But today, I´m playing being a nun.
I pay a large fee at sunset to be allowed into a 15th Century convent. Someone leaves candles in the corners of the rooms so one can see ghosts in the the twisting, rocky, catacomb-like, barricaded city within a city.
"Always stay left", the lady at the front says, "so you don´t get lost". What do you mean? Getting lost is exactly what I want to do.
I am Sister Mary Melissa, sent here against my will ´cos I didn´t want to marry the dickhead down the road. So me, and my huge dowry (thousands of spanish gold coins)were toddled off to the nunnery. I am locked in a small living area that has a hard bed, a place for prayer and an outside cooking space that includes a pizza oven and a set of stairs that go nowhere. I like pizza, so no wuckers there. Not too keen on the lock or the stairs to nowhere though.
Apparently, many women spent most of their lives here, in seclusion, never seeing the horizon or walking in the public streets. Wearing horsehair vests and fasting. I don´t think I`ll fit in that well, though this specific convent had its hand slapped for allowing the nuns to live it up a bit: "the nuns shall from now on only be allowed ONE servant each". Come on, thats a bit rough don´t you think, Priest dude? How will my nails get done?
So I twist my way through, trying to find the secret way out to my lover, which proves impossible, as most stairs or passages end in barbed wire, a dead end, a locked heavy wooden door or back where I started. There are lots of ceramic glossy sculptures of men stuck up on crosses in various states of agony. There are lots of pictures of priests with bad hair or nuns in various states of piousness. There is one lovely picture of a nice looking lass holding a bubba that looks a little on the chubby side.
As a nun I have to cook in a massive cauldron with a massive wooden spoon. This is fun. The sweeping and cleaning isn´t fun because lets face it, these rocks collect grime.
I end up in a cell slightly bigger than the others and remember that even though I can´t ever have a lover for the rest of my freaking life, I can still eat pizza AND
I can sing to the lord.
So I belt out the only hymn I know: Amazing Grace.
And then for good measure I also sing Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon.
I reckon the old nun who lived and died there wouldn´t have minded.
No one came and told me off or locked me back in my cell anyway.
