Still at Cold Comfort Convent. Still raining. Oh dear, Pratovecchio has been a bit of a disappointment. I'd thought of going to Poppi (lovely name) today for a trip, to see the castle and museum there, but the weather is really too foul. I'll do what I do on rainy days at home, stay in bed all day. Wish I had another book to read though; I'm halfway through my second reading of Portrait of a Lady. Perhaps I'll become a James expert. Or not.
I seem to be the only person (guest) here. I feel like Lucy Snowe having a nervous breakdown in her Brussels lycee, or Dave Bowman at the end of 2001, all alone in rooms set up to someone else's idea of comfort. I guess the nuns here are not concerned with the ways of the world, but it seems strange to have a guest house if you don't want guests. I managed to find my breakfast this morning, in the gloom of the ancient refectory; it was hidden in a bread bin in one of the darkest corners of the room, everything still in its packets just as if it came straight from the supermarket and was stashed away here. The heating comes on at 10.00 at night, the water filling the pipes with a great rushing noise. It is efficient, but goes off promptly at 8.30 in the morning, so it gets a bit chilly by 5.00. And there are bells. My room is right underneath them, so I hear an almighty clanking and banging of the wooden bits, shaking the room, as if any moment the bell-stand will collapse. The bells chime at 12.00, 5.30, 6.00 and 6.30 (not at night, thank Goddess). The convent chapel has a vesper service, when a few old bodies from the town gather round and totter in to the church. It's such a contrast to the joyous openness of the other convents I've stayed at.
I don't understand the contemplative orders - didn't someone say something about letting your light shine? This seems like taking your light and shutting it away for ever. Perhaps the world would be a worse place if the shut-ins were not praying for it? But if God is all-knowing and benevolent and knows what we need, why pray to him? These are the questions that were not answered at my Sunday School, so probably that's why I'm an atheist now.
One of the other enclosed convents. (Pratovecchio has three).
The nuns could be tough cookies in the medieval period, but now are largely invisible.
Oh dear. The tick/bed bug would have done my head in. And I have been intermittently thinking about enclosed orders since your last post. Sad and bad. Despite the beautiful surroundings.
ReplyDeleteI had an interesting conversation with a woman while we both waited for the bus in Bibbiena. She said that she had always thought Pratovecchio was 'trista' -sad- and that described it so well. I wonder if the sadness has to do with the 3 enclosed convents there, sort of radiating out in waves of depression and despair.
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