It breaks my heart. They did the thing that always bothered me the most: The Sisters were the first to leave the city. Back when Betsy hit, I asked, why aren't we 'out there' helping? So I was sent to scrub some flooded, now receded waters, of a back room of the Sisters' house in Arabi. It made me angry when I was 22. I didn't take a Vow to wash the back walls of a house. I took a vow to Serve the Poor. And I didn't even know where they were. Big secret back then. Not now. Back in the 20's, all the Sisters of every Order stayed. When the cholora epidemic hit, they stayed and helped. They were THERE! It's why every Sister rides free on every bus and trolley in New Orleans. It's the city's thank you.
I read the info on the Eng-Teach listserv about kids of poverty and the clientel they become and what happens to what they learn within their own heads. I thought instantly of the first year of being 'out'. I took a Class at the University of UMSL in St. Louis. At that time it was the first month I was 'out'. School was always an equalizer for me so I took a geology class. But somehow, someway, nothing made sense to me. I didn't want to ask questions anymore. If felt different. I was afraid. I didn't want anyone to make friends with me. I didn't want to have to explain anything. I didnt' want anyone to feel sorry for me.
Just got a notice for a Retreat held by those of us in the MidWest Province who are part of the FDCs--Former Daughters of Charity. There's less of us in the group than when we started in 1987. Just 99 of us now. Once we were 250 strong. But, we each go our way over time. Yet, we never forget. I remember that first reunion. Geez, there must have been 300, maybe 500 of us come home. Back to the MotherHouse, back to the Marillac, back to our training grounds. Each of us had spent 5 years there and we were tight as ticks with each other. I left in '72, and it could as well have been yesterday. Oh, sure we were older, some married, some married with kids, some single, one of us is a DA in Dallas...and on and on it went. Time had not killed the comraderie we had.
Today I peeled an orange and it hit me: the idea that we always cut the tops off the oranges and scraped out the insides when I was in Community. Everyone did it. No one peeled an orange--god forbid, I guess.The question really is: why? Why cut and dig in, instead of peel? Why was this the 'Community Way'?The bigger question is: why didn't anyone ask why? I just took it for granted that I had to do it this way and no other. In a way, it reminds me of today and life and everything going on around in life today: we go to War and no one says: why? We find nothing of what was said to be there, and no one says: why don't we leave? It's nearly 3 years into this WAr of no reason, with about 1700 soldiers dead and over 100,000 civilians dead, and unnumbered ones being tortured in places we do not know but only two. When are we going to ask why?
I found some of my old journals, and read pieces of them. I think I have always been a warrior, a fighter for a cause, a seeker. And I have never been settled or at peace or totally content. Whatever I do, it isn't enough. I'll be glad when I am old enough to simply wear out and die and go see God. Too much evil around; too many demons to fight. The worse part is that the demons look good to people in power, or the demons don't even seem to be there at all to the ignorant. But, they are. They really are. Why is it that when I think I am free to be and to think as I do, then it is that I get struck down? The only place I am at home is inside my own head. Or, drawing. Drawing is a freeing up of my thinking in a very colorful way. It's always been this way. I can remember when I was a little kid, and I couldn't play in a sandbox because a hornet's nest was there. Well, I took care of that hornet's net. I kicked it. Good and hard too. Then they all came after me, furious at the disruption, and bit me all over. I ran like the wind blows and got into the house. So much for playing in that sandbox. I learned: never kick a hornets nest. They kick back. I went to Postulatum. I hated Sister Margaret and she most likely disliked me. I couldn't kick her; she was too old. I just prayed everyday that she would die. She didn't--not while I was there. I learned: some prayers just don't get answered. Period. Seminary was very different. It was another world, like a play, only you always wore your costume. I played at being a 'Little Sister' as the Habit Sisters called us. I learned a lot of things, like, how to wash everyone else's snotty hankerchieves in the attic as my 'duty', how to fall on a pile of pillows and make my duty partner laugh, how to take a bath and never look at myself, and how to clean toilets. I learned how to bound out of bed at 5 a.m., and kiss the floor and say my first prayers. I also learned to look under the bed and see how many other sisters were doing the same. I learned; I could play this game. All I had to do was follow. Following is easy. There was a book in the ancient library we had written by some guy named Tanquery. It was all flowery and stuff and hard to figure out. I remember years later when I had left the Community and saw a billboard with the word: TANQUERY and a picture of some sort of hard liquor, I thought: "wow! Tanquery definately has gone downhill since Seminary." I learned: there are many meaning for the same word. It's curious that I never missed TV or movies or anystuff like that in those first years of training. I did miss exercise, and running, and swimming. Mostly swimming. I loved the water. Then, years later, when I was out and got to see TV and read newspapers, none of it made sense to me. It seemed empty and inane. It didn't deal with issues I thought were important at all. I learned: you can't just 'fit in'. you have to have something to hook yourself to that is meaningful to you first. That was the greatest, the biggest, the longest search: trying to find a cause that meant something to me. Most things turned into 'chicken bones and butter' and went right through my fingers after a time. I think I have found it now. However, it is not easy to hang with it. Sometimes, I am scared, so scared, my knees flutter. But, I know I am doing the good thing now. It is just an awfully tough thing to stay hanging with.gh
If ev er a woman fought to be intellectually free, it was Sarah. I discovered her in 1991.
Finally, a statue of her is in Washington and in Carson City...but...
Just came back from Carson City where the twin of
Sarah was installed inside the old State Capitol. I
learned something. The whole thing was immensely
political. Bruce, my husband, was so very sure that I
would be mentioned. Of course I wasn't. He was
furious because he was so sure they would not forget
how it all began. But that is not the tragedy to me.
The tragedy is that no one thanked the Piute people
for Sarah. Almost all of the Piute tribe was there
I just thought of that yesterday. Why did I do that? Where was my thinking?
I am really not an unintelligent person, honest. But, I had no base from which to judge except what I remembered from my childhood. What my 'base' remembered was bread was 19 cents a loaf, and cereal was 30 cents a box. I knew this because my grandparents and dad ran the corner grocery story. But that was 1957. It was now 1972. Prices had changed.
I did a lot of thinking when I first left. But I learned that no matter how much of a journal I kept or how long I thought, I really needed to bounce ideas off other people. But I didn't know any other people but the people in the Community.
I think the single most powerful book I ever read that made a major difference in my life was Tolkeins' Lord of the Rings. He spoke at our campus. I didn't know who he was or what he wrote. I was just there, one of many hundred, trying to hear with that hat on, all 1 ft forward of it, and 3 ft wingspan of it. I don't even know what he said exactly but I know it was enough for me to get into his books.
I read those books over and over and over. I still re-read them, only now my husband bought a huge leather bound copy of it so I'd stop giving away the paperback copies of it. Those books, its words, its journey and talk and tales it took me on, were unbelieveable. I was a Reborn Tolkein without ever knowing I had been born in the first place.
Juniorate was a great time for me, even if I had to wear some 20 extra pounds of wool. I got good at it. I could dress in the morning in 20 minutes and no mirror! I had the routine down. The hat (cornette) was the biggest problem. It hurt my ears on the edges; I felt like I was talking down a tunnel all the time; and I had to wear it all day right up to bedtime. Then, I got to wear some very old people's stuff like a flannel nightgown (white) and a little white hat, well, more like a gang hat only it was to be rolled down over the ears.
In St. Louis, to live with its heat, to sweat, to get prickley heat all over, it was just part of being who I was. Problem: I knew who I looked like, but I had no clue as to who I was.
The shock of re-entry came because of the way my Community had operated throughout time up and even through the mid-sixties, and Vatican II, when we were supposed to change. WE WERE THE LIVING 17TH CENTURY, in France, but here we were in America. It was like having a script, and playing a role that echoed the 17th century as you walked within the 20th century.
First, we dressed funny. So much clothing covering us. The first stage wasn't too bad. It was called: POSTULATUM, a nice Latin word. It meant we were trying out for this group. Our head-Mistress was Sister Margaret, whose voice squeaked and whistled when she talked. She must have been up near 80 back then, and everyday, I prayed for her to die. (God forgive me now, but I did that then.)
