mountain and he writes, “A cricket had perched upon the handrail...My line of vision was such that the creature filled the moon like a fossil” (p 526). Even after the storytelling is over, his imagination still thrives, as the place he was in now, was his
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