I’ve thought a lot about the old movie, The Trouble With Angels , a 1966 comedy set at St. Francis, a fictional all-girls Catholic boarding school. The movie boasted of an all-female cast that included Rosaline Russell playing the role of Mother Superior who’s constantly at odds with Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and Rachel Devery (June Harding). Even the director, Ida Lapino, was female—a rare feat for women in the mid-1960s. The episodic story line followed the two disgruntled teenagers through their sophomore, junior, and senior high-school years. Mary was the rebellious, prankish instigator who always said to Rachel, “I’ve got the most scathingly brilliant idea!” Throughout the movie, they pulled pranks on the sisters, repeatedly getting into trouble and turning the convent school upside down. Mary also resented Mother Superior’s authority and often puzzled over why any woman would choose the life of a nun. Over time, the sister’s examples of ded
North Texas summers are hot and dry and generally quite humid. And in the summer of 1961, the scorching sunlight and intense heat ignited one of the worst droughts on record. The sidewalks sizzled and roasted my bare feet, and the heat permeated the already parched ground in front of our home leaving huge cracks and crevices. The grassy lawns—yellow and burnt—smelled like bales of hay that had been sitting in the summer fields too long. We couldn’t afford air conditioning; and even though the air outside was motionless, Mother opened the windows wide every morning. As each day progressed the oppressive heat thickened, singing the air in our tiny two-bedroom home making it feel stagnant and suffocating. So I often spent my summer days sitting by the open windows reading a book and—despite the still air—smelling the sweet aroma of Mother’s honeysuckle vines. Occasionally, I escaped outdoors riding my bike up and down the neighborhood streets pedaling at white heat s
I was all too familiar with the dark, soupy cocktail of my predawn commute with its precipitous, endless sea of headlights that seemed like lighthouses—beacons of hope illuminating a safe path for me during my morning commute. I was hopelessly lost, however, on a ritualistic, tempestuous sea never questioning either the distance or the destination. But one January morning, traffic congestion forced me to exit the well-lit freeway. By happenstance, I ventured down a poorly-lit, meandering country road. At each turn I marveled as my headlights reached out in the darkness making the snowflakes look like stars moving faster than the speed of light. I slowed my car and embraced the subtle privacy of driving through the countryside with its longer, quieter stretches of road where I savored belonging to myself. At one turn I glanced east just as a subdued sun cast its gentle light upon the snowflakes swirling around my car. I pulled over, stopped my car, and rolled down
Comments
Post a Comment