It was seventh or eighth grade and Mrs. Owens, my English teacher at St. Cecilia, gave us an in-classroom writing assignment. It was simple; she may have given it to us because she had other work to do and our writing would keep us busy for the hour. That would have been a delay of work because once we were done, she would have a couple dozen more papers to grade, making effective use of her red ink pen. Whatever the motivation, she changed my life that day:  I fell in love.

I enjoyed writing; it seems like I always did. With her assignment, however, I fell in love with writing. Sometimes falling in love involves appreciation for little things and does not require monumental acts or achievements, and so it was with the assignment that day: “Describe something you see in the room.”

Students’ heads moved as if on swivels, looking for something to write about. I ended up choosing one of my best, and most loyal, friends:  the pen I was writing with. Light tan in color, it was an advertising specialty pen that my dad had picked up somewhere. I don’t remember the name of the company whose logo was printed on the side of the barrel. It was shaped like a torpedo, sufficient to hold the powerful ammunition of three ink options – red, blue and black. The metal collar in the middle where it screwed together was tarnished. The body had the tooth marks of its owner’s frequent gnawing on it. For two pages I wrote about the pen, describing it in detail. The closer I looked at the pen, the more I liked it; the more I wrote, the more I enjoyed writing; the more I enjoyed it, the more I knew I would never be without it – the writing, not the pen!

So it is with the small things we do in life. Enjoy them. Immerse yourself in them. Be open to them. You never know which one will change your life or give you something else to love and appreciate in life.