Finding Myself in Someone Else’s Memoir

Like many readers, one reason I love books is because they help me learn about the experiences of others — and in that learning, find common ground. They make me feel more connected to people across time and space. In my life as a bookworm, I’ve had many moments of feeling seen, of kinship with authors and characters and other readers. But recently I had the most acute experience of this yet.

It happened while reading The Seven Storey Mountain, a 400+ page memoir/autobiography of Thomas Merton, which takes us through his youth in Europe and the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and culminates with his decision to become a Trappist monk.

The section that elicited this visceral feeling of sameness was from Merton’s recollections of his time visiting Rome as a young adult. He’s not yet very religious, but he’s drawn to the simple beauty of a place that is one of my favorite spots in the world: Santa Sabina, a basilica built in the fifth century.

And that day in Santa Sabina, although the church was almost entirely empty, I walked across the stone floor mortally afraid that a poor devout old Italian woman was following me with suspicious eyes…

…However, I prayed and then looked about the church, and went into a room where there was a picture by Sassoferrato, and stuck my face out a door into a tiny, simple cloister, where the sun shone down on an orange tree. After that I walked out into the open feeling as if I had been reborn…

…I sat outside, in the sun, on a wall and tasted the joy of my own inner peace, and turned over in my mind how my life was now going to change, and how I would become better.

Santa Sabina has a quiet style (read: not Baroque, like many of Rome’s churches) and rests in a serene spot on the Aventine hill. I had an experience not unlike Merton’s when visiting there toward the end of my semester studying in Rome.

My brother and sister-in-law were visiting, and I was due to meet up with them at the beautiful park beside Santa Sabina. I arrived early, so ducked into the church while waiting for them.

Just like when Merton visited, Santa Sabina was empty or nearly so — rare, for a historic church in one of the most tourist-heavy cities in the world. Rare, for me after spending three months constantly in the company of other students and travelers. Rare, for the singular feeling of peace that washed over me, a complete and utter calm, contentment, and settledness.

Nothing momentous happened that day, and yet it’s a moment in time that stuck with me. A core memory that I carry in my heart.

To think that someone had a strikingly similar experience, decades before me, who carried it in his heart and then spilled it onto the page which then found its way to me… this is why I read. And this is why I write.