Mastering Memphis, steps four and following

Keeping a blog is an interesting process.  You choose to keep one and no one else really makes you.  But, if you don't maintain it regularly, it can become a source of guilt, stress or frustration.  Of course, if you do maintain it, the same can be true...  all because of something you choose to do.  Beyond that, you are choosing to publish words that other people read except, in most cases, you have no idea what they think about it.

Take my last post, for example.  Not only did I use the antiquated phrase, "dear reader," I also thought it was clever to refer to Jesse as "said female" as if there were some kind of mystery about who she was.  Sorry about that.


The truth is, it's difficult to fit Jesse into one moment or one step in the process of making Memphis home.  That's because it wasn't just one step among others - it's been every step since the day I met her.   Every step since that day has included her, in one way or another.  From helping her walk Owens down Ellsworth on Sunday mornings to her helping me edit last minute bibliographies, I found a friend who quickly became God's richest blessing in my life.  Jesse is technicolor to my black-and-white - my life would be so much less rich and full without her in it.

The first time I wrote nice things about Jesse on my blog, people thought I was proposing.  This time, as then, I don't have a particular reason except that I'm in love and I want to express it publicly in words.

When I moved here, I didn't like it at all.  The only people I saw every day were Biff and McFly and a perfect day included me being anywhere but Memphis.  Now, the perfect day includes me being anywhere in Memphis with Jesse.  I can't imagine life without her, and thankfully, I don't have to.

Mastering Memphis, step four

Shortly after I arrived in Memphis, I (along with Biff, McFly and several others) was invited to a dinner at the apartment of HUGSR secretary/student, Amy Hagedorn.  As the first person one saw when walking through the doors of the main building on campus, Amy was the hub of most HUGSR activities.  She had taken it upon herself to host a dinner for the new and returning students who lived on campus.  Since HUGSR is more masculine than The Situation's abs, it makes sense that she would invite at least one other female student.  Said other female arrived late, in a t-shirt and jeans.  She mistook Biff's name (the real one) as Bruce.  I thought this was funny - he kinda looked like a Bruce.  Said other female was funny and cute.  Incredibly, she was in the minority of people in the apartment that night who actively watched and liked sports.  Said female happened to be my teammate for the inevitable game of Trivial Pursuit and as far as anyone knows, we won (I'm pretty sure that the night ended before the game did).  We won even though one of us knew that the start of every Kentucky Derby is heralded by "My Old Kentucky Home" but deferred to the other's insistent guess of the William Tell Overture.  Said female was single.

Now, lest you, dear reader, decide that fate had provided but one choice, I should admit (to my shame) that said female was not the only female attracting my attention at that time.  That may be too vague.  It would have been much easier if said male was single.  Clearer?  Regardless, I wasn't, so this chance encounter began with the timeless and always ill-conceived manly attempt to be honorable during the overlapping end and beginning of relationships.  It would be the first of many times where the present would seem much less shameful than time would show it to be.  I bring this up for a reason: it gives me an opportunity to point out that said female has been gracious and forgiving to me from the beginning.  Grace and forgiveness are things often required by me, being a man.

Too many details for this post took place over those early months.  Auburn games, runs together, ironed t-shirts, Red Sox games, TiVo, rocking chairs, hoodies, city maps, who chased whom, Sunday morning dog walks... this is starting to look like a junior high yearbook, pages-long note.  It didn't take long for said female to become the female.  I like to say that said female was the first normal person I met in Memphis.  In truth, that couldn't be farther from it.  I'd never met (and still haven't) another human like her and I really liked her.  So much so, that she's going to need at least two steps in this process of mastering Memphis... stay tuned.

Too Long for Twitter

"Thou, O Lord, canst transform my thorn into a flower.  And I want my thorn transformed into a flower.  Job got the sunshine after the rain, but has the rain been all waste?  Job wants to know, I want to know, if the shower had nothing to do with the shining.  And thou canst tell me - Thy Cross can tell me.  Thou hast crowned Thy sorrow.  Be this my crown, O Lord.  I only triumph in Thee when I have learned the radiance of the rain."

- George Matheson.

"The fruitful life seeks showers as well as sunshine."

Wow.  That is some good old-fashioned theology.  As Dr. Fortner would say, "How can you have faith and not know... [this]?"