I can't believe it has been nearly three weeks since I blogged. This is unacceptable and I plan to remedy this lack of putting forth thoughts into the world right this instant. Here we go...
Res. Life has us do these little written reflections from time to time which we read to the group at a Res. Life meeting and then they get bound into a lovely book filled with everyone's reflections. Last year we did "This I Believe" statements which was really quite wonderful. I stewed and stewed about the topic of my essay for last year. Should I write about small towns? Chocolate? 20 year friendships? I ended up writing about Disneyland which turned out to be an essay about the power of second chances and giving things a go again once you give yourself the opportunity to grow up a little bit.
This year's theme is "Attitude of Gratitude" which may look familiar to some of you. If it doesn't, please reference the top of this blog. You would think for someone who has literally titled her blog about having an attitude geared towards gratitude would have a variety of things to talk about, but alas, I was miffed. Should I focus my efforts on my love of supervising students? Developing relationships with my colleagues? Exploring the city that I love? Puppies and rainbows? I waited a really long time for inspiration to hit so here it is:
I didn't know what to write about for a really long time. My problem was not a lack of inspiration, but that I am grateful for an abundance of things in my life. Should I write about service? Social justice? My lovely colleagues? Lady Gaga? The city I love? The wonders of Tivo? My ridiculous staff? I guess it is a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. I struggled with this for so long I actually sent in a sub-par essay to Lori as a placeholder because I just couldn't narrow it down.
I finally decided to write about service, but then I decided it was a little cliche coming from me. It's no secret that I love service, am grateful for service and more importantly, am grateful for the lessons that service has taught me while at LMU. This thought process brought me to a particular lesson I've learned through opportunities that service has given me.
While on my AB trip to Mexico last March I had the great pleasure of meeting Gerardo and Katy, the owners of Casa Hoy a service-themed hostel located in Cuernavaca, Mexico. On the first day at Casa Hoy we sat down as a group and Gerardo went over our iternary, what to expect when we went to our service placement in the middle of the Mexican desert and generally calmed the fears of 12 very nervous Americans. At the end of the night Gerardo introduced the concept of "convivir" which loosely translates as a Spanish verb meaning "to truly and genuinely connect with another person." Gerardo challenged us to find moments to convivir while on the trip. It would be difficult. Difficult to convivir with fellow group members when they share something during a reflection that you disagree with. Difficult to convivir with a seemingly ageless grandmother who doesn't speak Spanish, much less English, whose bedroom you and 7 women have overtaken for that week. Difficult to convivir with children who are apprehensive of you because you look like the people that come to play with them for a week and then are never to be seen again.
Gerardo told us that if we get nothing else from this trip, we should take back with us the concepts of conviviring together. This ended up happening in surprising ways. While on a hike together, while picking up cow dung in 100+ degree heat together, while teaching the kids how to play the card game "Speed," which needs no language translation. It came when the entire group brushed their teeth together and rinsed and spit into the plants as not to waste precious water. It came when telling ghost stories until three in the morning and bonding over the fact that nobody's digestive tract would ever be the same. The group really experienced conviviring over breakfasts of hand-made flour tortillas, lunches under the shade of a lone tree and dinners that were filled with laughter and story-telling.
I am grateful that I have been able to use this concept of conviviring while back at LMU. Maybe this was when anyone one of you stops to visit me at my "RD Drive-Through Window" for a five-minute conversation about your day or when we all guilt-trip each other into coming to the Lair for lunch or staying late at the Crimson Lion. It comes when you go up to Malone to drop off a judicial file and end up visiting nearly everyone on the second and third floors. We are able to convivir in the walkways between meetings, training our staff, or stealing glances during meetings when something strikes two of us as hilarious at exactly the same time.
Those moments, those conversations, those full-body bouts of laughter with co-workers that have become dear friends make me truly, deeply grateful. The e-mail chains of ridiculous pictures of animals with poor grammar or a six-hour tennis tournament on one of our few days off are all moments when we are able to convivir and for that, I am grateful.
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