We all want to fly.

We forget. In our hustling, emotional, important, unbalanced, average, spiritual, and cynical lives- we forget. We forget to sit down, put our feet up , and open a book. We forget the way a good book can make us feel, can change the way we feel. We forget how a book can capture lessons of a different life, from a different time and place, and bring them right into our hands. We forget that literature is an artifact, a relic, reprinted and rebound, maybe with a new flashy cover, or larger print for older audiences, that is made just for us to open and continue.

I'm going to make it a point not to forget. We can look at the past to better represent our ideas and perceptions of the present. We can take away so much more than joys and laughs, if we put the work into reading literature.

In a world talking and buzzing about politics (and rightfully so,) I think we should put forth our efforts, and refocus our attention on some words of a different time. I'm going to take a look at a short story by Katherine Mansfield written in 1922, The Fly. Written post-World War I, Mansfield's story collects the physical and emotional wreckage left behind, and invites us to compare. We can make striking metaphors of the main characters, and apply their struggles with those of today's political parties, nations at war, and homes in turmoil. Katherine Mansfield was a spectacular writer and admired by Virginia Woolf. Deeply promiscuous and true to her time, Mansfield tore into human experiences, and was able to expose patterns of human emotion.

If you haven't before, or want to again, read Mansfield's short story The Fly.

I know you're twisting and burning in anticipation for me to spell out some comparison; to do the work for you. You want me to tell how the boss is filled with resentment and burdened with the inability to grieve properly, and the fly is a symbol of the pain and grief families and people experience years after a loss, seconds after they've "cleaned" themselves off. Well you're right, and there, I said it.

However, I know Mansfield's story speaks more than metaphors. It speaks to the human condition. How can six years of pent up grief lead to an undoing of the boss's character? Why does he allow himself to go down that road? How many times have we acted destructively because we can't handle how or who we are presently? And how many times have we expected miracles from mortals, in a vain effort to keep ourselves from hearing a reality that tells us, "maybe not this time,"?

"What does this have to do with politics? What does this have to do with the election?" you might be asking yourself- or me for that matter.

But I've set the path to walk down, and you have feet.
You're smart, you can figure it out.