By Kelsey Boudin,
President and Founder, Southern Tier Communications Strategies, LLC
My daughter walked on the trail beside me in the early spring sun. Every once in a while, her little hand would let go of mine and she’d walk off to a cluster of acorns. She’d bend over and crunch a few leaves while shuffling forward, pick up enough to satisfy a 4-year-old, and give them a toss, one by one, in the general direction of the gently flowing Allegheny River down the bank just a few feet away.
I was refreshed to see the little one in such good spirits — walking, breathing fresh air, learning, just being. (That all this occurred during the first throes of the Covid-19 pandemic actually mattered little in the moment.) A sense of calm overwhelmed me in a way I haven’t felt in years. She seemed at peace, too. The world of chaos around us never quite touches the river trail.
The trail, which winds along the river and through the woods behind St. Bonaventure University, my alma mater, is an idyllic retreat in any season. In early spring, with last year’s fallen autumn leaves having expended their bright hues under a wintry blanket the last several months, the trees remain bare as life slowly yawns awake. In a few short weeks, walkers and bicyclists and rollerbladers will enjoy vast canopies which embrace our trail in a chrysalis of green. A few short months from then, autumn’s colors and chill will return to harken the return to bitter cold.
The little one knows little of this. Sure, in concept, she’s beginning to grasp changing seasons, fair and poor weather, pleasant warmth and bitter cold. But to her, that day, such details also didn’t matter. So they didn’t matter to me.
Acorns. Acorns mattered.
The few deer we spotted mattered, although we very nearly missed them camouflaged almost perfectly against the dull grays and tans in the wooded backdrop surrounding the trail.
The chipmunks mattered. The birds mattered, yet my daughter still preciously refers to robins as “robbers.”
The little garter snake mattered. I had nearly stepped on it, but thankfully it slithered safely away into the bushes as I tried in vain to catch it and give the kid a closer look. Its life mattered.
Simply being mattered.
What a perfect place to begin the complex thought processes to prepare for great writing.
Thoughts flow more easily. Much like the peaceful Allegheny meandering quietly by, you can scarcely hear the steady progress and sheer force of millions of gallons of water moving downstream, but rest assured progress is being made.
Myself deep in thought, and my child occupied with little hands and little pockets full of little acorns, we pressed toward the intersection in the trail where you can leave the river’s steady, reliable companionship and back toward campus.
I love showing her the campus. It was home for five years, and while new buildings emerge and old ones renovate, it yet retains every ounce of the old-world, natural charm that once made it a perfect Franciscan friary. And now, as a place of higher learning, regardless of faith, St. Bonaventure is at the very least an ideal thinker’s paradise. Small, wooded and secluded, the physical and spiritual environments foster an intense feeling of tranquility, perfect for clearing thoughts en route to understanding complex realities — and, perhaps more importantly, understanding yourself.
But what did my deep thought look like? Truth be told, it’s hard to say. We walked by buildings I once called home. “That’s Francis Hall” or “That’s Devereux Hall, honey,” I’d say, showing the little one for the umpteenth time the places Daddy once knew. “That’s Plassmann Hall” or “That’s the Murphy Building,” I’d say, showing her the places I came to know what I know — or perhaps more accurately, what I knew to be developed into the ongoing pursuit of knowing.
My deep thought that day focused, more or less, on channeling such memories and vibes into a meaningful narrative. I wished to harness that energy — the powerful experience of a man sharing a walk and a talk with his young daughter — to eventually chronicle the moment with the written word.
We at last came to her favorite thing on campus: the bronze bench statue of Saints Francis and Clare, which are seated next to Clare’s cat and the Wolf of Gubbio. I sat quietly between Francis and Clare as she focused her attentions and childish desires on the cat. I laughed, knowing her appreciation for the relatively new addition to campus went only so far as her love for cats. For me, the moment offered a strong appreciation for simply being there, the two of us appreciating being there for our own capacities for reasoning.
Come. Converse. Create.
There’s a commemorative plaque situated behind the bench. A part of it reads, “Come. Converse. Create.” Francis and Clare, the patron saints of the university, are depicted conversing on the bench. While I regret not studying up nearly enough on our saints and the philosophies that have long guided the school, I felt nonetheless invited to come, converse with my daughter and create a narrative.
There was inspiration. There was my inner peace for writing.
Do you need help finding yours?
