YOU WANT TO BE A WHAT?
Chapter One
Besides all of the fun activities like horseback riding, hiking, roller skating and swimming at Saint Agnes Camp we had a very rigorous spiritual formation consisting of Mass, Benediction and the Daily Rosary. The Rosary was recited all together as we processed from the dining hall to the chapel as a long ribbon of blue clad campers surrounded by the ever-so-white Dominican Sisters. The residents of the Jewish Bungalow Colony across the road interrupted their kugel and knishes each evening to glare at us from behind their handball court as if we were witches heading off to be burned at the stake.
The real deal though was the Annual Feast of the Assumption Procession on August 15th complete with the Statue of Mary venerably carried on a wooden plank positioned between two shower curtain poles. Selected to honorably maneuver this moving shrine were the two holiest girls in the camp. How the nuns could figure this out I couldn’t guess. But, then again, if nuns had ears they were probably listening to God at all times. I am sure they thought that these two girls had the highest potential to process right from that camp into the nearest convent and be married to Jesus forever.
Camp ended for me at age sixteen but it never left my bloodstream. A fast forward timeline of my life shows that as my feet attempted to walk out into the world my soul was searching for a deeper experience.
After graduating the all girls St. Agnes Academic High School (chosen, by the way, because our beloved Dominican Nuns taught there) and having a European vacation with my friends I announced to my parents that I would be heading off to the Convent in September. I wanted to don the habit, circumnavigate the cloister, walk like a nun, talk like a nun, sing like a nun, fly like a nun. The Nuns had cast a spell on me and all I wanted was to be one of them.
My parents’ reaction was not pretty. “Send out the guards! Lock her up! Have her head examined!”
Who knew? I thought they’d be proud to see me all bound up in white, eyes cast down, chaste and pure, suffering the little ones to come unto me. They sent me to Catholic everything. They loved the nuns. Poverty, chastity, obedience. Poverty, chastity, obedience. Say it loud and it’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.
I was an only child. My parents thought I was the Alpha and the Omega. They waited five years for me to come along and they had to make up for lost time. I always got the best of everything. Stride Right shoes, Lord and Taylor dresses, Fifth Avenue haircuts, good schools, riding lessons and seven summers at camp. My birthday parties were held at the Four Seasons and Mama Leonne’s and they took me everywhere. Central Park, Statue of Liberty, Staten Island Ferry, Niagara Falls, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, California, Paris. I had no idea that they had already made a list of possible scenarios for my future, and entering the convent was not on it.
My Mother wanted me to be the daughter she could be proud of, to compete against her for first place as Mother of the Year, to at least come in second just behind her in the Popularity and Poise contest and to collect almost as many boyfriends as she had in her dating years. She never taught me to make a bed, wash a dish or cook a meal. She figured I would be taken care of by some guy just like my father. Besides, no one could do anything better than she so why bother to teach me anything.
And my poor Father wanted me to worship my mother like he did. Stella Regina. The Shining Star of Heaven. The Queen.
As soon as the words, “I want to be a Nun.” rolled out into the hot and steamy kitchen, the battle was on. The brown refrigerator wasn’t the only thing sweating that day. They turned on me like two hot alligators. In a matter of minutes my blissful childhood vanished behind me. God was silent. The entire choir of angels exited stage left and I was alone with my new set of parents, growling and hissing at me as I cowered near the orange counter tops.
Who were these people? Didn't they remember that every activity I ever participated in from first grade on had something to do with nuns? I was too paralyzed by fear and confusion to figure it out. I couldn't hear what they were yelling because the sound of blood rushing through the veins in my head drowned out their words. I could, however clearly read their lips. "YOU WANT TO BE A WHAT?"
The next day my parents became like two crazed FBI agents searching every square inch of my room for evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of any nun who ever came within ten yards of me. Letters, diaries, photos, notebooks were all confiscated and searched. My parents charged up to the high school convent, leaned on the doorbell and confronted the guidance nun, and told her never, ever to speak with me again.
As they rifled through my pretty paisley bedroom I sat on the third step of the staircase hearing drawers ripped open and slammed shut, shoe boxes full of precious memorabilia dumped out onto my bed and diary entries being read aloud. I sat there clutching my recording of Joy is Like the Rain by the Medical Missionary Sisters. Open heart surgery without anesthesia would have hurt less. All of my sacramental secrets, spilled out like dirty dish water, flowed into the sewer in front of my house.
As they rifled through my pretty paisley bedroom I sat on the third step of the staircase hearing drawers ripped open and slammed shut, shoe boxes full of precious memorabilia dumped out onto my bed and diary entries being read aloud. I sat there clutching my recording of Joy is Like the Rain by the Medical Missionary Sisters. Open heart surgery without anesthesia would have hurt less. All of my sacramental secrets, spilled out like dirty dish water, flowed into the sewer in front of my house.The good, smiling, happiest little camper felt hurt, humiliated, betrayed. A cold, wet towel was thrown in my face by the parents who loved and adored me.
As I watched my sacred plan unravel before my eyes all I could think of was, “Hey Mom, what about all of those vocations you prayed for? And the mostly inaudible talks about preserving my virginity. Hey Dad, remember the Nun Doll in the glass case you gave me when I was twelve? And the trip we took to see the uncorrupted body of Mother Cabrini under the altar?”
And what about the Rosaries. All of those Rosaries?
Chapter Two
If Jesus could rise from the dead after being betrayed and crucified, so could I. I only had to figure out a way to mastermind a plan that would please my parents. As persistent as my parents were in persuading me to live a worldly life, I was as persistent to find a way to make it work my way. After all, it was God calling, not AT & T. If God gave me a vocation, then He also gave me the creativity to figure this one out. Short of martyrdom I was going to get me to a nunnery. Somehow I was going to jump over that wall backwards and land on my knees in the chapel.
There was plenty of room in the convents. It was 1966 and the grand exodus of nuns had begun. The Second Vatican Council sent religious life into a revolution of reform. So many were kicking the habit that nuns were being put on the endangered species list. And I had no idea of what was happening in the Church. I did not realize that the nuns' habit was becoming a symbol of repression and that nun jokes, movie caricatures and naughty nun porn were replacing the highly romanticized and stereotypical image of the nun in long robes engulfed in a cloud of incense as Jesus appears to her in a vision.
Betrayal made me stronger, more focused. And I was going away to a Catholic College to live in a dorm with a whole other set of nuns. My parents must have thought that the exorcism worked, the miracle on 134th Street, because they enrolled me in a Junior College run by the Pallotine Sisters.
Right after I nailed the crucifix up on the wall over my bed in the dorm I was introduced to our dorm nuns, Sister Gerard Marie and Sister Theresa. Both were not in long white robes but in fuzzy pink bath robes, slippers and curlers.
The closest I'd ever come to seeing a nun look "normal" was at camp during rest period when we were forbidden to look out the windows that faced the lake. This was the time when all of the nuns went swimming. One camper played lookout while I bent back the shade an inch to see them in their white swim suits and bathing caps, bare legs, arms and shoulders white as starched sheets reflecting the blinding summer sun straight into my window.
My new college nuns were the new nuns of the late 1960's. These nuns chose to stay, to weather the storm, to modernize, feminize and to abbreviate - the habit I mean. Welcome the Hootenanny Mass, Godspell and the God is Dead movement. My New Nuns were a walking contradiction, sexy and chaste, trading in Victorian for victorious. Instead of shattering my dream of becoming a nun, I now could see the dream in hot pink technicolor! My second religious formation had begun, this time with a twist. Here, sixty miles north of New York City at Harriman College, with my parents thinking I was getting a good, solid liberal arts education I was about to mix up a cocktail of nuns, alcohol, cigarettes, and prayer. Religion and rebellion. The perfect combination to make everybody happy.
Chapter Three
At St. Agnes Camp I made my way up through cabins according to age. At ten we were Juniors, eleven and twelve, Intermediates and at thirteen, we became the elite and not so elegant Seniors. Seniors had no special privileges, but we did know how to get around most of the rules and for the most part were able to create our own schedules. We preferred to spend most of our time inside our cabin rather than outside so we could practice hair teasing, nail polish application, magazine reading, napping and jacks. We mostly avoided the Rosary until the cabin nun came through to find us in a jacks tournament. One flash of her white habit and we were headed to the procession outside.
But there was an art to getting into the top bunk and she didn’t know how to attach her elbows to the bunk on the left and on the right and swing in like a pole vaulter. The more she tried the more she looked like a spastic monkey until her elbows slipped and she thumped to the floor. Looking up at me as I smirked down at her she finally gave up and settled for the bottom.
Chapter Four
Debbie De Luca did not want to become a nun. She came from a large, boisterous Italian family from Brooklyn very different from mine. Her father’s way of dealing with conflict was to beat ‘em up and leave ‘em in the alley minus some teeth. Her mother was a lot like mine, but with three kids, endless brother’s in law, nieces, nephews and cousins she was used to having a full house at all times. My mother wanted a clean house, quiet music and no interference from the outside.
My parents met the De Luca’s, Helen and Larry, on parent’s day during the summer of my fourth year at camp and became instant friends. With all four parents watching, Debbie and I demonstrated our ability to sing and harmonize to every 45 RPM played in the Rec Hall, our ability to race small wooden row boats across the little lake, our ability to consume large amounts of Bryer’s ice cream, our ability to hold our breath under water for one point five minutes and our uncanny ability to get eighteen burps out of one ten cent bottle of Coca Cola.
Debbie played the organ in the little Our Lady of Fatima Chapel and I took up the weekly collection from the visiting parents. "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" never sounded better to me especially as Debbie changed the tempo from waltz to Cha Cha and added an occasional doo wop chord just to rile up Sister Terentia and the rest. When this happened Sister Terentia stood up, turned and faced Debbie at the organ and shouted above the singing congregation, "HOLY GOD! HOLY GOD!" Debbie shouted back, "SISTER, WHAT DID I DO?" As Mass came to a screeching halt, Father Al covered his face in his Chasuble to stifle his laugh to no avail. Heading the line at the confessional the next day was Debbie, escorted by Sister Terentia who had a firm grip on the collar of her navy blue tee shirt.
At the end of the summer when we were fourteen Debbie and I made a mad dash up to Mrs. Watson’s office to sign up to be Counselors the next year. We were coming back to guide the little ones as we were guided, to teach them all about pot holders and popsicle sticks, pine cones and ponies, and to march head down to the chapel reciting five Our Father’s and fifty Hail Mary’s, our voices rising to the heavens above the scrubby white pines. This was the other side of camp life. After settling our little charges in for the night it was time that the cabin nuns tended to the little flock so that we counselors could make our way down to the Rec Hall to dance, talk, drink Coke, and to sneak out into the woods to SMOKE. When I was caught, I remember saying, “But Sister, I AM an adult.” “The next time I catch you doing this Miss Jane, you will have to face Sister Terentia and Mrs. Watson before your parents take you back to Queens.” “Yes Sister. I will never do it again.” (But I was thinking, “She will never find me at the top of the bridle path in the little fort I constructed five years ago.) And she never did.
In the off season my parents wanted me to be more social and to experience more people and, since the De Luca’s were so much fun my parents enjoyed a renaissance in their own social life as well. About every other Friday from September to June my parents drove me to Park Slope so that I could spend the weekend with Debbie and her family. I became like a fourth child to them and Debbie taught me the ways of the world. “All of that camp spirituality,” said Debbie,” was going to scare away all of those boys.” I was entirely too shy but with Debbie I gained more confidence and was willing to stick my toes outside of my comfort zone.
Chapter Five
Graduating High School was bitter sweet for both Debbie and me. We could no longer work or play at St. Agnes Villa Camp. Age sixteen was the limit so we had to make another adjustment. We went to Europe instead. Debbie’s high School had organized a graduation trip consisting of a five country tour and a month at the Institute Catholic to learn French. We were forty two girls strong who knew how to sneak out at night and three pious nuns who took a liking to the “vin.” While our tipsy trio of sleepy Sisters nodded off on the patio of the poncione, we barely speaking French girls were sneaking off to Montparnasse to sip cognac and to learn French kissing from the natives.
Debbie always led me down the path of no good for my own good. She encouraged me to be as provocative as I could be by wearing dark sunglasses, hiking up my skirt and sitting with mostly exposed thighs in French Cafes. The men flocked all over us lighting our Gauloises and buying us drinks so that they could then walk us down the dark alleys of the left bank and teach us what the high school boys at home could only dream about. I didn’t know how to speak enough French to confess my sins in the nearby Notre Dame Cathedral, and I almost didn’t care.
By August I had a full suitcase of worldly ways to carry back to the States. I had every intention of discarding the smoking, drinking and Ooo La La in a dumpster at Kennedy Airport but it’s a good thing I didn’t. I had no idea that all of these skills would come in very handy at Harriman College.
When I made my unfathomable announcement to my parents about joining the convent it was no wonder that their shock was felt by the De Luca’s on Ninth Street in Brooklyn too. When I heard Debbie’s mother’s voice on the other end of the phone say, “If I ever hear you talk of becoming a nun in my house I will have Mr. De Luca drive you home." I knew that my parents had already assembled a team of warriors ready to stretch yellow crime scene tape around every convent in New York. I knew then that I was about to become a master at living a double life to please all parties.
Chapter Six
To look at me in college you would have thought I fell out of the center fold of Seventeen Magazine. I had the clean “Collegiate” look - Villager dress, gold initial pin, madras jacket, London Fog raincoat, Etienne purse, Maine Trotters loafers. All of the students had the “have to have it” mentality and my parents were happy to accommodate. Status was gained by the brand we wore and how we wore it.
At camp in the summer we all looked pretty much the same, crisp and clean from all of that lake water and smelling of heat from the dryers that whirled our uniforms every week. We traded in our blue gym suits in 1960 and donned matching navy blue shorts and tee shirts and the Saint Agnes Camp white sweatshirt with navy blue insignia for all of the rest of our camp years. Only our bathing suits were different. One year my mother thought it fashionable to buy me a pink bathing cap to match the pink bathing suit instead of a white one. From the shore it was easy to recognize me bobbing up and down in the lake and on all of the 8 mm movies my father took on the weekends. There was only one problem. Once we were out of the water we had to hang our wet bathing suits in the “barn,” the dark, musty, cold barn with the dirt floor and around a thousand bats we couldn’t see but somehow sensed were looking down at us as we changed from wet suit to dry tee shirt and shorts. That pink suit stayed damp for eight weeks and was a prime breeding ground for several varieties of mold and fungus which promptly transferred from my bathing suit to my body around the Fourth of July every summer. Never wanting to go to the infirmary for any reason I always returned home at the end of August with a fiery red rash covering my tender white torso in the exact same shape as that bathing suit.
Little by little my reputation for being the girl headed for the convent changed. I still, however attended daily Mass, read theology until my eyes fell out and prayed every day for the salvation of my soul. But, by sophomore year I was known as the girl most likely to end up in rehab before anyone else in the school. I was a walking contradiction to my own vocation and my parents were pretty much convinced that they had put enough pressure on me to sway me away from all places monastic. And, besides, someone had leaked information about one of our beloved dorm nuns that shook up not only our little Catholic college, but the families and households of all the students from Harriman to the Hamptons and back.
Confused, my mantra for the remainder of my college years became, “Drink, Smoke, Date.” It was the late ‘60’s, the Age of Aquarius, when every teenager wanted hair – “My hair like Jesus wore it, Hallelujah, I adore it....” and pot and Woodstock and sex and booze. It was no surprise that when I dropped out of college one month before graduation it was because I hadn’t seen the inside of a classroom in months and could see that a .28 grade average on my report card wasn’t going to earn me a degree.
Chapter Six
In the fall of 1966 I was only seventeen years old and already a freshman in college. I was the absolute picture of innocence and unlike a bobbing pink capped kid in a lake you could not pick me out of the crowd. I guess that’s why I was an easy choice to carry out the unmentionables of college life like buying liquor with phony proof and cigarettes by the carton, hiding pot for my roommates in my sock drawer and harboring a stray boyfriend in my room on behalf of the girl across the hall. Any time any of this information spilled out to my parents they were totally delighted to hear it. On a Sunday evening before heading back to school after a weekend home my parents loaded up my suitcase with a couple of new items from the Villager collection along with several packs of Winston’s and a few bottles of Ripple to share with my roommates. My parents did not mind supporting my bad habits as long as I stayed out of the white habit.
Sister Theresa was about to leave the convent to marry our theology professor, Father Howard! When this information hit my house in Richmond Hill my parents were elated. Finally, a real victory for the secular over the sacred. Stella and Tony were singing Easter hymns in the off season. “Let the mountains skip with gladness, And the joyful valleys ring, With Hosannas in the highest To our Savior and our King!”
The shock of this news paralyzed my thought process, froze me into a pillar of salt, weakened my knees, and derailed my train. How could she betray the Lord Jesus? “I Am Thine” was engraved on the gold band she wore on her right hand. Would she give it up to wear another gold band on her left hand engraved with “I Changed My Mind?”
