Notes from My Younger Self

In 1973, on the cusp of my 22nd birthday, I traveled with the Antioch College Chorus to Europe. My first trip over the ocean and both a perfect time in my life to take it and a perfect way to experience it. Traveling with some 30 college companions, a brilliant and delightfully crazy music professor and an itinerary that including singing 15th century sacred Masses in the great cathedrals of Holland, Belgium, France and Italy, visiting the art museums with an art professor, visiting wine vineyards and feasting in caves (the music teacher was a wine connoisseur and gourmet foodie) and some time to simply wander the streets of places I had only imagined in books and movies.

The trip also marked the beginning of keeping my first handwritten journal, a $.79 spiral-bound Paper King notebook with entries written by a $.19 Bic pen. Fifty years later, I decided to re-read it. Only three weeks into the two month trip at the moment, but already such remarkable riches. Definitely some passages that are cringe-worthy from a writing point of view—too-many overblown adjectives and a 22-year-old's confidence bordering on arrogance, but mostly I recognize myself and see that I've cared about the same things for fifty years, a spiritual longing tied to deep appreciation for the wonder of simply being alive. Here's a sample passage from July 6 in Paris:

"What a delicious morning! Woke up at 7:15 and the aura of early morning pervaded the air. That wondrous feeling of beginning a fresh day, a new chance to realize your dreams. I look out the window of my hostel room, gazing at the river, the trees, trains rushing by. A nice contrast in movement between the shimmering of the flow of the river, the shimmering of the trees and the rattle of the trains. 

May I know throughout the day the feeling of gratitude for existing I feel as I awake to the birds singing in the sun and the world beginning to stir. Each day is the creation born anew. Out of the silent void of night comes the music of the birds and the movement of the animals. Our lifetime is really but a day. We die each night in our sleep and are born again the next morning. We imagine that there is a continuity to our many lives, but each day, really each moment, one is a new being. We must regulate our lives so that we can experience this miracle daily and continually relive the world's creation and our own each morning."

Well, there you go. A tall order from that 22-year old and one I fail to accomplish daily. Yet nevertheless I persist.