Last week the girls and I took an impromptu trip to a monastery. It was a special place for me growing up. I was named after the Mother Superior of this monastery (she was also my mom's first grade teacher).
It was a magical place when I was little. The church was incredibly beautiful; I always imagined when I got married it would be in that church, just like Maria in The Sound of Music.
My parents would sit on park benches and visit with the nuns while we ran around the grounds playing tag and racing each other up and down the spiral steps of the towers. We got to ride horses with the high school girls who were students at the academy. We got to play tennis with them. We sat on the bridge in the garden and chatted with them. I thought the girls were amazingly beautiful teenagers. Many were international students, fluent in multiple languages. Sister always told us that those high school students were as enchanted with us as we were with them, that they came from far away and missed their little sisters.
Sadly the academy closed some ten years ago due to a lack of funding. And most of the nuns that my family visited have died. We were able to visit with one of the three that my family still knows; she was one of the music teachers so of course she asked if I still play. We talked about the importance of music in the schools. She gave us a tour of the completed renovated church. It is still beautiful but a different kind of beauty--partly due to the changes they made in the church and partly due to me being grown up I suppose. As we sat and visited in the very grown up cream colored visiting room I was so happy that we made the drive and thrilled that sister was able to see us.. We were dressed for hiking around on the grounds and I felt uncomfortable being so casual. But the kids were well behaved and genuinely enchanted by the monastery and our visit with Sister.
After spending an hour or so with Sister we went out on the grounds. First stop was the cemetery to see the gravesite of the nun I was named after. Then we found her best friend. After that it was a trip down my memory lane. We went through the grotto. We sat on the bridge. We walked across the tennis courts. We went out to the old horse barn. They listened politely as I told them once again about my first ride on a very tall horse named Toby. Toby. The horse that took off running when we got to the clearing and the students apologized profusely to me for it. Turned out that tall old gentle Toby was losing his eyesight but the girls always let him run when he got to the clearing. Later we walked over to the lake and had a massive giggle fit trying to take a picture of the 4 of us by holding the camera out and squeezing together.
In time we headed back up the hill to the car. Along the way we stopped to peek in the windows of the hall that the students have lived in and had their meals and classes in. So many meals in that dining hall with Sister. . .so many hours sitting in the lounge with her and my parents. She used to dig out her change so we could get sodas and snacks from the vending machines. I don't remember the drinks so well but I remember that we would get a bag of Bugles to share.
We decided to run up the steps to the monastery again and use their bathroom (renovated from back when I was a little girl but the hallway door is the same pink wooden door as I remember) before taking one last run through the tower.
We got back to the car and they asked me when we could go back. One of them wants to see where the nuns really live. We used to get to eat in the nuns dining room too. The last time I was there for a funeral I was able to eat in that hall. I don't imagine I can get that for my girls. But their genuine interest and immediate love for the simple beauty of the monastery made me smile. If nothing else, this summer I gave them a little piece of my memories.
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