by Lori Smith
I know very little about them for certain. The abbot, who appears to be in his sixties, has lived here nearly forty years. He wears sandals that look like Tevas and squeak on the tile floor. He has a big bushy beard and carries around a bandanna, and I imagine him to be a hippie sort of a monk, if that's possible. I have taken to studying the shoes carefully because there is so little else that distinguishes them from one another.
Dom Nicholas, who was so careful to warn me about the shower mat, wears the sort of comfortable, sensible black shoes you would expect of him. Kind Anselm, the renowned iconographer, is thin and careful with his trim gray beard and studious spectacles. He wears nice black leather. There is a new one (well, not new to them, but to me). He is Welsh, with short dark hair, and wears what look sort of like Doc Martens. He seems to be second in command and sings and reads as though he ought to read loudly, not as though it is a performance exactly, but he is much more expressive than the others, which is a bit unsettling after getting used to the comforting monotone, where everyone blends together.
Isn't it funny that at a monastery, where everything appears to be the same, their shoes hint at an individuality underneath everything?
One of my favorites is Father Timothy. Dress shoes again. He has only ever said two words to me, I think, and that was tonight during dinner when everyone was, of course, silent. I was trying to eat as quickly as possible because the whole thing is intimidating to me, and they eat very fast (perhaps so they can get back to their prayers), and then I find them watching me finish and decide it's just easier to stop. The other night as everyone was finishing up last bits and pieces, I grabbed a little plum and started to eat it the way I always do, taking small bites around the pit—but plums are messy and so perhaps this is better done without an audience and not in a silent room. I hadn't fully realized until that moment that I had never seen any of the rest of them biting into any sort of fruit. They slice and eat them with the utmost civility. Nor had I realized that eating a plum might be a sensuous thing. But there I was, in the silence, with the messy, suddenly sexy fruit. I am sure I broke the Benedictine code. I will have to look this up.
So Father Timothy, the gardener, sits next to me and takes care of me during meals. I believe this is his assignment. Sometimes he adds more to my plate just when he sees I've finished something if it seems to be something I really like. Mostly he just offers me anything on the table I could want whenever something starts to look low. He has the kindest face, and by looking at him, I would have to say, the most active mind. I would love to know what he's thinking about or have a theological discussion with him. Tonight at dinner (which was only bread and cheese and peanut butter because Wednesday is fast day), he kept peering over. I offered him the fruit bowl, which he didn't want, but he kept craning, staring intently at something, until finally, with the quietest voice and the best British accent, he leaned over and said, “More tea?” I believe those are the only two words he's said to me, though I feel like I know him.
Then there is Andrew, the biggest mystery. He does not wear shoes at all. He walks with a cane and wears thick glasses, the kind that sort of distort the eyes when you're looking at them. His thin hair, which has receded, is shaved. He has a wicked wit and one of the nicest voices I've ever heard, deep and comforting. Sunday, when I first arrived, he spoke at mass on patience and trust.
That night over dinner—one of the only meals where speaking was allowed—I told him, “You were speaking to me.”
He said, “I was speaking to myself. I always preach to myself.” As though none of us are alone in the things we struggle with. I think he said he's been here twenty years.
Has he never worn shoes in all that time? And how do he and Nicholas and Anselm, who seem so different, get along? They read the psalm the other night about brothers living together in unity, and I hope they do.
And tonight was the greatest gift. Susan remembered the other day, as we were walking around Chawton, that her neighbor is a distant relative of Jane's—or rather a distant relative of Edward Austen Knight since Jane had no children. So after dinner I grabbed my notebook and recorder, and Susan picked me up to spend an evening with her neighbor and his wife. It seemed like it could be such an intrusion—the American tourist, showing up with all of her questions—but they were so gracious.
On September 16, 1813, Jane wrote to her sister, Cassandra, from London about going with Edward to the Wedgwood store in London, where he picked out his china.15 It was designed especially for him, a geometric pattern of purple and gold around the edge, with an image of the gray friar, which was the family's crest. They have some at the Jane Austen House, of course, with signs saying DO NOT TOUCH. Sam and his wife have some on a shelf on their wall, and as I was staring in awe, he said, “Here, go ahead,” and handed me a small tureen.
Sam is one of the kindest, most down-to-earth people I've ever met. He enjoys his legacy, I guess, but doesn't make a big deal of it and doesn't really want it made a big deal of. He kept asking to make sure I wouldn't write about the things he was saying (a promise I have already broken), so I put my recorder and notebook away and just listened. I hope he will forgive me. He said he doesn't really know anything about Austen.
He showed me some framed maps on vellum of the Chawton lands (lands of Thomas Knight Esq., father of the Thomas Knight who adopted Edward) dated 1741, with some fields labeled “Jane's fields.” He said the folks at Chawton today might tell you that is because Jane loved to walk in them, but that can't be true because Jane wasn't born in 1741 and they were already called that.
He had a copy of the gorgeous family coat of arms, with the Knight, Austen, Leigh, and Perrot symbols and the gray friar on top (and now I understand why the pub in town is called the Greyfriar). He said Jane probably sat in the chair I was sitting in, which was from the great house, but they'd had it recovered so she hadn't sat on that part of it. And he showed me an elegant dining-room chair that lifted up to reveal a chamber pot underneath and said she probably did use that, but I overcame my urge to touch all things Austen. Just before we headed out, Susan asked about the board of old skeleton keys hanging up on the wall above the chair Fd been sitting in, and Sam said they were mostly from the old house, and then he handed me two engraved “Godmersham Park,” from Edward's estate outside of Canterbury.
So these are my gifts. Astounding and simple. The kindness of strangers, abundant roses and lavender in the garden, a quiet monk asking if I wouldn't like more tea, a distant relative of dear Jane. I hold on to them and ponder them, like beads on a rosary, waiting for more.
Ten
London: To Friends
Friendship is certainly the finest balm
for the pangs of disappointed love.
— NCR THANGER AßBEY
So many people have loved me unconditionally in my life, more than I have deserved. I guess that is part of the definition of unconditional love, that it does not depend on our deserving it. So I am off to the London suburbs and to Margaret, who is one of those who loves me no matter what.
Perhaps I will regret getting on the train. On the other hand, perhaps I will be blown up and wont be capable of regretting anything. I was beginning to think that I would go crazy if I attempted to live for long with all the quiet and all the prayer of the monastery—I think maybe it is possible to pray too much, or maybe that is the kind of life that must be gradually worked into, and my prayer muscles are terribly weak. But just as I was saying good-bye to Dom Nicholas, with the cab waiting, Dom Andrew said, “There's something happening in London. Be careful.”
We listened to the radio in the cab and discovered that it was another series of bombs that sounded like a copycat attempt from the bombing two weeks ago, when terrorists walked onto the Tube in rush hour and blew themselves up. This one doesn't sound like it's been so successful. At least,I thought, I am only going on the train today and not on the Tube. And if I stayed in Hampshire, how long would I have waited? How would I know it was safe to tr
avel? I can't just wait in the country for all threat of terrorism to be gone. It's a bit nerve-racking all the same—there's a prickly awareness to traveling now—but the trains are full, so everyone must have come to the same conclusion I did.
How do I explain Margaret? I have come to think of her as something like my English gran, though she might be surprised to know that, and I hardly get to see her (and really she's not old enough to be my grandmother). She talks half as much as Miss Bates and much more intelligently, which makes her an ideal companion. Actually, the last time we got together was on September 11—the September 11. I was having her over for dinner, and in spite of everything, I thought, Well, we cant watch news about the disaster all the time,so I drove out to her daughters and picked her up. I made her one of my favorite things: BLTs with garden-fresh tomatoes. I asked if they had BLTs in England, thinking I was offering her an American summer tradition, and she said something like, “Well yes, you know, in vending machines.” And I made her truly horrible tea (because Americans really know nothing about how to make good tea), which she said she rather liked, and served fresh berries with cream and brown sugar.
Margaret is desperately afraid of flying, which makes things complicated, since one of her daughters and three of her granddaughters live in Virginia and she lives in England. We talked about how the last time she flew in to the States, the pilot let her come up into the cockpit to see because they all knew how afraid she was, and how she got to see the whole city of New York from the air, spread out below her— including the Towers, suddenly gone.
If things are going to blow up every time we get together, I hope our meetings will be few and far between. But perhaps I should just hope that things will stop blowing up.
How I know Margaret may be rather complicated to someone on the outside. To me she just feels like family. Her daughter and son-in-law, Gill and Mark, have lived in Virginia for years and worked with my youth group when I was growing up. I guess they were in their twenties then, probably younger than I am now. I was twelve.
Our church met in an elementary school on blue chairs in the cafeteria. There were about 150 of us then. We sang hymns and choruses. The pastor preached—and still does—bullet-point sermons through books of the Bible, verse by verse. Every month we had a big potluck, and Jeannie would make her spaghetti salad, and Mrs. Turner would make minicheesecakes, and we kids would sit on our own, playing drinking games without the alcohol, which seemed ridiculously fun.
I have yet to fully replicate this kind of community in my adult life. There was no question that this was family. The music talent was questionable (and I have to implicate myself when I say that, because of course I took the opportunity to sing my favorite songs to backup tracks—eesh),and eventually I grew away from this particular nonde-nominational, independent way of looking at the world. But this is where I learned to mean my faith, to study Scripture and put forth my own well-thought-out (or, at times, not so much) perspectives, to love people and live in community. And I received a boatload of love. In some ways still, more than anyplace else, this is home.
So Mark and Gill, who helped lead Bible studies and ran the drama team and went on retreats with us, were part of my growing-up years. In college, when my parents and I did our minitour of Europe after I had spent the summer studying in Spain, we stayed with Gills mom and dad, Margaret and Jack, and met her sisters and their husbands. I have a feeling I was a bit sullen, but Margaret opened her home and reached out to all of us with an unconditional, “Here, are you comfortable? I thought I would make a roast for dinner. Would you like some tea?” And she and Jack drove us to Anne Boleyns childhood home, Hever Castle, one day, where we wandered through the gardens and stopped somewhere in the country for a pub lunch. They always fought about the driving, Margaret and Jack, and I loved that about them.
My own extended family is tiny—just Grammy and some cousins we haven't done well keeping in touch with. I feel remarkably lucky— or rather blessed—to have another extended family of a different kind.
I've been thinking about Jane and all of her steady friendships— Martha Lloyd, the Bigg sisters, Anne Lefroy. She knew the same people all her life. (On the other hand, she was also to some degree stuck with the same people all her life.) My friendships shift with what sometimes feels like alarming frequency, sometimes painfully so, regenerating themselves like skin cells or taste buds so that you fear that seven years from now your group of friends will not look the same as it does today. Dear people move in and out; we no longer move in the same circles or see things quite the same way. Sudden changes sometimes, other times just slowly growing in different directions. Sometimes there is no emotional distance at all, only physical separation, but always some level of grief, some question about whether there will be more who understand me or whether I will just be alone. I've heard that saying about choosing your friends, but I think most of my great friendships have just happened to me. Some are easy and fun, some are serious, some feel slightly askew between seasons of nearness.
There are college friends who will be close the rest of my life—sweet Brenda, who used to sing praise songs with me on the steps of South Hall and loved to talk late into the night about the theological mysteries of angels while I was falling asleep, or Diane, whom I've actually known since first grade, the only friend I've had nearly all my life. I remember as a child she was always neat, and I was the one with a wrinkled uniform with my maroon knee socks rolled down to my ankles. And Beth in Ohio with her four kids and doctor-husband. (Beth who snuck out the window with me when we were both RAs to see said doctor-husband—boyfriend then—and his friends on a naked midnight run. Sadly, we ended up hiding in the bushes for an hour, all anticipation and—honestly—partly dread, while security drove back and forth, which is probably a good thing. I'm not sure how my virgin eyes would have reacted to a whole group of naked Christian college boys.)
After college I had a tough time settling into a family of friends. Bev and Jordan and Clare were all gifts of friendships, sent my way when I didn't know I needed them. Clare, my roommate, came to me through a friend of mine who was an acquaintance of a friend of a friend of Clare's, or something like that. She needed a place to stay for an eight-week summer internship, and I was unemployed and had prayed for a roommate to help with the mortgage, but I didn't have any idea where I would find one. Though we'd never met, I figured I could put up with anything for eight weeks, and so did she. But when she moved in, we found out we were eerily similar—thoughtful, passionate about faith but uncomfortable with much of evangelical Christianity, Anglophiles, fans of C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle and Jane Austen, prone to depression, shy, and feeling like our first impressions are generally bad. Clare is messier than I am, and perhaps slightly more prone to depression, and more averse to small talk, and reads far more history than I do. But she is an excellent roommate and an excellent friend. We use a sort of conversational shorthand with each other. There are things we would have to explain to other friends that we just understand—the crazy way our minds work, we go to each other for assurance that we are not in fact crazy because there is at least one other person in the world who thinks the same way we do.
I met Bev and Jordan on a ladies retreat for our church where I was giving a short testimony on Saturday night. It was during the winter when I was unemployed. I didn't want to be on the retreat, and I didn't want to meet them. I was just coming back from a conference in Tennessee; I was particularly exhausted; I felt like I had too many friends that I couldn't keep up with, that I was always disappointing people by not being able to get together with them, that I didn't have the energy for more friends—for more people who would call expecting things from me, forcing me to be social.
I went through several periods when I stopped returning calls. Talking on the phone is one of my least favorite activities, it drains my energy, and I didn't want to talk to anyone. So I might wait a week or two before calling back. Maybe there were times I didn't call back at all.
Bev and Jordan persisted. They taught me something about the nature of friendship, taught me to expect grace from my friends, that I didn't have to be perfect, that I could be struggling to figure out what to do with a nagging depression and they would still want to hang out with me.
We are so different. Jordan loves to talk. If she is not talking to someone she's with, she's likely on the phone—she calls people every day during her commute to and from work. She has more energy and concern for her friends than just about anyone I've ever known. Bev loves to shop. She has been known to buy a $150 shower curtain and declare it a bargain. She was born with expensive genes—she knows where to find the best quality kitchenware, the latest trend in Italian kitchen cabinets, the best places in Florence for leather bags. She could list cooking schools from various countries.
The three of them sat on the bed with me before I left, praying for me, earnest and thoughtful prayers. I know that I am important to them and they love me, and they've asked God to watch over me, and I'm so thankful. I need them. I know it now.
Then there are others more deep and longstanding—Suzanna, whom I've known for more than ten years, goes berry picking with me in the summers and used to go with me to crazy singles dances and to the beach, driving home singing every hymn we knew with all the old words. Now she lives in Maryland with her husband and three little ones. And Kristine, my writing friend, who first bonded with me over mutual heartbreak about seven years ago. Dear Catherine, who is so gracious and kind. And Leigh, my entrepreneurial business and movie friend. But these separate groups, these one-off friendships, sometimes feel like a random assortment of planets, an off-kilter solar system orbiting around me, and sometimes I fear that I cannot hold them together, and sometimes I feel alone in the middle.