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Subject: weddings and monasteries
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 11:04 AM
Hi,
I'm in Sigheti Marmatei, up north Romania, on my way east. i just got out of an empty bread truck that brought me here from the sad monastery. there was clipkaplocking of gravel on the bottom of truck like a hail storm coming upside down and i think my stomach is still at the wedding...the sad monastery was a little detour, maybe i'll tell you that tale too, about the brothers.
one, brother John, is Dostoevsky's anemic little brother who barely exhales when he speaks, so that his words have to struggle out of his mouth of their own power. he speaks english, and told me long tales bout how he was seeking to learn about death, or life, or recover from some terrible misdirected self-exploration that happened before he came to the monastery.
he told me these important spiritual tales with breathless urgency under the noon-day sun, where somehow i had agreed to work for twelve hours raking hay.
perhaps the father superior, Vincent, who brought me back, thought that sunstroke was a novelty in America, and i should like to experience the good life of nausea near his monastery.
i felt it as just dessert for falling off the wagon at the wedding and tried to find the silver lining. i did. it is blueberry season in the mountains --yum-- and the villages are built in rough-hewn beauty with oak and stone. many of the houses have carved wooden gateways to the courtyard. and the breeze from the mountain creek was sweet, even though the creek is toxic from the ancient goldmine there.
even the second brother couldn't really get on my last ragged nerve, with his habit of clasping his hands before him like a smug Mr. Rogers, and not so much smiling as drawing his upper lip up over his mangled front teeth as if to ask did he have any food or small animals caught in there. he wore three sweaters, and got up in the middle of meals to change them. and his feet, large to begin with, sort of splashed before him as he walked, his body leaning back, as if he were afraid where his feet might take him. his name was peter.
the monastery was filthy, my bed crawling with mysterious invisibles, kitchen dominated by a bombed-out looking oven. this place seemed to me a cursed place, an obedience school for the maladjusted, Brother John told me, "there is a spiritual storm coming, it has already visited here," and i remembered that all is not well with the world...
Lars
Featured Excerpt: from Romania July 10, 2002
Subject: weddings and monasteries
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 11:04 AM
Hi,
I'm in Sigheti Marmatei, up north Romania, on my way east. i just got out of an empty bread truck that brought me here from the sad monastery. there was clipkaplocking of gravel on the bottom of truck like a hail storm coming upside down and i think my stomach is still at the wedding...the sad monastery was a little detour, maybe i'll tell you that tale too, about the brothers.
one, brother John, is Dostoevsky's anemic little brother who barely exhales when he speaks, so that his words have to struggle out of his mouth of their own power. he speaks english, and told me long tales bout how he was seeking to learn about death, or life, or recover from some terrible misdirected self-exploration that happened before he came to the monastery.
he told me these important spiritual tales with breathless urgency under the noon-day sun, where somehow i had agreed to work for twelve hours raking hay.
perhaps the father superior, Vincent, who brought me back, thought that sunstroke was a novelty in America, and i should like to experience the good life of nausea near his monastery.
i felt it as just dessert for falling off the wagon at the wedding and tried to find the silver lining. i did. it is blueberry season in the mountains --yum-- and the villages are built in rough-hewn beauty with oak and stone. many of the houses have carved wooden gateways to the courtyard. and the breeze from the mountain creek was sweet, even though the creek is toxic from the ancient goldmine there.
even the second brother couldn't really get on my last ragged nerve, with his habit of clasping his hands before him like a smug Mr. Rogers, and not so much smiling as drawing his upper lip up over his mangled front teeth as if to ask did he have any food or small animals caught in there. he wore three sweaters, and got up in the middle of meals to change them. and his feet, large to begin with, sort of splashed before him as he walked, his body leaning back, as if he were afraid where his feet might take him. his name was peter.
the monastery was filthy, my bed crawling with mysterious invisibles, kitchen dominated by a bombed-out looking oven. this place seemed to me a cursed place, an obedience school for the maladjusted, Brother John told me, "there is a spiritual storm coming, it has already visited here," and i remembered that all is not well with the world...
Lars
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