humanity!

I feel so . . . invigorated. Energised, awake, alive--and it's not just that chilly autumnal walk home, either. This is the energy of conversation, the waking of passion, the life of human connection.

Being an every-other Friday, today was Happy Hour in the WF office---or a Happy Two Hours, as it turned out. There was all the usual revelry, celebrating another week's end and turning in our time cards, catching up on the general goings-on as we all surfaced from midterms. Blythe had decked the place in Canadian glory, a map drawn freehand across the white board, Cadbury chocolate in a hockey helmet, Joni Mitchell crooning from the computer. He'd even written up a mini-quiz on his homeland, which we all took to eagerly and finished depressed and downtrodden; we know far too little about our Northern Neighbours. I had no idea A.A. Milne was Canadian, and most scoffed at my "Ottawa!" to his "What's the capital?" I mean, how many of you just wikied Joni Mitchell to see if she's truly Canuck?

Anyway, in the midst of all the maple leaves, Lund, Griffiths and I got to talking. It started out with the expected--what's your major again and all that--and yet twenty minutes later I found myself defending the fantasy genre and the differences between the High and the Hero-Ethical. Griffiths (who thrives on non-fiction and had been the one to challenge my reading habits) was taking this all in with a pensive nod while Lund contributed with a heartfelt "Exactly!" or "That's just it!" and I continued on in my opinion of Literature as a Higher Aspiration and somewhere along that line I realised: Wait. This is a real, passionate, worthwhile conversation. And it only got better.

Griffiths grew up in the foreign service, which lead to a discussion of travel and culture and the idea of missing. Which somehow tied into the literature vein we'd started in on, and led to a discussion on time management and tutoring techniques. From there we jumped to Learning Logs and a problem-solving session on passionate learning and how does one promote excitement in an academic environment? I learned all about the hydrogenated oils in peanut butter (they are bad) and why maths should be relatively applicable in day-to-day life (because apparently everyone needs to compare cell phone plans), and what professor to take New Testament from (Huntsman, if anyone's wondering). We discussed feminism and its place in our religion and culture and in relevance to our respective hometowns (between the three of us, we've spanned the globe). We debated the characteristics of the introvert, settled on our differences, and then put the definition to the test. We talked of progression and growth, of coming together and falling apart. Other fellows wandered in and out of the conversation, but we never broke the original triumvirate. In fact, we were still going at it long after Blythe pulled the flag down from the ceiling and packed up his pucks and loonies. It was nearing six-thirty when we finally agreed that, fun as it was, the sun was setting and the weekend was just beginning. We set off in separate directions with a final wave and the warmth of a new friendship that begins, "What, you too? I thought I was the only one!"

Which leads me to this: Isn't life beautiful? Isn't it simply divine? Relationships, the sharing of joy and knowledge, are what this is all about. What---or, more importantly who---else have I missed? I've sat by Lund all semester in room 118, only ever exchanging the friendly hello and perhaps pairing up for a group exercise or two. Griffiths I met on my first day of work and, while we got along from the start, neither of us took the plunge into Actual Conversation. And yet this is the heart of it all, the sharing of souls and the excitement of alliance in an attempt to live. I got to experience it all, leaning up against the old oak doorframe, frantically scribbling notes on the backside of my Italian dictionary, full of the light of learning and loving. It was the sort of moment where you could never deny that we are a part of something so much bigger than we could possibly imagine.

People, I am in love with humanity.