9. Belén J

In college Belén worked in the ZSR Library, in Microfiche. This is the section of the university library where no one ventures, for it is intimidatingly full of manila colored file boxes which are similarly full of tiny bits of writing which make up hundreds and hundreds of research articles. With its dull khakis and greys of the carpet and the headache inducing fluorescent lights above, most people would consider a Microfiche job akin to solitary confinement. Most people not named Belén, anyhow.

She would take her journal and pen and start archiving, with her tall delicate script and uncanny detail, the memorable moments of her day. Let me enlighten you, Belén does not have days that do not merit a journal entry, and so she turned a dour room like Microfiche into a storehouse of her romantic thoughts. The library was not the only place she sat to write down her lucid memories and wandering thoughts; she would sit on benches in parks that everyone else passed by like unnoticed mile markers, she would discover secret spots with cushiony chairs, she would seek out every coffee shop in town and sit there with stationary and pen and kind words to write to friends. She has filled so many pages, in journals or in letters, of her take on the world's beauty that she probably needs a room the size of Microfiche to hold them.

Belén sees the world through a different lense than the rest. To her a blue sky is not just a backdrop through which she runs and does errands and totes her toddler, it is a Velazquez sky that reminds her of famous paintings in the halls of the Prado Museum in Spain. She will mention this to you and stop you in your running from this to that. It will surprise you to realize she is right, the sky above is truly brilliant today. For Belén a latte is not just a hot drink to get her through a long night of studying or a long day of mothering, it is a perfect tazita, a little cup of heaven sent down to her in swirls of cinnamon and hazelnut and rich coffee bean.

I remember our senior year, when most of us pushed through our last year of college and treated our final classes like the last bit of vegetable on our plate. Belén chose that year to take French. Already fluent in Spanish, an inheritance from her mother, she thought it would be fun to challenge herself to a new and beautiful tongue. She had sung down the streets of the Champs de Elysee while it sparkled in nighttime rain, now she wanted to taste the flavor of French itself. She would put on her headphones and sit on her bed, smiling while she attempted the difficult pronunciations. While I pulled whole chunks of hair from my head trying to make it through my Educational Technology course, she was laughing at herself and her inability to switch from Spanish to this new sound. It was life-giving for me, and I think for our roomates as well to watch her enjoy learning like that.

Her passion and vitality allow her to see people, not only places and circumstances, with a keen perception and interest. When she calls to see how I am it is not to ask, "What's new," but rather to ask what is going on with the old. She remembers the details I told her months ago, and I imagine it is because she journaled her prayers for me in that same tall elegant script.