A Bittersweet Tale In Which Scary Nuns Are Mentioned

Robbo and Steve-o are chatting about the Madeline books by Ludwig Bemelmans. I can only say that I disagree with the Llama-ettes: I, too, wanted to have my appendix removed, just like Madeline's fellow boarding school flunkies. That would have been COOL when I was five!

Ahhhhh. I loved those books when I was little and I'm so glad they're still around and haven't disappeared into publishing obscurity, like so many others I adored when I was little. You see, I'm quite the fan of Madeline. Always have been. I've had a yen to go to Paris ever since I started reading about the twelve little girls, walking in two straight lines, the littlest of whom was Madeline. I always wanted to be at the end of the line because that's where the adventure makes itself known. I've always wanted a straw hat with a ribbon on it. Well, now that I think about it, I actually do possess a straw hat and I did try to put a black ribbon on it, but wasn't handy enough with the glue gun. Hmmph.

Madeline had chutzpah. She hung around with Pepito, who, while the son of the Spanish ambassador, was rather notorious for being a bad boy. She got lost with Pepito and they ran away with the Gypsies. She gave Miss Clavel grief, even if she never intended for that outcome. Madeline ruled and I loved her for it. I obsessively read and reread all of the stories, checking them out of both the public and my school library over and over again. This is where I gained my lifelong glomming habit. I still do this: glom onto an author whose works I love and read and reread their works, but darned if Sister Ramunda, the school librarian at the time, didn't try her best to scare me off this practice.

Now, I've encountered many o' a scary nun during my twelve years of Catholic education. This is unusual nowadays, because there really aren't that many nuns in the Catholic education system, but back then, well, I was the last of the children to receive their largesse. Sr. Celine, my rotund first grade teacher---God rest her soul---was as bad as they came. No one, and I mean no one, could drag you across a classroom by your ear better or more painfully than her. She was also really handy with a wooden ruler. And if the little metal edge on said ruler had come loose and flopped around all on its own, so much the better: it provided a little extra sting to your hand on top of the blow the ruler itself delivered. She could also be incredibly mean. You didn't want to look stupid in front of Sr. Celine, because she was likely to yell at you. The woman inspired terror and I was terrified of her then and still am today. She is not one of the five people I want to meet when/if I go to heaven. I never want to see her again. Ever. She died a few years back and I've never heard such a stir at mass as when her death was announced. People turned to one another, a mix of incredulity and hope painted broadly on their faces. They were incredulous that the old bat was actually capable of dying and apparently there was hope that nuns maybe, just maybe, could roast in hell for being mean to little kids. Father actually had to clear his throat loudly to get everyone to pipe down.

Now, I'm sure some of you will object to all this violence in the classroom. That's fine. While I personally think Sr. Celine was a witch in a habit and all she was missing was a broom, I shall refer you to what my mother has to say about the subject, because, five out of the eight of us had Sr. Celine for first grade: "I trusted the woman because you all learned how to read, write, and do math and could sit still and be silent by the end of first grade." Take her disclaimer it for what it's worth, and it's worth quite a lot, if you ask me, because all of us could read above our grade level, write, do math and sit still for hours on end after first grade.

While Sr. Celine inspired abject terror in us, Sr. Ramunda was nonetheless scarier to me. She was tall and skinny, and had a face like a horse: long with a big nose and small eyes that were hidden behind glasses. I was introduced to her at the same time I was Sr. Celine, and as a nun character study, she was no more likely to suffer fools gladly than Sr. Celine, but she wasn't violent about it. Sr. Celine may have carried a big stick, but she apparently hadn't learned to speak softly while doing it. Sr. Ramunda had learned that lesson and it worked. I can only remember her raising her voice to me once, and that was when I tried to check out a Madeline book for the umpteenth time.

You're too old for those books! Find something else because I'm not letting you have another one!

She was completely exasperated with my reading habits. I, of course, was shocked. You could check out anything you wanted to check out at the public library. Why was it different at St. Margaret Mary's elementary school? It wasn't fair! I remember being ready to rebel because I was getting shaky knees. For me, when my knees shook, it didn't mean I was frightened. It meant I was pissed off. Nor could I control this to save my life. It just happened. It meant I was ticked off and this was my body's way of dealing with anger against people I knew I couldn't be angry with. Just as I was about to open my mouth to protest, Sr. Ramunda sent me so withering a stare from under her habit that I was jerked clean out of the impending protests I was about to lodge. My knees had stopped shaking. I walked back to where I'd found the book, returned it to the shelf, wordlessly picked something else out, walked back over to her desk and presented it for checkout. She stamped the card, handed me the book and sent me on my way without so much as a word.

I lost that battle of wills and Madeline walked out of my life, her hat ribbon flowing in the breeze. Because Sr. Ramunda was right: I was too old for those books and I needed to move on with my reading. I knew this even then, but I couldn't help but love how safe and secure those books made me feel, even when they were telling me tales of Madeline's adventures. I wasn't a popular kid at school, and as is true for so many other people, I retreated into books. They were my safe place, and still are. It's not lost on me, either, that this is perhaps why I'm not as adventurous in my reading habits today as I could be. As I mentioned above, I still glom, mainly because there's no Sr. Ramunda to stop me. While it feels mutinous and is definitely still feels like a guilty pleasure when I do this, the memory of Sr. Ramunda lingers and I know I should move on to other things. Because I might be missing something in my need for safety and comfort. Sr. Ramunda knew this. While I will contend that she could have been a little kinder in pointing this out to me, she knew what she was talking about : that, ulitmately, by moving beyond Madeline, I could become more like Madeline, which is what I wanted then.

And is something I still do want.

Posted by Kathy at April 14, 2005 01:32 PM