This Is What I Learned: Day 1 of 20

Quick background: I'm at Franciscan University and this is my journal from years' past. I've written in it during various out-of-town adventures. Some pretty cool memories here (Pope John Paul II's funeral, B16's election, playing Fronton in Mexico City, to name a few). This is my last semester at Steubenville and I thought it'd be a good time to write a few entries during my stay here-- if not for your edification, then at least for my sanity.

Over the next 20 days, I am living at the Visitation House for priests-- and the house is empty for the next week. I haven't been by myself in quite a while, so I have been taken back to my years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I lived in an apartment by myself. Biggest adjustment: plotting out what I'm going to eat for the week, going to the store and getting it, and then cooking it at home. Sounds silly, but I haven't had to do that in a long time. Even at the rectories in the past, things were always available around the house. Here, everything is empty. It's like I'm back on my own again....

The house was built in 1906 and I don't think it's been updated since. It's endearing in a way: the oak door frames, the heavy feel as you pull them open, the large front porch which leads to other homes' large front porches with rocking chairs and tables and, on most summer nights, people enjoying the quiet streets from porch or street. It's a different pace and the senses come alive:

Kids are laughing outside. Birds are chirping. Even the smell of the house-- they bring back memories of my first home in Steubenville on Oregon Ave: my room with the beige carpeting like the back of a Bichon Frise, the afternoon sun warming the white plaster walls, an occasional refreshing breeze blowing through sheer, yellow curtains and making the red Gerber daisies on my bookshelves dance. The bed has sheets only, the architectural desk faces the corner, the day's books are on the floor, and I walk around in white socks. I remember it idyllically and care not to remember the long, sometimes agonizing and lonely nights of study: both of the Faith and of my Self: I was awakening. Catechesi Tradendae entered into my world and with it, The Story. Pieces were coming together like tumblers in a lock and I started to see-- really, really see-- for the first time. Hence the name of this blog.

There are many other memories from that Fall Semester which easily stem from the memories derived from this homey smell. There are so many! Five-fifteen Mass at St. Peter's and the confessional doors that hiss as you disappear into a paradoxically safe yet deathy coffin-like space. The canniloni I had made, only to have its red, saucy, and tubular goodness fall to the carpeted-- yes, carpeted-- kitchen floor. The Japenese beetles which plagued my bedroom's windows, and Mary Oborny who would leave scripture verses on note cards atop my work-- neither of which, beetles or Mary, are related, but which nevertheless in memory go together. The wonderful, sleepy hills meandering the Steel Valley near West Virginia-- I could go for a drive there and get lost among them for hours. Yes, memory can be a good thing.

As the calm breeze lightly teases these sheer curtains, like veils once more in my room, I am thankful for this simple little gift of memory. What a shame if we couldn't remember, because of a defect of the mind or never having seen anything beautiful and good. And worse: if we had never taken the time to do so.

What I learned today: every once in a while take 15 minutes to remember with gratitude something good. (I think when I return to the seminary, I'm going to get a pot of Gerber daisies for my windowsill....)