Saturday, September 19, 2009

Stories Around the Fire



I took a lover when I was thirty-nine, fresh out of a marriage. He was twenty years older than me. I felt the crush of my upcoming fortieth birthday bearing down on me like a boulder, whooshing all the air out of me as if trying to flatten me. He slowed it all down.

He had a soothing patience and a kind of bemused detachment that allowed me a lot of freedom. He was an ex-priest and in the seminaries he was taught well: he learned about not being a servant to the flesh.

I’d never been with such an old man, as he appeared to me then. An ascetic old man. But given that he was never a servant to the body he carried it to the extreme in that he never walked anywhere, it was as if his car was an extension of him. A greyhound, my mother would have called him. He ate carelessly and inattentively as if food was mere fuel for his intellectual life and if he could have gotten away with not eating he would.

His story had an interesting feature. He’d been a priest for twenty years and only left when he fell hopelessly in love with an orphaned baby on a reservation in Northern Ontario and couldn’t abandon her. Her parents had died together in a fire, triggered by drunken smoking. None of her relatives wanted her, there was some degree of fetal alcohol syndrome and her periodic rages and tantrums were intimidating to most. But not to him, he told me. He would gather her up and rock her and comfort her and he’d stop her pain instantly.

He wanted to adopt her, which was ridiculous, him being a parish priest, you see. At first I found his story a little creepy as it was an alien thing to me, this older man taking a non-prurient interest in a girl-child as I had been a victim of the other kind. But I met her and she was limited but charming and my overly suspicious eyes didn’t pick up on anything untoward. An extraordinary thing in 1973 – to leave the priesthood to parent a strange child.

After he abandoned the priesthood and set up house with the child, he proceeded to take his PhD in Theology and that’s how I met him; when he was teaching an exploration of world religions course. I was teetering on the edge of agnosticism, not quite into full fledged atheism and had yet to string the words patriarchy and religion together in the same thought stream.

We got into a discussion on Buddhism after class one night. And he was patient in explaining to me how it and Catholicism were interconnected and he could recommend some interesting books, in fact he had some at home which was near the school and he could lend them to me. Would I care for a coffee and continue the discussion in his house, he had a baby sitter who needed to get home.

Flattered, intrigued, I followed him home in my car. An old, old house on the edge of High Park. The baby sitter was leaving as I slowly pulled up outside while he stood in the open doorway, the amber light of the hall behind him, silhouetting his lanky frame, his curly grey hair like a halo.

He took me into his ground floor study-den-parlour, a room that was jammed floor to ceiling with books and small tables and three wing chairs. It even had a fancy library ladder for accessing the high shelves and a working fireplace that he’d freshly lit.

He was extraordinarily attentive, his head inclined towards mine as he weighed each of my words as if they were precious gems. And nodding slowly and carefully once he had absorbed them, as if into his very bones. I was flattered. I blossomed further under such focussed devotion, expressing more of my opinion, more of my quest. He got up and began to pile books on the table beside me.

He then spoke of his own faith and shared his personal story of the leaving of the priesthood and the child, Mee-waa, now known as Maria, who was then nine.

He went off to make the coffee and I fingered the books, all by Anthony DeMelo, a Jesuit priest who had lectured on Buddhism.

When he came back with a tray with the coffee on it, I didn’t hesitate for one second. I was surprised at myself as I didn’t have wine in me to loosen me up. Stone cold sober, I slowly ground out my cigarette in the ashtray and got up and went over to him as he was just about to ask the cream and sugar question and put my arms around him in a way that would not be misconstrued. Tightly. And threw my face up at him. Boldly.

And I said, I can still hear myself, all these years later, laughing I was, so confident, so sure of the outcome. And oh, so clear.

“Your move!”

21 comments:

  1. This brings back memories of my own...Wonderful enriching experiences that were technically forbidden!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nancy:
    We all have them, don't we? It's a release to write about them!
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh! what writing! What a story! What a memory.

    What happened to him?

    By the way, have you been reading Natalie's serial story in Blagustine? I wonder whether it will turn out the same way. But she has not written an installment for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is pretty wonderful, WWW. You are so much a woman after my own heart and so much of your life mirrors mine in the boldness of your deeds. It is still my intention to grow up and be exactly like you and I'm hurrying up behind you. I too had a religious man in my life whom I seduced. He was not a great intellectual, though. I would have liked that better. I love a lofty mind.

    ReplyDelete
  5. He sounds like a lovely, sensitive man. But I somehow get a sense of a sting in the tale which you haven't disclosed....

    And I can see very little connection between Catholicism and Buddhism. How did he work that one out?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am sure that with his highly developed theological mind he found a way to connect the two kinds of religions so that they were in some way highly compatible. He probably made all sorts of sense. Don't tell me he used to be a Jesuit priest? I guess not. They don't fall off the religious wagon as easily as that. Not that he did, of course, but still...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beautiful, I hope there's a sequel! I love the picture you paint here, and am intrigued by the painting you use to introduce this story, it certainly casts a shadow!

    ReplyDelete
  8. WWW, your style of writing is so engulfing! Did you ever think about writing a book? you should! :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anne:
    Please send me the link! thanks for the kinds words, ma'am!
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh GSW:
    Please do share your seduction story, I am so totally intrigued!
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  11. Nick:
    Oh the sting was dreadful and kind of mundane and awful, you are perceptive!
    Yes in some esoteric Catholic teachings the Buddhist element is very, very strong.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  12. GSW:
    No, not a Jesuit, they never (or hardly every) succumb to the temptations of womanly flesh.
    Buddhism and Catholicism can be linked and very strongly.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  13. Annie:
    That's all she wrote, it was downhill from there, I was not very well at the time and had demons in my life whereas he was very centred and focussed and, well, well. He still has my highest regard.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  14. Nevin:
    Thank you, I need to work on finishing a few novels and finalizing the short story collection, etc. etc.
    You are very encouraging!
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh wow, WWW! What an embarrassment of riches to catch up on after my absence. I haven't commented on each, but have thoroughly enjoyed reading all that I've missed. I've been nodding in agreement at several posts, and savouring your lovely vacation along with you.

    This latest story of your younger doings is fascinating - as your writing never fails to be.
    Do you know the priest's birthday, I'm wondering? I look forward to Part2, if there is to be a continuation. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh T:
    You are always so kind! I've missed you and now that you're back I hasten to your blog. Thank you for your good words.

    The priest was a Gemini and birthdate long forgotten, I'm afraid.

    I leave the story as is. He was a lovely man and I was not too well emotionally at the time.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  17. I'd guessed Gemini, mainly because of his lanky appearance, as described, and his thirst for knowledge. :-) But I'm often mistaken in my guesses 'cos personality is such complex stuff.
    Bet he had some planets in Cancer (next sign along) too - it would reflect his care for the child.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks for the additional insight T.
    We still care deeply for each other.
    At the time and place we met it just couldn't work. and possibly never would.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  19. First visit post-op, and an amazing story for me to come to. I too met and befriended an ex priest in his very raw early days after leaving the order. His family disowned him and he needed a strong shoulder. I became that shoulder and sat many a night letting him talk away his cares. I am sure plenty of people thought we were having an affair.

    He sang at my wedding and we are still friends to this day. He did marry and had a family of his own

    ReplyDelete
  20. GM:
    There's the secret, once you sleep with them they're no longer friends.
    Yours is a lovely story.
    XO
    WWW

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hm, what's the metapher? Carrying coals to Newfoundland? :)
    Anyway:
    A fine piece of writing.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome. Anonymous comments will be deleted unread.

Email me at wisewebwomanatgmaildotcom if you're having trouble.