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.