I was a 20 year old virgin when I transferred to Seattle University for my junior year from a small state teachers college in Arkansas. Part of my financial assistance package was the opportunity to be a household assistant for a well-to-do Catholic family in Arizona. Every morning, I chose to go to Mass and Communion with the father of the 5 children that I helped care for, while the pregnant mother worked part- time as a nurse.
Just before Easter in 1958, I attended a Comparative Literature class with my favorite teacher. That morning the lecture was on Emerson’s Essays and this small town scaredy-cat heard about Self-Reliance for the first time. I learned about being able to think for myself, that I had the strength within me to live without a savior to hold my hand. I learnt that I was good enough and strong enough to trust myself. Most of all, I learnt I didn’t need the Catholic Church to interpret the Bible or tell me how to live my life. I repeat that I was determined to practice self-reliance, and it was a retreat of course. I never went back to daily or Sunday Mass again. I didn’t celebrate Easter with the family. They didn’t ask me to return as their student aid the next year.
In my senior year, I instead worked and lived with a Kosher Jewish family in a bigger house with two children. I didn’t know people could be that rich and that smart. The son and daughter were kept busy after school every day of the week: Monday, dance; Tuesday, piano and violin lessons; Wednesday, tennis; Thursday, Hebrew lessons. I cleaned up in the two kitchens: one for meat and one for milk dinners, and assisted the stay-at-home mother who volunteered and baked for every cause imaginable. I didn’t even try to help the 12year old with his homework… I had no idea where to begin…
I was amazed by them, but they were not impressed with me. “Izzy,” they said, “Ainikka from Finland, our previous household assistance, had a beautiful voice and perfect figure, lots of boyfriends and was very smart.” I almost committed suicide but sought to forget myself by helping others. I volunteered to be a candy striper at the hospital, but I was turned down because I was depressed.
Fortunately, Providence guided me to a student support group facilitated by a Danish couple. “How can I teach next year when I graduate?” I asked. “I’m not ready to face a classroom.” (So much for Self-reliance.) “You are enough,” Tasha said, and Bjarke added, “Here’s an idea. Why not go to Denmark for a year to learn the language and attend a winter long folk high school which offers art and philosophy and music classes for the farmers mostly who use the time to enrich their lives.”
And so it came to be. I borrowed $500 from my brother and bought a one-way ticket to Denmark. I went, I saw, I conquered. I taught and served. I studied philosophy and saw the world. I was self-reliant until I wasn’t. It’s OK to be one with others, to depend and be depended upon, to learn from gurus, and even to be able to walk into a Catholic Church again. We all share the same Space if not the same place.