Don't Look Down

     The nun on the Kubota was bundled up like a Russian kid against the late chill of spring. She was supposed to be studying the Kubota manual. She was looking at me instead. A deceptively plain face, the kind that decomposes into self-forgetfulness at rest but then, the next moment, is suddenly animated with joy or wrath.
     "You're quiet," she said when we walked in the fields on the day the Sisters blessed their farm.
     "I know. Even when I think I've talked too much, somebody says, 'Why don't you ever talk?'"
     "Quiet is okay. Do you pray?"
     "I talk to God."
     "That's prayer."



     "Asperger's," I told her weeks later, when she asked why religious life might be difficult for me.
     "Ash what?" she said. "Say it again?"
     "Sounds like 'asparagus.' It means I'm a little bit autistic."
     The sleepy-clay face was abruptly alive and it was laughing. "They told you THAT?" Somebody had told her something similar, a long time ago; then she got her PhD. That's why she's laughing, she explains. I don't tell her that there are lots of Aspergians with PhDs. She says, "Do you want help? I will help you."


     That Little Brown Rabbit had said, "If you keep your eyes on the ground, you can remember Jesus, and not be distracted. That way, you can pray without ceasing." She never made eye contact, so I watched her face. That's how I know that she looked like a rabbit; very quiet but furtive, with large front teeth and an overbite. Her hands, too, without being actually hairy, were endearingly similar to the knobby paws of something furry that lives among trees. I had a mental image, almost a premonition, of them shivering among dried leaves and holly berries in a winter woods and I hoped very earnestly that she would never be cold. I will be cold instead of Sister Rabbit, I thought. I will freeze so her rabbit-fingers won't shiver.
     "You need to look up. Don't look down!" says Kubota Nun. She has a wide, unswerving, unblinking stare. I don't know why her eyes don't dry up. Pale brown eyes -- I know, because I try to play her staring contest. I lose. "That's bad body language! It says, 'I am afraid of you.' Maybe in another country it is good, but not in America. In America, you need to use body language that says, 'I am confident!' Remember, your dignity comes from God and cannot be taken away."
     "But the little Carmelite said 'Look down and pray!' I thought it might be an invasion of privacy to look at nuns."
     "It is true that the Rule says to look down out of sorrow for our sins, and to mind your own business; but it also says that, when you meet another person, you must receive them as you would receive Christ. Look at people! They are Christ looking at you!"


     I am a little peeved now because the nice Brown Rabbit helped me look even more like somebody with Asperger's. Freeze, little paws.
     (I still would rather she stayed warm.)


     I said, lightheartedly, to the Guestmistress: "I have been here three months and I just now found out I am supposed to be looking at people. I thought I was supposed to look down!"
     "WELL! I'm sorry I didn't correct the Carmelite nun earlier. It's true that the Rule says to keep our eyes down, but when we see another person, we greet Christ in them. And for me, that's ALWAYS accompanied by a SMILE." She often says things with capital letters, and sometimes, if the capitals aren't enough, she makes engine noises.

Monastery pictures

The Monastery. Click on images to enlarge:

 

Mouse trapped in a flowerpot. (I know; that's not supposed to happen. It was sick.)

Bridge to freedom!

Dawn, seen from the bluff.

Another view from the bluff.

More bluff dawn.

Even more bluff dawn.

The chapel.

Writing from the Christmas season.

The "Mary Garden."

Lauds.

Lauds.

The guest reading room.



Guest dining room.

An octopus for lunch!

This is how much food was left over after I was done eating supper.

 

A cicada on the guesthouse, coming out of his empty shell (no, they aren't mating). Wings are still folded up.

 The cicada's wings are fully inflated and ready to go!

Cacti on top of the bluff. (This is almost the northiest part of North America. How?)

 

 

aaannnnd...

 

 

The borderline-indestructible '85 Dodge PowerRam made it all the way there (and back, and there again!) in spite of many adventures.

 

     Glenda wanted to take a picture of me next to her Japanese maple. She said that she would probably have to move if I left because she couldn't take care of the garden by herself. She told me, "It'll be fine! The nuns will love you, you'll fit in perfectly!"

     I replied, "You don't have to live with me."

She couldn't imagine how I could possibly be so difficult to live with, and I promised to tell her what the difficulties were as soon as I found out. She died, quickly and relatively peacefully, with a friend shortly after our last conversation.

The Third Place

     Finally I came to the Third Place, the Place that I'd told the Effervescent Priest about in the beginning, the one that he said was too far away, the Place I would have visited First if I'd been organized.

     Not far from the Third Place there is a street sign for "Podunk Road." If I were two people and one of me had a camera, I would have asked the other me to stand under the sign so I could take a picture of me there.

     We met in the school. The weekday children had made banners and pictures celebrating their favorite Saints. There was St. Margaret Clitherow - "crushed with rocks," said the picture, although it was more gruesome than that. Even the first Queen Elizabeth paled a little when she heard. A little nun with a very big smile hugged everyone as they came in. I smiled at a frazzled girl, and later, she told the whole retreat that she couldn't believe how many people had smiled at her; she didn't know the world had nice people in it anymore.

     There were so many young women cluttering all over, and talking all at once, and waiting, 10 or 12 at a time, for the restroom. Woman-y sleeping bags, some already full, were sprawled in every available spot of every classroom floor. Woman-y calves and toes, hands and elbows. There was an overbearing woman-y sameness in the world; why did they all have to clump together in identical soft slouches, and why did woman-y fingers have such a bizarre tendency to narrow into little candy teeth on the end of fluffy hands? Some of them had mantillas on their heads and others wore mantillas as skirts; either way, there was lace, and whenever someone said "Steubenville" they screamed and cheered. How could I ever enter a community full of women if I was sick of seeing women everywhere?

     The odd swooshing noise was there when I unrolled my sleeping bag, and it was there  again when I came back from the lecture. I finally realized that it was a sound that I ought to do something about. I looked behind the shelf and there was a girl trying to pump up a full-size airbed with a bicycle pump. We took turns making the swoosh-noise until the mattress was solid enough; it was for a girl with the bad back.

     In the library where I slept, there really and truly were copies of just the books I wanted, "The Princess and the Goblin" and "The Princess and Curdie." I was not yet detached from the imposing green wall of the Complete Original Works so it was comforting to know that this might possibly be a safe haven for them. (They are now safely a part of the curriculum at 'Sacred Heart,' which I thought was the appropriate name for the appropriate place for the collection that was no longer appropriate for me.)

     Confession took five hours.
     I'd never seemed to have permission to go often to Confession; if it wasn't strictly necessary it was just wasting everyone's time. The Sisters seemed to think we had permission and ought to be going regularly. They also gave us permission to eat way too much; there was always coffee, punch and candy sitting out, and various kinds of pretzels, and when it was time to eat there was always an absurd volume of food. The boxes of pizza arrived stacked on several handcarts, there was that much food, for that many women. Women waiting for pizza are more endearing than women waiting for the restroom.

     And they played games. Get-up games, where you have to try to steal other people's prizes. I didn't get up, one of just a few, because I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I did. As it was, I knew how to sit crookedly in a plastic chair and make the coffee cup go back and forth between my mouth and the middle-air; I did not have to wander aimlessly, pretending to be interested in taking somebody else's presents. The Sister said, "You look peaceful, just drinkin' your coffee." My present was chocolate; it was sitting in front of me. I liked chocolate as good as anything I might be able to steal. I said so, and the Sister laughed, and then someone stole my chocolate.

     So I went to their school and I bought their T-shirt -- two shirts, neither of which got worn very much -- and I slept on their floor and ate their food and drank a few gallons of their coffee and was very quiet in their chapel next to the friendly girl with hazardous breath who seemed to like being somewhere in my vicinity and I confessed to their priest and waited in line for their restrooms again and again and then I gave them a donation when Christmas came and that was that.

The Second Place Part 2

     Catherine McAuley lost her father when she was five and he was all she knew of Catholicism, but it was enough to begin a journey back to the Catholic Church as an adult. The lecturer asked what we remembered from before we were five.
     "Sunshine," I said, and someone made cute noises to indicate that I was cute.
     "Oh, you looked up and saw the sun?"
     "My mother was sick and the curtains were always drawn, but they were thin white curtains, so when the sunlight came through it gave everything a warm yellow glow."
     Then everybody was solemn and that wasn't what I meant at all.
 
     The lecturer had worked in the Middle East decades ago, one of only two American nuns in the area. I wondered if the second American might have been a woman from my parish, and it was, and everyone was astonished and pleased at the coincidence, and the lecturer asked for contact information so that she could reconnect with the other American.

     The nun assigned to help me through the Liturgy of the Hours sometimes forgot to help me. I would flip and flip and flip through the pages, trying to guess which area the reading might be in. Then she would suddenly remember I was helpless, and show me the correct page number, and I would flip madly to the proper place. Afterward, it was time for the Sisters to practice a song, and they let the visitors stay. I picked up the songbook which opened automatically to the right song; Sister opened her book and flipped and flipped and flipped. So I showed her the right page in my book so that she could flip madly to the proper place. Then she bent down and couldn't sing anymore because that was too funny.

     And we ate and ate and it was all very good; the Sisters made most of the meals. I met a nun who looked like a benevolent female Schwarzenegger who seemed very puzzled and a little peeved to hear that there were some nuns who didn't like to use the term "Bride of Christ."

     I liked everybody very much and I didn't go back.

The Second Place Part 1

     I was really excited about the Third Place, but their discernment retreat was a month after the Second Place's, and after I visited the Second Place, I wasn't excited about the Third Place anymore because I liked the Second Place quite a bit and a Very Deep Soul who also came had already been to the Third Place and would only say that it was "Intense." What she meant was "Extremely Crowded" and "They Make You Play Games" and "They're Excited" and "It Will Take Five Hours for Everyone to Go to Confession" and "Your Cellphone Alarm Will Ring and Wake Everybody At Three AM Even Though Its Turned Off" but I didn't know that yet.

     This is a photo of the Very Deep Soul:

 

       She is now a Postulant at the Second Place.

 

     When I arrived, I couldn't find anything that looked like a religious guest house, because it was just like all the ordinary houses and the numbers were hidden. I was early anyway so I just drove around and saw cornfields on one side of the town, and some weird, kitschy cafes and churches on the other side. Then a Sister called me to see if I'd left home yet.

     "Yep! I'm here."

     "You're...here?"

     "Yes. I found a little public park and I'm looking at a lake."

     "Why are you so early?"

     "I thought I might get lost."

     "Why?!"

     "I don't know. I just get lost sometimes. It's okay, there's this lake."

     "Well come over to the guest house and you can take a nap before everybody gets here. This is an awfully small town, you'll get bored out there. Go to the Chapel..."

     "I know where that is..."

     "...and a Sister will meet you there and you can follow her."

 

     The Sister who met me at the Chapel looked like a benevolent Witch of the West, and she happened to be riding a bicycle. I looked scared.

     "Why do you look so scared?" asked the Benevolent Witch of the West.

     "That's just my face." It was also the handkerchief; I didn't know if and when women ought to cover their heads at discernment retreats, and I also didn't know how to wear a bandana, and it stuck up straight more often than it stuck out behind. 

 

     She took off on her bicycle and I took off in the car and then she was gone and I don't know how that happened.

     I pulled up in front of the Main House thinking the bicycle might have disappeared there. Five Sisters hurried toward the driveway, waving their arms forcefully toward the other direction. I panicked and drove away too quickly, and then I panicked again and came back to see where it was that I was supposed to be driving quickly toward, and the bicycle reappeared, and she couldn't figure out how that happened, either.

 

     The guest house stood across the street so I could sit at the table and stare at the Main House and be sorry that I drove too fast on a religious driveway. Then a Sister whipped into the drive in a little red Focus and left twice as fast as me.

 

     There were lots of cookies in the guest house because Panera Bread donates leftovers. There was also lots of coffee, and more stuff in the fridge. There was a quiet, simple bedroom (which I got to chose because I was the first of three). There was a closet with fitted sheets that had been folded, not wadded, and I realized I would never be able to enter this Order.



The First Place part 2

~...even later~

 

     The Effervescent Priest found, not just one, but two correct numbers.

     The first correct number connected me to a nun who had been the Vocations Director ten years earlier.

     The second correct number belonged to the current Vocations Director, who was sick. Her substitute returned my call and gave me a third correct number, which I lost when I accidentally deleted the voicemail.

 

~

 

     One day I talked to the In-Lieu-of-the-Vocations-Director.

     "You will come to a sign that says 'Administration', with four parking spaces in front of it. Go in that door."
     So I went to the sign that said "Administration" with four parking spaces in front of it and went in that door. I had to drive 'round and 'round to find it, and in between, I took the wrong road and approached the Really Spectacular Solemn and August Retirement Mansion. Two old nuns were taking a stroll down the road, a short one and a tall one, and they waved at me, all smiles. I turned around quickly because I did not belong around anything that Majestic, or anyone that sweet. The letters in "Administration" were faded and some were missing, or almost missing. I thought how tacky an entrance it was, in comparison to the Really Spectacular of the other building.
     The lady at the desk had no idea who I was or who I needed to see. I sat in an office chair in everyone's way. Boxes were going in and out of the doors beneath the "Administration" sign in front of the four parking spaces. I had thought that a pixie-cut would be cute but I was mislead and no one knew why my hair was too short and I sat on the crooked chair in everybody's way.
     They found my appointment after leaving several messages on several different phones. The secretary asked the Unhappy Clerk to guide me to the inner region of the other end of the building, and I waited in another office where I was no longer in anyone's way while another secretary made more phone calls, and then I followed a Much Happier Clerk who had me sit outside the Last Office.
     "Under the sign that says 'Administration,'" sighed the In-Lieu-of-the-Vocations-Director (ILotVD) when she arrived.
     "I did."
     "No, THAT one." And there was a Really Nice, Very Impressive Sign that said 'Administration' with no letters missing, above four  newly-painted parking spaces, right outside her office on the opposite end of the world.

~

 

     And I hated everything. Except for some of the pictures, and one of the stairwells, and the short and tall nuns in their habits, and the crackers I found in the glove box.

~

 

     And while I was sitting alone in a drop-off area waiting on the ILotVD, the two old nuns finally finished their journey from the Really Spectacular Solemn and August Retirement Mansion. The tall one reached to open the door and the short one looked at me.

     "I wonder who that guy is waiting for," said the short one.

     "Is it a guy? I don't have my glasses." The tall one stood straighter and squinted. "Yep, its a guy!"