Day 41

I grew up in a small city peppered with college campuses. I never walked on the well-manicured lawns or entered the old stone buildings, but I admired them through the smudged passenger-side window of my mom's 1971 Ford Pinto. I remember rolling down my window to hear the sound of the bells in the clock tower at Evangel College. In that moment I knew God and I imagined that he lived here among the bespectacled monks with their tweed jackets and leather satchels.

I was a sophomore in high school the first time I visited a college campus. I was attending a debate tournament at Evergreen State College. There were no old buildings or clock towers on this campus. Nestled among the evergreens of the surrounding forest, it was a verdant sanctuary. I sat outside the theatre where the tournament was held and watched a motley group of students sitting under a tree. I couldn't make out what they were saying but I could hear the melody of their laughter. I could sense their communion and my own longing to be included.

I didn't take a direct route to college. Instead I detoured into motherhood and skidded off into public assistance. Eventually I found myself at Columbia Basin College and later a branch campus of Eastern Washington University. Both were factories, intent on producing skilled workers to feed the industrial machine. It wasn't until I went to graduate school that I once again experienced the sense of reverence that I had associated with college when I was younger.

I went to a small state school in Missouri. The heart of the campus was a huge courtyard, surrounded on every side by grey stone structures, including a clock tower that chimed on the hour. I remember sitting in the courtyard one autumn day. The air was crisp and leaves were falling all around me. I was surprised by the tears that sprang to my eyes. They were tears of gratitude. I was as near to heaven as I could ever remember being.

Yesterday I visited the campus of the University of Idaho. When the library didn't have the books I was looking for, the librarian directed me to the women's center. It was housed in the Memorial Gymnasium, one of the oldest buildings on campus: A five story brick, Tudor style structure with a Gothic tower. When I walked through the heavy oak doors, I wanted to reach down and touch the inlaid stone in the entryway and run my hands over the banisters worn soft by the touch of a million hands.

Instead I went to the tiny library tucked amid a maze of small offices. I found my books and brought them to the desk of a student worker. She efficiently stamped the books without commenting on the authors or their works. On my way out I encountered two young women sitting on the crumbling steps outside the building. They were talking feminist theory. I imagined myself sitting down with them. I would show them the bell hooks book I had just checked out. It would be a kind of meditation.