Thursday, December 9, 2010
Only The Good
While working at Ditter's, I had Monday and every other Sunday off work. On the first Monday of the month, I had a standing appointment with a Benedictine priest in a small town several towns away. "Only the Good Die Young" seemed to always play on the radio on my drive to Mt. Angel. Mt. Angel shared a similar German-Catholic background as did my home town of Sublimity. Mt. Angel had taken it up a notch or two and was home to both a Benedictine Abbey and a Benedictine convent. (One for men and one for women respectively.) The Abbey educated many of the secular priests for the local archdiocese.
I was still very young when my parents first took us there on a Sunday drive. High atop a small hill, with buildings that resembled castles, it captured the imagination of a little girl who still believed in fairy tales. A long and gently curving road cut through a forest of tall pine trees before arriving at the top. Even then, I thought the drive up the hill was like a journey. It hinted of medieval quest. At the top, the Grail, a peaceful oasis, a land set apart. It captured my imagination and my desire to remain forever innocent.
Hit by a lot of changes in a short time, I found solace in monthly meetings with Fr. B. Kind and gentle with a ready laugh our meetings were a combo of spiritual direction, counseling and laughter. I always left feeling better about myself than when I arrived. It felt like a healing place. These talks with Fr. B. did more than make me feel better, they also renewed an interest in theology. Twelve years of Catholic school had helped lay a good foundation. Theology became more than a cerebral exercise and more an affair of the heart. I smile to think of what type of theologian I might have become. I suspect someone on the lines of Teihard de Chardin. The "divination of the cosmos" always had great appeal to me. Maybe that appeal had its basis in my use of dried cow pies as toys when still a tot. God's little "ripple effect" through all creation. (For the curious, more about Teilhard de Chardin can be found here: http://www.teilharddechardin.org/ )
What I didn't know then and what I know now only after a lot of experience is that I was desperately looking to religion, my faith, to fix what I thought was terribly wrong with me. It was a mystical bandage of sorts slapped over a hidden cancer underneath. Hidden cancers have a nasty way of becoming big problems later on and this was not an exception.
While there were bright spots in these years before the convent, depression often held my in its cold and deadly grasp. It tainted my world. It had threatened my life only to be foiled at the last minute by something that seemed close to divine. There seemed no way to exorcise the depression that I too often denied. I layered denial and good behavior on top of it while deep within it flooded me with its poison. I turned to God, to religion for a fix. That in itself is neither good or bad. We all bring our baggage, our weaknesses, our sins to the altar.
The problems begin when we deny they exist, when we engage in behaviors desperate to hide the weakness within. It is this weakness, these sins that we must freely place upon the altar. The good we do is often tainted by desire for recognition, fame, the desire to be loved. The only things that are truly ours alone, that beg to be offered to a higher power for their wretched worth so once acknowledged and sacrificed, their ashes can become the fertile ground for growth. This is the place where weakness makes us strong. To make this sacrifice requires that we walk to the altar with eyes and arms wide open. Before God, we stand with only our weakness, our frailty to offer Him. Goodness already belongs to Him. We simply have to learn how to get out of the way of this goodness.
When I heard, "Only the Good Die Young, " blasting out of the radio, I didn't hear singer's argument to Virginia to get her to have sex with him. (An old argument by the way. See Andrew Marvell's "To a Coy Mistress" .) http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm I heard "Only the Good Die Young." The dark part of me wanted that to be true. I stumbled through life with a psychic armload of broken glass. Everywhere I went I left a trail of blood. It felt like the road to atonement. On this road I walked into a convent and created my own perfect nightmare, exquisitely tailored to result in the maximum of inner torment. The dark part of me secretly aspired to die good and young. Since ending my own physical life was wrong, then offering myself on the pyre called, "goodness" seemed the best way to end my life without killing my body. I had so much to learn.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Live and Let Die
To someone who has been cleaning the sour milk out of the bottom of the grocery dairy case, a job as a file clerk in an x-ray clinic sounds like a big step up on the ladder of success. To some one who has been a file clerk you know that this isn't as big a leap forward as it might sound.
When I found myself implicated in a scandal, I left my job at the grocery store for a job as a file clerk. I liked my new co-workers but it wasn't the same. Eager to leave one soap opera, I soon discovered that I landed directly in the middle of another. This time, I didn't play a major role. It was just a walk-on part but even that was too much for me.
The office manager of the clinic was a suave ladies' man. The receptionist and he had worked out an elaborate system so that an almost endless parade of girlfriends could be channelled through the building without ever running into each other. For four months, I stood at a huge hanging file case and filed patient records. A young co-worker on vacation never returned. Somewhere in Idaho or Montana, a motor home pulled out in front of the motorcycle she was a passenger on. She hit the motor home and died instantly. Her husband called the office the very next day to ask about her life insurance policy and how much she was worth.
Paula was one of the kindest people, I had ever met. Her death left a big hole in the heart of the office. My boss started to train me to take over her job responsibilities. It was a step up but it didn't feel like it. Maybe some of it was survivor's guilt. After all guilt was something I did extremely well. Instead of dealing with patient files all day, I answered phones and talked about billing and insurance. More than one person would find themselves in tears as they told of their health scare and their inability to pay. I couldn't hear their stories without feeling bad about their situation but I had a job to do. I tried to be as kind as possible. I hated it.
The new and glamorous aspects of my office job soon evaporated. I missed the simple work of my old job and the variety. I missed my co-workers. I missed the innocence of a simpler time, of a friendship that I valued only to have it become something else entirely. If hell has a business office, then I was in it.
At this point, I have to say that depression doesn't make sense. My life really wasn't hell nor was this job yet it felt that way. Depression seems to be less an illness of the mind and more an illness of the soul. Joy and happiness was sucked out of my world leaving a dark and painful void where my heart used to be. My feelings, my depression, wasn't justifiable. Life really wasn't that bad and I knew it. It felt unbearable and so I sought help. I began to see a psychiatrist who was a short distance from the office. I kept it a secret from almost everyone.
He was a wonderful, kind older gentleman. It was easy for me to make him laugh. He offered talk therapy at a time when psychiatrists still did so. Now, they are mainly prescription writers. He found me charming and delightful and reflected back to me a better part of myself. The depression still had a vice grip on my soul. I'd learned how to fake it. Inside I felt like dying. I wasn't able to completely fool him because I didn't want to. He prescribed an early antidepressant. It had a lot of side effects and was very sedating.
The first day I took it I was almost a zombie. All day long I was caught up in the music playing in my head. I heard "Live and Let Die" with full symphony orchestra. No note was left out. It played in an endless loop and was so loud in my head, I could hardly hear people speak. After months of feeling so miserable, this numbness was a blessed relief.
Slowly, my body began to adjust, the sedation eased. The pain crept back in. Alone, with a weekend before me and a bottle of wine, I swallowed half a bottle of pills fully intending not to wake up again. Fate was unbelievably kind. I've never had the stomach for alcohol. I didn't think the wine would disagree with me so violently but it did. I woke up vomiting and that probably saved my life.
It took a few hours to realize what I had done but when I did I was horrified and ashamed. In between attacks of violent vomiting, I heard these words in my head,
"Carol, your life is a gift. You can not reject it. You must live it. You are deeply loved. Believe that."
My first reaction was to argue with this voice. As the haze slowly began to clear and my protests lost energy, I knew on the deepest level of my being that the voice inside me was right. It seemed that my imaginary playmate was back. This time, invisible and inside my head but real enough to make a difference in my life, at least for a while. I didn't tell the doctor what I had done or anyone else for a very long time.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Starting Over
News in a small town travels fast. It wasn't long until I was offered a job at the local grocery store. The original owners of Ditter's store were relatives. I believe the original Mr. Ditter was my paternal grandmother's uncle or great uncle. The names and interconnections of relatives was a language that my grandparents and my parents spoke well. It's not a skill that has transferred to the next generation. We are less defined by our past and from whom we descend, at least in our conscious world. Unconsciously, I suspect the connections are as strong as ever.
As a child, my father learned enough German to figure out what his mother was saying to other women. They would switch to German within ear shot of the young if they wanted to talk about something adult like someone being pregnant. My dad blew the lid off this ruse one day, when he asked them who was expecting. (The word pregnant was considered vulgar. Can you imagine?) I've never taken German but somehow when I hear it spoken, part of me feels that I understand what is said. Maybe it's a memory or a sound that embeds itself in the genetic coding of our family. For many years, as a younger adult, I believed I shared very little with my family. Now that I'm older, I can clearly see we aren't really so different after all.
When I was younger every new face I saw looked new. Now, even the new faces looked hauntingly familiar. Often, at night, before I drop off into sleep, beneath my closed eye lids, I see a kaleidoscope of faces. Each face fades and transforms into the next. I don't know the people behind the faces. They are strangers to me. Yet, in each strangers face, I see the familiar. I see a part of myself. They are composites of everyone I have ever met. My world is smaller than it was.
The world once seemed so vast, so strange, so big. As I child I always wanted to find out what lie beyond the hills above our farm. I secretly promised myself that I would travel beyond the mountains someday and see what was on the other side. I spent hours daydreaming about what might life might be like once I left the farm, this small town, my family. When I dropped out of my freshman year of college, I stopped dreaming. A job at Ditter's Store helped me dream again.
Ditter's was a general grocery store. Alongside the vegetables, bread, meats and candy, were gallons of paint, toys, overalls, stove pipe and a whole lot of general things a person might need. In the basement, sat a still, well used during the years of prohibition. No longer in service, it was a trophy of wilder, less law abiding days. Questions about it didn't bring many answers but always a wry smile.
I was hired to clerk, stock shelves, take inventory, make sausage, clean the milk cases. In a small general store, there are plenty of opportunities to do it all. The Ditter girls, a trio of spinster ladies who grew up running the store with their family, were getting older. They needed someone young. The current owners wife and the Ditter girls knew me since I was born. They knew that I always knew how to count out my money for the correct amount. They knew I was honest and didn't shoplift. They knew that I sponsored my candy habit with an energetic pop bottle refund endeavor. One day, I was offered a job. They knew I was home and needed one. I took it.
I liked my new job, well most of it. I did a lot of complaining about how heavy the beer cases and pop cases were. Learning to use a hand truck saw the destruction of more than one case of beer. A case was full of glass bottles then. When I failed to use the hand truck properly and a case of beer hit the floor of the walk-in cooler, well, you can only image the ankle deep foam that flowed ever so freely. My employer would shake her head and break out the mop. In time, I learned how to use the hand truck with a great deal of proficiency, all 110 lbs. of me. Good thing too or I'd have had to start paying for what I was splashing on the cooler floor. I needed all I could earn. I began college transfer courses at a nearby community college. I wanted that 4-year degree. I loved school and my classes. I was enjoying my independence, my youth. Life was good.
In time, I bought a small car, a Toyota Carina. There weren't many non-American made vehicles in my neck of the woods and I took a lot of teasing about my "rice grinder." The political incorrectness of that title would made modern souls shudder. Under the hood of my faithful little car, there were actual Japanese characters on some of the parts of the car. I learn to change my own oil and the air filters. I also learned to charm the mechanic in the gas station across the street. A handsome man named, Don often did simple repairs for me at a very reasonable rate. I was learning to flirt. At first, I was still too young to realize it and to understand what power I might be wielding. This was a very new thing to someone who had been a nerdy, date-less, four-eyed wonder. I liked positive male attention. I enjoyed the company of men.
Within a year, I would be horrified at my flirty ways and feel responsible for the demise of a marriage. I fell in love with a married man, a manager at the store. His wife and I were friends. He would often invite me to sleep with him. I was young and naive. I couldn't believe he was serious. I was not the type of young lady to ever want to be the "other woman" no matter how hard I had fallen for him. When a new hire, was the right kind of girl to accept an indecent proposal, he led people to believe it was me he was seeing. I was mortified. Worse yet, I felt responsible. I hadn't done anything except love someone I couldn't have. The guilt was crushing. Running from the problem, I got a job in the business office of an x-ray clinic in a town 15 miles away. Inside, I wore a scarlet letter of shame. What had I done?
As a child, my father learned enough German to figure out what his mother was saying to other women. They would switch to German within ear shot of the young if they wanted to talk about something adult like someone being pregnant. My dad blew the lid off this ruse one day, when he asked them who was expecting. (The word pregnant was considered vulgar. Can you imagine?) I've never taken German but somehow when I hear it spoken, part of me feels that I understand what is said. Maybe it's a memory or a sound that embeds itself in the genetic coding of our family. For many years, as a younger adult, I believed I shared very little with my family. Now that I'm older, I can clearly see we aren't really so different after all.
When I was younger every new face I saw looked new. Now, even the new faces looked hauntingly familiar. Often, at night, before I drop off into sleep, beneath my closed eye lids, I see a kaleidoscope of faces. Each face fades and transforms into the next. I don't know the people behind the faces. They are strangers to me. Yet, in each strangers face, I see the familiar. I see a part of myself. They are composites of everyone I have ever met. My world is smaller than it was.
The world once seemed so vast, so strange, so big. As I child I always wanted to find out what lie beyond the hills above our farm. I secretly promised myself that I would travel beyond the mountains someday and see what was on the other side. I spent hours daydreaming about what might life might be like once I left the farm, this small town, my family. When I dropped out of my freshman year of college, I stopped dreaming. A job at Ditter's Store helped me dream again.
Ditter's was a general grocery store. Alongside the vegetables, bread, meats and candy, were gallons of paint, toys, overalls, stove pipe and a whole lot of general things a person might need. In the basement, sat a still, well used during the years of prohibition. No longer in service, it was a trophy of wilder, less law abiding days. Questions about it didn't bring many answers but always a wry smile.
I was hired to clerk, stock shelves, take inventory, make sausage, clean the milk cases. In a small general store, there are plenty of opportunities to do it all. The Ditter girls, a trio of spinster ladies who grew up running the store with their family, were getting older. They needed someone young. The current owners wife and the Ditter girls knew me since I was born. They knew that I always knew how to count out my money for the correct amount. They knew I was honest and didn't shoplift. They knew that I sponsored my candy habit with an energetic pop bottle refund endeavor. One day, I was offered a job. They knew I was home and needed one. I took it.
I liked my new job, well most of it. I did a lot of complaining about how heavy the beer cases and pop cases were. Learning to use a hand truck saw the destruction of more than one case of beer. A case was full of glass bottles then. When I failed to use the hand truck properly and a case of beer hit the floor of the walk-in cooler, well, you can only image the ankle deep foam that flowed ever so freely. My employer would shake her head and break out the mop. In time, I learned how to use the hand truck with a great deal of proficiency, all 110 lbs. of me. Good thing too or I'd have had to start paying for what I was splashing on the cooler floor. I needed all I could earn. I began college transfer courses at a nearby community college. I wanted that 4-year degree. I loved school and my classes. I was enjoying my independence, my youth. Life was good.
In time, I bought a small car, a Toyota Carina. There weren't many non-American made vehicles in my neck of the woods and I took a lot of teasing about my "rice grinder." The political incorrectness of that title would made modern souls shudder. Under the hood of my faithful little car, there were actual Japanese characters on some of the parts of the car. I learn to change my own oil and the air filters. I also learned to charm the mechanic in the gas station across the street. A handsome man named, Don often did simple repairs for me at a very reasonable rate. I was learning to flirt. At first, I was still too young to realize it and to understand what power I might be wielding. This was a very new thing to someone who had been a nerdy, date-less, four-eyed wonder. I liked positive male attention. I enjoyed the company of men.
Within a year, I would be horrified at my flirty ways and feel responsible for the demise of a marriage. I fell in love with a married man, a manager at the store. His wife and I were friends. He would often invite me to sleep with him. I was young and naive. I couldn't believe he was serious. I was not the type of young lady to ever want to be the "other woman" no matter how hard I had fallen for him. When a new hire, was the right kind of girl to accept an indecent proposal, he led people to believe it was me he was seeing. I was mortified. Worse yet, I felt responsible. I hadn't done anything except love someone I couldn't have. The guilt was crushing. Running from the problem, I got a job in the business office of an x-ray clinic in a town 15 miles away. Inside, I wore a scarlet letter of shame. What had I done?
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Shadow Fear
Being afraid of so many things guaranteed that high school would hold new and undiscovered terrors. To make matters worse, my only grade school friend, cousin, Gwen was going to a different high school. I was alone. Cliques formed quickly. Four of us girls remained. We'd failed to make alliances with any of the other groups so we were left to form our own. One of the four girls was new. This was a very rare occurrence in our small rural town. Newcomers were often treated with suspicion. Her family were new converts to Catholicism. She found herself baptized and Catholic and headed for Catholic High School before she knew what had hit her.
I watched her from afar as she tried to fit in with the other groups. I was confident that her efforts would be futile. I was fascinated by this social dynamic and at the same time felt a twinge of sadness, that she would have to discover for herself what I already knew. There were more closed doors than open ones in the complicated world of freshman girl social interactions. Finally, after several days of unsuccessful attempts at integration, she walked over to the bench where I and the two other leftover girls sat. She asked, "Can I join you?" I said something like, "Sure, I wondered how long it would take you to find out that you belonged with us." We were the best of friends from that day forward. She is still my best friend after all the years. I still keep in touch with one of the other "leftover" girls, Dorothy has also proven to be a life long friend. She was there for my Dad's rosary after his death and to offer her condolences. She had lost her own father not long before. Her kindness will always touch me.
As for newcomer, Donita, I don't think she can fully understand what a breath of fresh air she was and is to this day. She brightened my world. She is full of life and enthusiasm. She is honest when I need honesty and supportive when I need support. As a child, she wasn't mean or petty. She also didn't know what I was like in grade school although I imagine that if we'd gone to grade school together we'd still have been friends. No one in our small freshman group did cliques well. All of us had been hurt by teasing and felt the pain of being socially isolated without completely understanding why. Today, I can understand why and yet, I still desire the experience of a kinder, gentler social experience. This desire for a more ideal world is another huge reason that I was to walk over the threshold of the convent doors a few years later. I wanted a better world. I wanted a better life than the one I was living. I want those things even now but now, I am much less naive. I can appreciate how difficult these things are to achieve. I know from experience how quickly we get in our own way.
Despite this bright spot of companionship in my teen age world, my teen years were very difficult. Outwardly, I appeared older than my years. Inside, I was still a lonely child, looking for love and attention. I had a lot of responsibilities at home. I learned to cook, clean and care for younger siblings when I was still young myself. In time, I learned how much of an advantage this early experience gave me. At the time, it felt like indentured servitude. If I complained, I often heard, "After all we do for you. . . you could at least do this without complaining."
I hated hearing this so much that I often earned money babysitting or with summer jobs harvesting crops in order to buy the things I needed. Planning meals and diapering children was easy. Treating them with love and affection was not. I felt like my own reserves of love and affection were severely drained. I had little to give them. If I could do it over again, I'd have a lot more fun with my siblings. I'd give a lot less orders and ultimatums. I was still a child myself. I was struggling to do the best I could with the resources I had. My inner resources were seriously depleted.
By the time, I was a senior in high school, depression was a big problem for me. It became obvious to some of my teachers. I found a counselor who worked on a sliding fee scale. She was young and inexperienced but still helpful. Someone was listening to me. That alone felt good. I felt invisible to the people who mattered most. The idea of counseling and talking about one's problems made my stoic parents uncomfortable. They felt I was just being over dramatic. I didn't know it then but being "dramatic" is almost a guaranteed part of being a teen.
Even counting for the extra drama, the depression was real. Years later, I was able to piece together a few stories of relatives who had struggled with their own "dark dog" named depression. Talk of this always made family uncomfortable. After all, they had their faith. Despair was a sin. If you had a problem, you took it to God, got some perspective and miserable or not, went about your day. That was that. Misery was a mantle that many of us wore. Part culture, part genetics, it was a mantle that scratched and tore at me. I wanted to be rid of it but I didn't know how. To reject it felt like rejection of the familiar, of my family, of my faith. It's not rational but that is describes how I felt.
I began to look to college as an opportunity to escape, to feel better about myself. I wasn't prepared for how I really felt once I left and established residence in a dorm, like a regular college freshman. My identity, the one derived from being the eldest daughter caring for the younger children, was suddenly stripped from me. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted. My world felt like it was coming apart. After one semester away at college, I made a call to my parents and begged to come home. Once I did, the shame of failure almost destroyed me. I'd shown I was afraid of my own shadow. The shadow had won.
I watched her from afar as she tried to fit in with the other groups. I was confident that her efforts would be futile. I was fascinated by this social dynamic and at the same time felt a twinge of sadness, that she would have to discover for herself what I already knew. There were more closed doors than open ones in the complicated world of freshman girl social interactions. Finally, after several days of unsuccessful attempts at integration, she walked over to the bench where I and the two other leftover girls sat. She asked, "Can I join you?" I said something like, "Sure, I wondered how long it would take you to find out that you belonged with us." We were the best of friends from that day forward. She is still my best friend after all the years. I still keep in touch with one of the other "leftover" girls, Dorothy has also proven to be a life long friend. She was there for my Dad's rosary after his death and to offer her condolences. She had lost her own father not long before. Her kindness will always touch me.
As for newcomer, Donita, I don't think she can fully understand what a breath of fresh air she was and is to this day. She brightened my world. She is full of life and enthusiasm. She is honest when I need honesty and supportive when I need support. As a child, she wasn't mean or petty. She also didn't know what I was like in grade school although I imagine that if we'd gone to grade school together we'd still have been friends. No one in our small freshman group did cliques well. All of us had been hurt by teasing and felt the pain of being socially isolated without completely understanding why. Today, I can understand why and yet, I still desire the experience of a kinder, gentler social experience. This desire for a more ideal world is another huge reason that I was to walk over the threshold of the convent doors a few years later. I wanted a better world. I wanted a better life than the one I was living. I want those things even now but now, I am much less naive. I can appreciate how difficult these things are to achieve. I know from experience how quickly we get in our own way.
Despite this bright spot of companionship in my teen age world, my teen years were very difficult. Outwardly, I appeared older than my years. Inside, I was still a lonely child, looking for love and attention. I had a lot of responsibilities at home. I learned to cook, clean and care for younger siblings when I was still young myself. In time, I learned how much of an advantage this early experience gave me. At the time, it felt like indentured servitude. If I complained, I often heard, "After all we do for you. . . you could at least do this without complaining."
I hated hearing this so much that I often earned money babysitting or with summer jobs harvesting crops in order to buy the things I needed. Planning meals and diapering children was easy. Treating them with love and affection was not. I felt like my own reserves of love and affection were severely drained. I had little to give them. If I could do it over again, I'd have a lot more fun with my siblings. I'd give a lot less orders and ultimatums. I was still a child myself. I was struggling to do the best I could with the resources I had. My inner resources were seriously depleted.
By the time, I was a senior in high school, depression was a big problem for me. It became obvious to some of my teachers. I found a counselor who worked on a sliding fee scale. She was young and inexperienced but still helpful. Someone was listening to me. That alone felt good. I felt invisible to the people who mattered most. The idea of counseling and talking about one's problems made my stoic parents uncomfortable. They felt I was just being over dramatic. I didn't know it then but being "dramatic" is almost a guaranteed part of being a teen.
Even counting for the extra drama, the depression was real. Years later, I was able to piece together a few stories of relatives who had struggled with their own "dark dog" named depression. Talk of this always made family uncomfortable. After all, they had their faith. Despair was a sin. If you had a problem, you took it to God, got some perspective and miserable or not, went about your day. That was that. Misery was a mantle that many of us wore. Part culture, part genetics, it was a mantle that scratched and tore at me. I wanted to be rid of it but I didn't know how. To reject it felt like rejection of the familiar, of my family, of my faith. It's not rational but that is describes how I felt.
I began to look to college as an opportunity to escape, to feel better about myself. I wasn't prepared for how I really felt once I left and established residence in a dorm, like a regular college freshman. My identity, the one derived from being the eldest daughter caring for the younger children, was suddenly stripped from me. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted. My world felt like it was coming apart. After one semester away at college, I made a call to my parents and begged to come home. Once I did, the shame of failure almost destroyed me. I'd shown I was afraid of my own shadow. The shadow had won.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
A Timid Beginning
Fear is a very isolating thing. Most of us feel less afraid when we share that fear with others. If I shared my fears about myself and my unworthiness, I'd be revealing how dark I was inside. I couldn't do this as a child. I paid a very high price for keeping this secret. Years later, I was to discover that the convent was filled with secrets. They were not good secrets. Over the years, I learned that it's better to know the truth and be able to deal with it, than to suffer a secret. I learned that all of us carry a bit of darkness inside. Not being able to admit that to anyone can make a prison out of the self.
As a timid child whose shaky start in first grade set me apart from my more mature peers, the years ahead were difficult. I was often picked on and made the butt of jokes. When your class consists of 19 children, it's almost impossible to hide. Among many other things, I remember my classmates making fun of my winter coats. My mother was a skilled seamstress who refashioned her old coats into winter wear for me. I thought she did a good job and I liked my heavy warm coats. As a young child, the eldest in an expanding family, there was rarely enough money. Making do with what we had was all I knew. For the most part, I didn't mind. That alone tended to set me apart. One day, when a wore a "new" old coat to school a few of my classmates decided to chase me and throw rocks at me. I was afraid of being hit and of being caught by my manically chanting peers who found my coat hilarious. I ran and fell, tearing up my knees and the palms of my hands. My pursuers were afraid that I'll tell. I did not. I could not. I knew the penalty of my honesty would cost me later. Part of me was angry but a stronger part of me was afraid that somehow I deserved it. After all, didn't I have a guardian angel keeping a ledger of my misdeeds? It's hard to explain how someone so young could feel so bad, could feel deserving of this harassment but I did.
I did my best to melt into the background. Teachers would keep trying to draw me out. If I didn't raise my hand in class, they would call on me anyway. I was usually so afraid of not paying attention and not knowing the right answer, that soon, I developed into a pretty good student. Math remained my dark continent. When doing fractions and decimals in grade school, I needed glasses, glasses my parents couldn't afford. I missed several years of math before the teachers found out that I couldn't see anything they were writing on the blackboard. When the entire class took some sort of assessment in the 5th grade, I scored surprisingly high. Some how this positive became a negative when it was announced to the class who had the highest scores. From then on, I was also teased for being smart. I felt the burden of having to live up to something that I wasn't sure I deserved. My teachers would sometimes mutter in frustration when math continued to be confusing to me, "I don't understand how someone so smart, can't understand this."
I felt only shame.
By being shy and holding on to the feeling of being different, I was different. There were many children I liked and who liked me but in a group, they were often afraid to show this fondness. In a tiny town, I felt like a social pariah. Fear that someone would discover my unworthiness haunted me. I seemed to skip over childhood and began acting like a responsible little adult. I had younger brothers and sisters who needed caring for, there was always a lot of work to do at home. I took on the role of responsible eldest daughter and made it my own. This responsible young lady persona was the source of my identity. If I couldn't fit in with children my own age, then I'd do my best to impress the adults in my world.
Of course, the adults I wanted to impress most were my parents. My parents were overwhelmed by the demands of life with too little money and too many mouths to feed. Joy was a stranger in our house. There were times of laughter and fun but the dark specter of unhappiness always stood in the corner. No matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to win my parents' approval. So, I learned to appeal to my teachers for the approval I desperately needed. If I could be a good, quiet and obedient student, I could and did earn their praise. Many of these teachers were Sisters from the Sisters of St. Marys of Oregon. I was still afraid of them but they also became the source of approval I so desperately sought. This dynamic was to have devastating consequences in the years ahead when the convent began to reveal its dark secrets.
As a timid child whose shaky start in first grade set me apart from my more mature peers, the years ahead were difficult. I was often picked on and made the butt of jokes. When your class consists of 19 children, it's almost impossible to hide. Among many other things, I remember my classmates making fun of my winter coats. My mother was a skilled seamstress who refashioned her old coats into winter wear for me. I thought she did a good job and I liked my heavy warm coats. As a young child, the eldest in an expanding family, there was rarely enough money. Making do with what we had was all I knew. For the most part, I didn't mind. That alone tended to set me apart. One day, when a wore a "new" old coat to school a few of my classmates decided to chase me and throw rocks at me. I was afraid of being hit and of being caught by my manically chanting peers who found my coat hilarious. I ran and fell, tearing up my knees and the palms of my hands. My pursuers were afraid that I'll tell. I did not. I could not. I knew the penalty of my honesty would cost me later. Part of me was angry but a stronger part of me was afraid that somehow I deserved it. After all, didn't I have a guardian angel keeping a ledger of my misdeeds? It's hard to explain how someone so young could feel so bad, could feel deserving of this harassment but I did.
I did my best to melt into the background. Teachers would keep trying to draw me out. If I didn't raise my hand in class, they would call on me anyway. I was usually so afraid of not paying attention and not knowing the right answer, that soon, I developed into a pretty good student. Math remained my dark continent. When doing fractions and decimals in grade school, I needed glasses, glasses my parents couldn't afford. I missed several years of math before the teachers found out that I couldn't see anything they were writing on the blackboard. When the entire class took some sort of assessment in the 5th grade, I scored surprisingly high. Some how this positive became a negative when it was announced to the class who had the highest scores. From then on, I was also teased for being smart. I felt the burden of having to live up to something that I wasn't sure I deserved. My teachers would sometimes mutter in frustration when math continued to be confusing to me, "I don't understand how someone so smart, can't understand this."
I felt only shame.
By being shy and holding on to the feeling of being different, I was different. There were many children I liked and who liked me but in a group, they were often afraid to show this fondness. In a tiny town, I felt like a social pariah. Fear that someone would discover my unworthiness haunted me. I seemed to skip over childhood and began acting like a responsible little adult. I had younger brothers and sisters who needed caring for, there was always a lot of work to do at home. I took on the role of responsible eldest daughter and made it my own. This responsible young lady persona was the source of my identity. If I couldn't fit in with children my own age, then I'd do my best to impress the adults in my world.
Of course, the adults I wanted to impress most were my parents. My parents were overwhelmed by the demands of life with too little money and too many mouths to feed. Joy was a stranger in our house. There were times of laughter and fun but the dark specter of unhappiness always stood in the corner. No matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to win my parents' approval. So, I learned to appeal to my teachers for the approval I desperately needed. If I could be a good, quiet and obedient student, I could and did earn their praise. Many of these teachers were Sisters from the Sisters of St. Marys of Oregon. I was still afraid of them but they also became the source of approval I so desperately sought. This dynamic was to have devastating consequences in the years ahead when the convent began to reveal its dark secrets.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Head Full of Nothing
Due to a cold and a head full of nothing, I'm posting this song. I heard it while driving the other day. It seemed to capture much of the feeling of my convent years. Don't over think it. " Let the music keep your spirits high."
Some of them were dreamers And some of them were fools Who were making plans and thinking of the future With the energy of the innocent They were gathering the tools They would need to make their journey back to nature While the sand slipped through the opening And their hands reached for the golden ring With their hearts they turned to each other`s heart for refuge In the troubled years that came before the deluge Some of them knew pleasure And some of them knew pain And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered And on the brave and crazy wings of youth They went flying around in the rain And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered And in the end they traded their tired wings For the resignation that living brings And exchanged love`s bright and fragile glow For the glitter and the rouge And in a moment they were swept before the deluge Now let the music keep our spirits high And let the buildings keep our children dry Let creation reveal it`s secrets by and by By and by-- When the light that`s lost within us reaches the sky Some of them were angry At the way the earth was abused By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power And they struggled to protect her from them Only to be confused By the magnitude of the fury in the final hour And when the sand was gone and the time arrived In the naked dawn only a few survived And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge Now let the music keep our spirits high And let the buildings keep our children dry Let creation reveal it`s secrets by and by By and by-- When the light that`s lost within us reaches the sky
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Prep School
Growing up in a small rural German-Catholic community and having Jesus as an imaginary playmate, are just the tip of the iceberg in explaining why, a few short years later, I entered a convent. For 12 years, I attended parochial school staffed by the very Sisters I was to later join. These years and exposure to the Sisters helped prepared the way for my decision.
At the ripe old age of six, I entered first grade at St. Boniface Grade School. While, I pretended to be brave at home, at school my fear of everyone and everything wasn't hidden. I was horribly shy and withdrawn. I was afraid of my peers and even more afraid of those in authority. As fortune would have it. my first and second-grade teacher was a young nun who gave me no reason to fear her. She was gentle and kind, the perfect type of person to work with young children. I looked upon Sr. Marianne with a blend of intense fear and adulation.
I was a tiny first grader. My daughter who was also tiny as a young child was referred for a bone scan at the age of six to determine her bone age. Apparently, as a small child your growth may lag behind the calendar. At six, my daughter had the bones of a 3-year old. Writing/printing was hard for her. She hadn't developed the motor skills to really hold the pencil in the right way. Emotionally, she was very ready for school. In this way, I was very different. I was a mess most of my first-grade year.
I cried often. Funny, how a tiny, shy slip of a thing could be so high maintenance. One day at Mass before the school day began, I started to sob because I suddenly remembered I hadn't finished coloring a picture of a lamb. I was convinced it was the end of the world. Kindly, Sr. Marianne took a sobbing child out of church to see what could be so horribly wrong. In between sobs, I told her, I . . . didn't . . . . finish . . . . coloring . . . my LAMB! I still remembered her puzzled look as if she couldn't believe a child could be so upset about something so insignificant. I threw myself against her and clung to the folds of her long serge habit. I had found comfort within what I feared most.
There were a lot of tears that first year. I had a hard time printing and often saw the "angel slipping on a banana peel" stamp on the top of my papers. Some days that was enough to make me cry. I was really trying and trying hard but just couldn't get the "happy angel floating on a cloud" stamp." A broken Alvin and the Chipmunk thermos, that had contained milk and spilled out of my locker was the cause of more crying. Not once and at least twice, afraid to ask permission to go to the bathroom, resulted in the inevitable. The other children teased me and laughed at my humiliation. I cried harder and once again clung to Sister's long black habit. Her large wooden rosary beads that darted in and out of the folds of fabric smelled like wood and incense. They smelled like church. I couldn't resist touching those beads and rubbing them between my fingers as I chocked out sobs. In my mind, I can still remember how Sister smelled, the smell of the heavy dark fabric and wooden beads adding mystery to the clean smell of soap and lotion. I wanted to get lost there in those folds, with that smell. I want to shut out the world, the teasing, my fear, feeling like I didn't belong. I wanted it to all go away.
The summer of '64 brought many changes. When I returned to the same classroom to begin second grade, Sr. Marianne's long habit was gone. The changes of Vatican II had hit the fan. No more memorizing questions and answers in the Baltimore Catechism, in second grade religion class was often spent coloring in the outlines of Jesus and assorted saints. Flowers seemed to always be at their feet. When the class drew pictures of themselves and what career they wanted to pursue as adults, I drew a nurse but inside I secretly wanted to be a nun. I was embarrassed by this pious intent and even then felt terribly unworthy. As a girl in 1964, there weren't a lot of career options for females. It was teacher, nurse, mommy or nun. To me, nun looked like the most rewarding of the four. It also looked like a way for me to acknowledge to my imaginary playmate, that I appreciated his spending time with me. I wanted to give something back.
After second grade, we did tackle more meaty bits of Catholic theology. We seemed to spend the entire 4th and 5th grade studying about Moses. I hated Moses. Even now, the mere mention of his name causes my mind to wander elsewhere. I know that the teachers and the curriculum designers had some master plan behind all this Moses talk. To this day, I resist figuring out what it was. I just want to move on. Wandering around for 40 years in the desert was just too much. Moses wasn't perfect but I thought God's not letting him into the promised land was a really bum deal. It didn't jibe with my personal hearts and flowers theology.
By second grade, I had gotten my uncontrollable crying in check. I still felt like crying sometimes as often as every day but I no longer wanted to draw negative attention to myself. I was learning to cope in a more socially acceptable way. I was also learning to hide my feelings. Even then, life was a hopeless jumble of good, bad and indifferent rolled into almost every situation. I was drawn to the black and white rigor of much of Catholic teaching. I wanted to know the right answer, the right choice so that I could avoid making mistakes. I wanted to do the right thing in a desperate effort to feel "right" inside. Feeling wrong was slowly destroying me. It was fueling my fear of others. It was keeping me apart. I wanted to belong. I just couldn't seem to figure out how.
At the ripe old age of six, I entered first grade at St. Boniface Grade School. While, I pretended to be brave at home, at school my fear of everyone and everything wasn't hidden. I was horribly shy and withdrawn. I was afraid of my peers and even more afraid of those in authority. As fortune would have it. my first and second-grade teacher was a young nun who gave me no reason to fear her. She was gentle and kind, the perfect type of person to work with young children. I looked upon Sr. Marianne with a blend of intense fear and adulation.
I was a tiny first grader. My daughter who was also tiny as a young child was referred for a bone scan at the age of six to determine her bone age. Apparently, as a small child your growth may lag behind the calendar. At six, my daughter had the bones of a 3-year old. Writing/printing was hard for her. She hadn't developed the motor skills to really hold the pencil in the right way. Emotionally, she was very ready for school. In this way, I was very different. I was a mess most of my first-grade year.
I cried often. Funny, how a tiny, shy slip of a thing could be so high maintenance. One day at Mass before the school day began, I started to sob because I suddenly remembered I hadn't finished coloring a picture of a lamb. I was convinced it was the end of the world. Kindly, Sr. Marianne took a sobbing child out of church to see what could be so horribly wrong. In between sobs, I told her, I . . . didn't . . . . finish . . . . coloring . . . my LAMB! I still remembered her puzzled look as if she couldn't believe a child could be so upset about something so insignificant. I threw myself against her and clung to the folds of her long serge habit. I had found comfort within what I feared most.
There were a lot of tears that first year. I had a hard time printing and often saw the "angel slipping on a banana peel" stamp on the top of my papers. Some days that was enough to make me cry. I was really trying and trying hard but just couldn't get the "happy angel floating on a cloud" stamp." A broken Alvin and the Chipmunk thermos, that had contained milk and spilled out of my locker was the cause of more crying. Not once and at least twice, afraid to ask permission to go to the bathroom, resulted in the inevitable. The other children teased me and laughed at my humiliation. I cried harder and once again clung to Sister's long black habit. Her large wooden rosary beads that darted in and out of the folds of fabric smelled like wood and incense. They smelled like church. I couldn't resist touching those beads and rubbing them between my fingers as I chocked out sobs. In my mind, I can still remember how Sister smelled, the smell of the heavy dark fabric and wooden beads adding mystery to the clean smell of soap and lotion. I wanted to get lost there in those folds, with that smell. I want to shut out the world, the teasing, my fear, feeling like I didn't belong. I wanted it to all go away.
The summer of '64 brought many changes. When I returned to the same classroom to begin second grade, Sr. Marianne's long habit was gone. The changes of Vatican II had hit the fan. No more memorizing questions and answers in the Baltimore Catechism, in second grade religion class was often spent coloring in the outlines of Jesus and assorted saints. Flowers seemed to always be at their feet. When the class drew pictures of themselves and what career they wanted to pursue as adults, I drew a nurse but inside I secretly wanted to be a nun. I was embarrassed by this pious intent and even then felt terribly unworthy. As a girl in 1964, there weren't a lot of career options for females. It was teacher, nurse, mommy or nun. To me, nun looked like the most rewarding of the four. It also looked like a way for me to acknowledge to my imaginary playmate, that I appreciated his spending time with me. I wanted to give something back.
After second grade, we did tackle more meaty bits of Catholic theology. We seemed to spend the entire 4th and 5th grade studying about Moses. I hated Moses. Even now, the mere mention of his name causes my mind to wander elsewhere. I know that the teachers and the curriculum designers had some master plan behind all this Moses talk. To this day, I resist figuring out what it was. I just want to move on. Wandering around for 40 years in the desert was just too much. Moses wasn't perfect but I thought God's not letting him into the promised land was a really bum deal. It didn't jibe with my personal hearts and flowers theology.
By second grade, I had gotten my uncontrollable crying in check. I still felt like crying sometimes as often as every day but I no longer wanted to draw negative attention to myself. I was learning to cope in a more socially acceptable way. I was also learning to hide my feelings. Even then, life was a hopeless jumble of good, bad and indifferent rolled into almost every situation. I was drawn to the black and white rigor of much of Catholic teaching. I wanted to know the right answer, the right choice so that I could avoid making mistakes. I wanted to do the right thing in a desperate effort to feel "right" inside. Feeling wrong was slowly destroying me. It was fueling my fear of others. It was keeping me apart. I wanted to belong. I just couldn't seem to figure out how.
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