But The Water Knows Me

The names of the twins were Sammiel and Gabbiel. Sammy and Gabby, for short.

The other night, Adrienne and I were reminiscing about the dollhouse and all the wonderful fantasies we acted out with the Japanese action figures and the G. I. Joes, who are much better than Barbies in a Barbie Dreamhouse because they can bend their knees and sit. I remembered that the parents in the dollhouse were named UltraMan Agul, because that was the kind of action figure he was, and Dory, because that was the mother from the Ramona Quimby books. I remembered the names of most of the children easily, but I drew a blank at the twins. Who were the twins? That’s right, Sammiel and Gabbiel.

I took down so many notes when we were playing together for all of those years, but I hadn’t written “Sammiel and Gabbiel.” I won’t forget again. Sammiel and Gabbiel. I won’t forget again.

The best thing I ever did was becoming Adrienne’s mother. The second best thing was sending her to a public school. She’s so happy there. But I badly miss playing with an imaginative child all day.

The hardest thing that ever happened to me was the pregnancy and that life-threatening disaster birth with the abusive midwife who lied about her qualifications. The second hardest thing was discovering that I just can’t homeschool past the first few grades. I’d been unfair to Adrienne and myself to try for as long as I did. Homeschooling is a great choice for some, but you need a good strong community for that, and I’ll never belong to a community. So I enrolled her at a public middle school, and my dream of being a good mother– or, rather, somebody else’s notion of a good mother– was gone forever.  Now she’s happy, and I’m learning to be happy. She has friends, and I’m learning to be at peace by myself.

On Friday I went for a drive out to the lake, muttering “Sammiel and Gabbiel” to myself as if it was a mantra. Sammiel and Gabbiel. I won’t forget again.

The first half of February was slush, but Friday was bracing cold, and it’ll be bracing cold all week. When I got out to the lake, it wasn’t quite frozen solid. It was only frozen lightly, like a plastic wrap skin on a bowl of green gelatin. There were no jays or woodpeckers to watch: only a flock of Canada geese on the north side of the lake, having a loud argument with those beautiful crows on the south side.  I don’t know if they were actually calling to one another, or if they just happened to be making noise all at once.

I could hear the water running into the lake and sloshing over the spillway, but the lake itself was still. The sun gleamed warm on the water, warm on my skin, warm on the top of my head, but the breeze was ice cold. It will be colder next week. Warm before long. Spring before I know it. Ash Wednesday will be in just about three weeks, and what will I do then?

The hardest thing I ever learned was that the Catholic Church is an abusive mother. The second hardest was realizing that I still do believe in Christ, and Christ is worth knowing. The adventure of the past several years has been deciding what that means for me, and I’m still on that journey. Going to church doesn’t hurt as much as it did a year ago. The idea of a season of fasting and penance hurts a lot.

I’d asked Jesus to go for a hike with me. That’s a strategy I’ve come up with. When I get in the car and start to have a panic attack about what would happen if I died in an accident with my soul in this state, I ask Jesus to go for a drive with me. When I’m about to do something that’s good for me and I’m afraid that makes me a selfish sinner, I ask Jesus to do it with me. When I’m about to go for a hike and I’m afraid of what will happen while I’m hiking, I ask Jesus to come for a hike.

We hiked around the Lake Trail, which is a thousand shades of brown in February, and not one shade of brown is ugly. Brown is almost as lively a color as green.

I talked to Jesus about how unjust it was that I got caught up in Mike Scanlan’s personality cult and ruined my whole life. How painful it was that I lost my dream of being the matriarch of a great big Catholic homeschooling family, just like the one I came from, minus the abuse. How I wished I could be an important part of a great big lively Catholic community–just like the  personality cult, minus the abuse. I told Him I still wished for another baby, somehow, to raise and love and play in that disused dollhouse with and make up more ridiculous stories, just like Adrienne’s childhood but without all the suffering. I told Him it felt eerie to forget the names of two of the dollhouse characters, though I couldn’t say exactly why. But I enjoyed the children visiting and treating me like a surrogate grandma, and reading to children at the outreach. I wished I’d been a teacher instead of ending up what I am. My grandfather always wanted me to be a teacher. I’d disappointed him.

I remembered all the times I’d prayed so earnestly for my lapsed Catholic grandfather, so that he wouldn’t go to hell. I was terrified that God would condemn such a wonderful man to hell for not doing his duties as a Catholic. And now, here I am, in hell with him.

When we played in the dollhouse, Adrienne had a recurring group of characters called the “Street Worshippers,” who drove around the neighborhood in a great big motorized Noah’s Ark, arranging silly and joyous liturgical flash mobs. Once, she pretended that Sammiel and Gabbiel had been enrolled in “junior worship camp” to get them out of their mother’s hair for one afternoon a week. The twins had to march in line behind the Street Worshippers, carrying “Repent” signs. I asked if she was taking vengeance on me for the time I put her in Bible club, and she said yes, but smiling. Bible Club was fun.

But I failed at catechizing a good prim homeschooled devout Catholic family, and I’m afraid that God is angry with me.

Jesus and I came to the place where I’d seen that white tailed deer in October, hoping to see her again. There were no deer. No sign of living things at all, except for the constant sound of those noisy birds by the lake.

Jesus and I listened to the birds, and the ever-present babbling of the water running over shale rock.

If you’ve read my writing for very long, you know that the sounds of nature always seem like voices to me. Sammiel, Gabbiel. Sammiel, Gabbiel. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. You failed, you failed, you failed, you failed. Repent, repent, repent, repent. Many are called, few are chosen. Extra eclesiam nulla salus. There is no salvation outside the Church. 

Where, exactly, is the Church? If it’s with Mike Scanlan, then hell would be preferable. At least I’d see my grandfather. Unless, of course, the Church is something entirely different.

Jesus and I came to the bridge across the noisy stream. Part of it was ice, and part of it was clear water, and part of it was the oily mess that sometimes seeps out of the shale. Mess swirled on water. Water danced past ice.

The only God I can ever hope to meet, is the God I’ve met here in the real world. Not the God who existed in the pretend world I believed in growing up. Not the God in the fantasy where the institutional Catholic Church with her clerics and princes and folk heroes is all good, and the people she doesn’t like are all bad. Only the God out here, in real life, where severe abuse happens and I don’t know where to turn.

The only Mary Pezzulo who could ever commune with that God and become a saint, is this one, the one who really exists. Not the one who was supposed to exist, the matriarch of a perfect Catholic household and the pillar of her community. Not the action figure in the dollhouse who acts out the fantasy, but the real human standing on the bridge in the middle of February, watching the water flow by, half hoping and half fearing that God is watching with her.

The stream flowed out until it widened into the lake.

Vidi aquam egredientem de templo, a latere dextro, alleluia: et omnes, ad quos pervenit aqua ista, salvi facti sunt, et dicent, alleluia, alleluia, sang the stream, as all streams do. I saw water coming from the right side of the temple, alleluia, and all to whom the water came were saved. Alleluia, alleluia.

The water does not stay in the temple. The water flows over the threshold, four thousand cubits and more, deeper and deeper until it becomes a river that no one can cross. It flows out of the right side of the wounded God, out into the real world where life happens, much as the ones who crucified Him wish it wouldn’t.

The water is more than I know, but the Water knows me.

I won’t forget again.