Mastering Memphis, step five

Meeting Jesse meant several fantastic and exciting changes for me.  For one, I now had someone with which to share the joys of college football.  At that time, she was my only friend with a TiVo or an iPod, so that was cool.  The click wheel was so novel.  I discovered a bunch of new music and I had the option of eating fresh, cooked food that did not have to be heated in a microwave.  Also, I started turning left at the light at Park and Cherry.  Before I met Jesse, a la Zoolander, I had only turned right (that was the direction of the Target).  And, as if that wasn't enough, I now had a host of people who could barely contain their excitement and curiosity upon meeting me.  For some reason, there were literally hundreds of people who became very interested in meeting me and finding out everything they could about me.  Before, it was just me, Biff, and McFly, but now, it was odd people with names like Buster or Bubba or Gerald or Michael.  If this eclectic group of people had one thing in common, it was that they all cared deeply for Jesse and wanted to make sure that she hadn't fallen in with the wrong type.  If they had two things in common, it was that they all met at the same place to worship the Lord on Sundays.

Before I met Jesse, I had spent a couple of months at Sycamore View because I'd had some friends from undergrad who were there.  In fact, when I first met Jesse, I stayed out there for awhile longer because I didn't want to leave one place and then show up a month later and have to explain my absence.  It didn't take long for me to change my mind and head over to Highland for good.  It took even less time for me to be welcomed without reservation into a very big family.

The first time I met Buster was at the old duplex on Ellsworth after a Wednesday night when I was still at SVCC.  It was cold and I had a hoodie on.  It was dark, but he introduced himself and we chatted shortly before he left (it was cold).  Buster told Jesse and Brooke the next day that he thought I looked like Nathan Shank.  I think he's changed his mind since then.

I also remember the first time I went to Intermission.  I was in the lobby before we left on Saturday morning and some guy I had never seen before walked up to me and said, "Hey.  You seen that new intern girl? (Kyla Kiser) She's pretty cute.  You should go talk to her."  I responded, "Yeah.  I actually think that Jesse girl is cute.  She's my girlfriend."  Nice to meet you, Alan Moltz.

I'd met her once before, but that weekend was also the first time I'd see Leslie and Jonathan together.  The first huddle I attended (with Jesse - apparently, it was bring your boyfriend to huddle day) was also the first time I met Sarah Bagley.  I honestly don't remember the first time I met Gerald and Susie or Pam and Steve, but it wasn't long before the word got out that I was a keeper and I found myself spending Easter at the Guinn's or stopping by for a coke at the Jerkins.  It should also be noted that on our honeymoon, Gerald (what's the most graceful word I can use)... Gerald gently hoisted Susie through the back window of our house so they could get in to feed Owens.  That's what family does, I suppose.

I may not be able to come up with a more graceful word for "hoist," but certainly "family" fits and it's true to this day.  Memphis wouldn't be home for us without family.  And though it's expanding, I think it's safe to say that our Memphis family will always have strong Highland ties.

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]?"

Too Long for Twitter

"A method of meditation or a form of contemplation that merely produces the illusion of having 'arrived somewhere,' of having achieved security and preserved one's familiar status by playing a part, will eventually have to be unlearned in dread [ie, an overwhelming sense of one's own unavoidable unholiness before a holy God] - or else we will be confirmed in the arrogance, in the unpenetrable self-assurance of the Pharisee.  We will become impervious to the deepest truths.  We will be closed to all who do not participate in our illusion.  We will live 'good lives' that are basically inauthentic, 'good' only as long as they permit us to remain established in our respectable and impermeable identities.  The 'goodness' of such lives depends on the security afforded by relative wealth, recreation, spiritual comfort, and a solid reputation for piety.  Such 'goodness' is preserved by routine and the habitual avoidance of serious risk - indeed of serious challenge.  In order to avoid apparent evil, this pseudo-goodness will ignore summons of genuine good.  It will prefer routine duty to courage and creativity.  In the end it will be content with established procedures and safe formulas, while turning a blind eye to the greatest enormities of injustice and uncharity."

-Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer