I like…cookies.

Yesterday in my Creative Nonfiction class, we read an excerpt from “The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon” written circa 1000.  Sei Shonagon was a Japanese courtier who is credited with writing the first piece of creative nonfiction. The excerpt was fun to read because she basically just lists things she likes and things she thinks ought to be one way or another. Here’s an example:

Oxen should have very small foreheads with white hair; their underbellies, the ends of their legs, and the tips of their tails should also be white.

I like hourses to be chestnut, piebald, dapple-grey, or black roan, with white patches near their shoulders and feet; I also like horses with light chestnut coats and extremely white manes and tails — so white, indeed that their hair looks like mulberry threads.

I like a cat whose back is black and all the rest white.

I always felt guilty for writing that way. It seemed presumptuous to think that others might actually want to read such meaningless opinions for the sake of nothing other than self exposure.  But apparently, that’s what creative nonfiction is, and, truth be told, I enjoyed reading this excerpt because it was interesting to think that my opinions might be the same as that of a woman who lived 1000 years ago…no matter how trivial.