The Convent Diaries 1-10
 
 
The Soundtrack!
 
1. Ancient Tower: Troubadours of Divine Bliss - Off the Cuff (Live at the Winchester)
 
2. Save Me:
Aimee Mann - Bachelor No 2 - Last Remains of the Dodo
 
3. Shelter from the Storm: Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
 
4. Magic and Loss:
Lou Reed - NYC Man
 
5. Express Yourself: Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band (Funkology: One Nation Under a Groove)
 
 
 
days - One to ten 15th January 2006 The close of a long, hard day. I cannot say what are not my sacred words and yet, there in the chapel, I cried. These Sisters are full of love - their smiles, even in silence, touched me. Their care is beautiful - a room full of butterflies, the sign of transformation! later...12 midnight... This day, the very day I enter this convent and offer up prayers I do not understand, this day I take this strange step - this day would’ve been your birthday. you would have been two. But you are not here. You did not survive to be born and time has passed where only one of us has got older. This day, when blood flows as easy as tears, early, to remind me - not just of losing you, but losing love, losing hope - you were not born and now, I am here, returning to love, crying tears that still will not stop coming, tears stopped up, like life stopped up. I am tired and sleep is needed - only 5 hours until we wake. Happy birthday... 22nd January 2006 ... I do not feel enclosed at all... in small places I find beauty... a songbird hiding in a thorn... the silence of sunrise, sunset - small gifts. Spaces in hidden places where I find I feel within and without of myself. I miss home...but there is much I do not miss and what I leave behind, is replaced by what I find. My rigid refusal has denied me my tranquility but that too, slips away as the ebb and flow of exchange touches us all. Slowing down enough to hear, opening this heart as I promised. I have fear but that fear is soothed ... I find the peace I have denied myself... relearning how to trust the sound of love as it moves me. There is a difference between being rigid and being strong. I learn to move, learn to let go of the rigidity, learn to trust and love and hear, despite my unwillingness to follow any written teachings, I am learning not by the religion, but by the sincerity of their hearts, the gentle strength of their connection, their simple and genuine joy, their humanity. 17th January 2006, 1.45pm in the garden I can smell the smoke of a bonfire outside the grounds - a huge wall between us - all these walls surrounding, keeping us in, the world out. Acrid gentle smoke, the sound of birds, as a pure early spring day hovers - it is good to be outside. I feel trapped inside - regimented prayer, eating in silence, everything dictated by a bell. I feel as though my head is being stuffed full and there are few moments of peace as this. Yet, I can understand why, in some ways, the silence surrounding the order - to quieten the ego-chatter, the monkeys. There is little questioning, just acceptance of what is - so at times, when the sound of voices mingle in song, or incantation of prayer, that moment when, without thought or expectation, tears well and fall. What are these tears? I cannot be helped by their “God” because I do not know it, cannot agree with their religion. I feel stifled, stuffed with another language, but as it pours in, so tears pour out. Is this the “love” of something greater? Where are my words?... 24th January ...Today I have learnt a little of how to surrender to love. Learnt of how I have held on (if only by my eyelashes!) ... felt that bone-deep weariness and deep wish to be able to let go, to be held... Truly, I have never let anyone hold me, never surrendered fully to love or care - even with those who surround me with love I have ‘pulled myself together’, tried to ‘hold myself’, always making myself get up, keep going, keep striving - but never true care, to allow myself to truly rest, to be cared for. The closest has been to be sick, unwell - in my home, only physical illness warranted the scant sympathy that was available. So body and soul sickness have become linked...this time feels like respite... And ‘god’ went silent, to let me accept the gentle love of the human people around me - a house full of ‘sisters’ and ‘mothers’...I seem to have regressed from feisty teenager, through child to baby, and in love, I hope to be reborn...
 
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