It was Friday afternoon. I looked at the clock. It was almost 5pm. My probability homework needed to be handed in within the next few minutes. I left the South Campus common lounge, went to Ingalls to staple my homework together, and hurried to Photonics to hand it in.
The past few weeks were long and tiring. There was always something to do. There were challenges and tests and late nights and less sleep and labs and work and commitments and a seemingly endless stack of assignments. Slowly, though, the stack was shrinking. The storm was passing; the light rain was rolling in.
I handed it in. This was the last assignment in the series of assignments, labs, projects, and tests from the rushes of the weeks of midterms. For a moment, there were no impending assignments, no impending challenges. For a brief moment, I felt the sense that there was nothing that needed to be done.
I walked to Marsh Chapel. Maybe, I could take a moment and find some peace in one of the campus’s sacred spaces. Someone was practicing music in the chapel, so I decided to walk to the green space outside and sit on a bench. For a moment, I had no sense of urgency: there was nothing that desperately needed to be done.
I looked and there were people walking around. The crisp autumn air was refreshing in the now pink sky. The leaves danced around in the light, cool wind. For a moment, everything was okay.
The Charles River water moved slowly. Everything moved slowly. Here I was, a Colombian American from New Jersey sitting in the middle of the city of Boston on a bench in a green space in a large university. Here I was, thinking, calculating and reflecting.
I am a Rodriguez. Another Rodriguez. “Your family is full of calculators with feelings,” my friends have often joked about my family. “The people in your family seem to really have emotions, feeling types,” they would say. “Yet, they are all like engineers.”
I am a Rodriguez. “El se ve como un ingeniero,” my brother had joked to my father, as I put on my first pair of glasses as a young boy. The science channel had been on nearby, and Build It Bigger was showing. I was amazed at the massive designs and constructions being built.
I sat there, the clouds multiple hues of orange, red, yellow. The sky an orchestrated mix of colors and textures.
My father would often talk about meaning. He would often tell us to take deep value in our faith. The ideas of faith and meaning – of spirituality – were important. My parents were very liberal Christians. We went to a contemporary church every Sunday. My father deeply valued our faith, and he deeply valued the faith of other traditions, of other religions. His head was full of random texts and readings from multiple perspectives. His common advice, “be awake, son” his common farewell, “pilas, God be with you.”
My phone vibrated and I reached into my pocket. It was a message from Jennifer that read:
On my way home : )
My family would talk about love often, always commenting about the goodness of love, of loving your significant other, of friendship, of family, and of selflessness. They would talk about the value of caring about others. My family instilled a deep sense of caring – of love – into me.
My sister was a cinephile, and she would often convince the whole family to watch all kinds of movies: romances, actions, thrillers. We would watch them all together. My parents, my siblings, and I would often see way too much meaning into it all. The young couples in love, the people standing up for those lesser than, and the action – these were all wonderful stories to carry with us wherever we go.
The colorful leaves in the trees rustled in the wind. The sound was relaxing, the white noise.
In high school, Sunday school was usually run by Steve, the youth pastor. By the time I was in high school, Steve had been youth pastor at Mendham Hills for several years. He was very cool, very chill, and made sure youth group was both fun and meaningful for everyone there. In Sunday school, he would teach in the Socratic method. As we studied passages and ideas within our religious tradition, he would often question our tradition’s ideas and concepts to see what we thought of them. Often, he would ask us to say what we thought. Oftentimes, we had no idea. He would encourage us to research, to see what others thought, to think critically and deeply about the very ideas that gave our religious identities meaning. He would often answer our questions with more questions.
I took a few deep breaths. I had been on the bench for a while now. I noticed my backpack was a little far from me, so I pulled it closer. I looked around as several joggers ran by.
After a while, I decided it was time to probably go home and get my things together to go and hangout with Jen. I stood up from the bench and began my walk towards my room in South Campus: The Engineering House. That’s me: an engineering student.
I put in headphones, and played a random song on my October Playlist. “Rewind” by Andy Mineo came on. The chorus was sung:
When I rewind, replay
All the things that made me
Who I am
Today
The good and the bad
The good and the bad
When I rewind
When I rewind
Everything I’m not, made me everything I am
When I rewind
When I rewind
Everything I’m not, made me everything I am
I walked towards the brownstone I live in.
Here I am, my identity in the collection of stories that inspire and drive me. Here I am, another paintbrush in the great canvas of Boston University.
Here I am, my biology telling a story: I am Hispanic and the language in my biology carried by generations of farmers and workers who lived in Colombia. This biological language in me now having traveled thousands of miles into the city of Boston.
Here I am, a calculator with feelings, like Wall-E. A Rodriguez, another one who constantly thinks about how much love matters.
Here I am, an engineering student. A person who loves math and science. A tinkerer.
Here I am, a Christian, an intern at Marsh Chapel. A person who loves reading theology, philosophy, and psychology. A lover of the humanities. A person who takes deep interest in these topics. Someone who came from Mendham Hills, from the youth group of Steve. A questioner. A person who deeply loves pluralism and diversity.
Here I am, telling my story, and inspired by the stories I find those around me telling.
We are all telling stories with our lives and identifying with everything in our past that has given us meaning. We find our identity in what we see when we rewind: the good and the bad.
It was a long week, but it brought me to here. It was a good week.