Melting the polar caps

(I'm afraid I couldn't possibly be a real nun. I like rocking out to Pearl Jam WAY too much. But don't worry. I know I'm a podgy middle-aged cat lady, so I don't do it in front of anyone...)

Writing from the train on the way to Narni this morning. I've got a booking in a nice B&B and an appointment with some realtors there. And yes, I'm definitely going to be checking every wardrobe I find. If you never hear from me again, y'all will know what happened.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the assurances of prayers and ... ahem... "accompaniment" I've received. There is a Facebook group of ladies who are offering me "spiritual bouquets". Seriously! I just got a note on the other blog to say that an entire convent of Carmelites somewhere in the American mid-west, is praying for me to find a suitable home. One in which I can resume being a slacker, half-assed hermit and where, much more importantly, the kitties can run around outside and get back to having fun. I've got about 50 pots of herbs and bulbs and things sitting in the garden in Norcia that need tending.

When I was fifteen I left my family in the dark of a winter morning. We lived in the (lower) Canadian arctic, and it was about - 50 degrees C that morning, and there was an ice fog. It was so cold the snow didn't crunch under my feet, it squeaked. I walked with my backpack of clothes, tooth brush and birth certificate for ID, through a cold that no parka could keep out, to the bus station and got on the early bus to Edmonton, the nearest city. I was 1200 miles away before anyone in my family noticed I was gone. I didn't hear from them until I got a phone call a year or so later to tell me that my belongings had been thrown away.

I've felt completely alone ever since. You get used to it, and by the time 35 years have passed, you take it for granted and mostly sort of forget about it. The Faith has helped, but you have to learn a lot of mental discipline - that old Thomistic thing of subordinating the passions to the intellect and will. But that's pretty damn exhausting, frankly. One can't really just grit one's teeth and white-knuckle it through life. Not forever, anyway.


It's taken a long time, but I think the ice that has covered my soul for all these years is finally receding. A good deal of the work was done during cancer; I was never alone for a moment.

But this sort of thing helps too. More than y'all might ever know until the day when all things will be revealed and there will be no more secrets.



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