Great Plains of My Heart

     My childhood was pretty fantastic in a number of ways, but one thing I consider myself the luckiest for is having grown up in the Midwest. I was born in New Jersey, but I will always be grateful for the fact that my family moved to Nebraska when I was still a baby. And when I was six we moved to an acreage in eastern South Dakota. Our time in the country were some of the best years of my life. I effectively grew up there, since we didn't move into town until I was fourteen. When I look back on some of the things we did, the games we played, and the peace and solitude we had, I can only be thankful.

   

     The things I learned from growing up in the country are more numerous than I'm sure I realize. We  had a lifestyle in which plans depended in a very real way on the weather, and the success of a season's harvest directly affected what food we put on our table. We lived off the land, to an extent, and I spent hours as a kid picking raspberries, shelling peas, braiding onions, and making applesauce, not to mention the jams we made and the vegetables we froze and stored in the cellar. We also had chickens from whom we collected free-range eggs, and many generations of farm cats who were supposed to help with the rodent population, but really just provided us with hours of fun. And, living in the rural midwest, we ate local grass-fed beef and pork from pigs raised by our friends. We also experienced devastating storms which made us lose power and blew down trees and even our windmill. Every fall, when the farmers harvested the corn or beans from the field across the street, we would get a swarm of asian beetles (orange ladybugs) on our back porch. Sometimes we heard coyotes at night, and more than a few times we came home to find a family of skunks or raccoons eating the cat food in the garage. 

     Midwest people are hardy, largely because of our brutal winters. One Christmas everyone we knew got snowed in and none of us could get to church. The winter of my freshman year in college, we had a solid ten days of -30 degree weather, when it was so cold the cars wouldn't start. The first snowfall would usually happen in October, and we often had blizzards in May and once a huge ice storm in the end of April. After all of that, less deadly weather occurrences seem like a breeze. And when your life can be put on hold like that because of the forces of nature, you tend to be good about going with the flow and not panicking when things don't go according to plan. 

     The sheer space between us and the nearest neighbors, the quiet summer nights with thousands of fireflies, and the time spent playing in our woods and wading in our creek, will always be impressed upon my mind. I am so thankful to have grown up in such an environment, and I am excited to be going back to my roots, in a sense, when I enter the convent! It won't be the midwest, but it will be wonderful to live in the country again, and never have to leave.

Leaving College

     What a summer! Getting ready to enter a convent feels a bit like planning a wedding. Well, maybe not a wedding, but planning to get married. I am just ready for the preparation process to be over, so I can start my new life!

     I spent the summer on campus, working in the TAC admissions office. It was great to be on campus in the peace and quiet, and to have time to do things I don't normally have time for during the school year. It almost felt like a three-month-long retreat. I was also able to get together with friends before leaving campus for good. It doesn't feel real yet that I'll never be back there, but I'm guessing it'll sink in once I start cloistered life. 

     TAC was a blessing in my life in so many ways. On the academic side, of course, college was amazing. I spent two years reading and thinking in company with others who were reading and thinking, and for a temperament like mine, that's a little slice of Heaven. But beyond the academics, there was so much more that I learned from college, about God, myself, others, the Church...the list goes on. And I met people who have had a profound and lasting influence on me as a person.

     And, of course, if I hadn't gone to TAC I would never have even thought of visiting the Norbertine sisters! I can't credit TAC with my knowing about them at all, but I can credit it with making me actually notice them. One of our on-campus chaplains is a Norbertine, and we've had others visit now and then, which makes a strong presence for a little-known order. (Have I ever mentioned the beautiful variety of chaplains we have? -- A diocesan priest, a Jesuit, a Dominican, and a Norbertine, all living with us and being our spiritual fathers.) In addition to that, campus is within easy driving distance of the sisters' monastery in Tehachapi, which is really what made visiting them feasible before the beginning of sophomore year. And again at Easter, and a couple of times this summer. 

     It's funny, because as indecisive as I am, I never once wavered in my decision to go to TAC (which, by the way, I made when I was nine years old). I'd often wondered why I was so certain about that one aspect of my life, and discovering my vocation to the Norbertine order gave me the answer. God put me in the perfect position to be open and available to receive His call. I would never have come to California otherwise, and now I'll be spending the rest of my life there. So nothing was an accident, or a weird fluke. The Holy Spirit drew my heart west before I realized what was happening.

     Saying goodbye to my family this summer was really hard, and saying goodbye to school was hard too. Especially right now that the school year has already begun, and my friends are telling me about their new classes and tutors, there is a bit of a feeling of being left out. I think that'll go away once I get settled at the monastery, though. I'm "left out" now, but soon I will be included in something greater. This in-between period is weird, but I guess that happens with any transition.

     Anyway, it was a wonderful and prayerful summer, and I really am ready for my entrance, with apprehensions about it only coming up occasionally. I know God's got me, and so does my confirmation saint, St. Therese, who was also a cloistered nun! If she can do it, so can I, with her prayers. And a lot of other people's prayers.