grown-up in the room

Sun 10.20.19

      I’m thinking of adulthood today.  How many adults do you know?  Not many, I’ll bet!  I consider Mother Superior at the boarding school I attended, an adult.  Her religious name was Stanislaus and we called her Mother Slaus.  She was a person who stood apart, with us but not a part of us.

      Beside the teaching nuns, we had two other nuns supervising our daily life.  Sister Rachel, the dumpling, who was in charge of the refectory was beloved by all, a loving woman and clearly a saint.  Do I think she’s an adult?  Probably not, because adults have to make necessary decisions that are not nice, which she would never do.

      Then there was Sister Mason, a short tank of a woman who wouldn’t hesitate to smack you if you got out of line.  She obviously had scores to settle in life that had been blocked from her.  Mason was shortly replaced, I don’t know what happened, where she was whisked off to, probably to the Big House in Montreal, by a nun whose name I’ve forgotten.  I choose to call her Sister Ione, a tall stately woman, sophisticated.  She sometimes sang show tunes.  All these women were French, either French Canadians or from France.  Ione was a bitch.  I had two encounters with her that stayed with me.  In the first incident some snitch told Ione I was talking to others about dirty things.  She motioned me to her desk and had me repeat what I had been telling others.  I was maybe 10 or 12; having to tell a nun about the mechanics of sexual intercourse was mortifying.  But that was nothing to what Ione had in store for me.  Every time I did something she did not approve of out would come this refrain from her about what could one expect from someone with bad thoughts.  I was the filthy girl who was not allowed to join the girl scouts because of it. 

      I don’t remember what gave rise to the second incident, but it took place in the refectory as we were all seated for supper.  She said something to me from across the room, undoubtedly about my dirty mind, and I just snapped and let her have it.  YOU FAT COW, my cry resonated throughout the large hall to a stunned and hushed audience.

      I got the strap for it, given to me, bare-ass across her knee, by Mere Slaus.  Now Stanislaus was no great fan of Ione, thought her supercilious, nevertheless what I had done was not Ok, and she made her unpalatable decision. I forgave her.

The favorite essay this month has been, UBI v AI