Friday, September 19, 2014.
Hello.  I am switching up my schedule just a bit...No scraping tonight, but opening and shutting windows for ventilation and air circulation during the day. I always check on it at night though. Always.
Even when I did not own it officially.  I would check every night, looking through the windows and dreaming.  And praying.  I did a great deal of praying about this path.  I wondered a lot about why on earth I would try to beautify the building.  (I never wondered why I would save it, why I would renovate, why I would preserve it...  I never thought of the building that way.  It did not need me.  It stood all these years very fine without me, thank you very much.  True, it was slated to be razed, but maybe that was its destiny.)
That is when I learned of love from the building.  I loved it. I could not bear the thought of looking at its spot on Main and Genessee, and not seeing it.  That's just me.  It is a very personal undertaking - right or wrong and not meant as anything except that.  Love.
I could really beat this point to death, but I think plain and simple is best.  I love it.  I loved it then.  And tonight, I did the same things I did months ago.... I looked through the windows.  I parked in the neighboring lot to just look at it from a distance...just so I could visualize.  What does a person see?  What did I always see?
Tonight it occurred to me that I pray to remember:  Once in awhile it helps me to look from a distance, to wish for......
Something I already have. I remembered those months of wishing and planning and wondering.  Of tears and plans and meetings and boldly (gasp!) doing things I would never have dreamed possible.  At least in my life.

There are many lessons....This one is just the tip of the iceberg!  Tonight though - I thought of this one.  It was my first lesson from the building as I snapped endless amounts of photos, looked at it, walked around it, and pressed my nose against the windows.  
Every day.
Sometimes those lessons are black and white;  sometimes they are grey.  I am unsure as which this one really is, but like many lessons, its existence is independent of my understanding of it.  Someday I will, but maybe not today.  Maybe not ever.  All I know is that I love the building....it taught me how to start following my heart...Black and white.  Or grey...

Blast it all!! Isn't it the most handsome thing ever?  Sorry.  Correction.  Isn't he the most handsome?

Good night!  Thank you!  May you wish pleasant wishes... And, Blessings.
~stephanie