The Strange Story of a Scarf

I've been sorting through my things and as a result have several bags of clothes to go to the local charity shop. It's a wrench to get rid of things this way; it's much more final than storing books and possessions with friends.

But I've found that living on an island means that giving things to the charity shop doesn't guarantee you will never see them again. A few months ago I was in the Coop and a lady's green tweed jacket caught my eye -- because it was my jacket, or rather a jacket I had given away a little while before that. And then it happened again -- a school pupil was wearing a multicoloured scarf that I recognized. My scarf! I wouldn't have dared tell her it once belonged to me. The humiliation of being thirteen years old and finding that not only the fact that you had bought something at a charity shop had been revealed, but that it was also a teacher's! My inner thirteen-year-old cringed in silent sympathy.

That was a couple on months ago. For the last week, the school has been in a bit of a bùrach, with exams going on and classes being shifted to different rooms to accommodate this. I've had the surprise a few times now of walking into the room I currently occupy to see a group of pupils waiting for a teacher who isn't me. This happened again today, and then one of the technical teachers appeared to usher them away to do some carpentering. On the way out the door, one of the boys, quite a serious lad, handed me something. 'Here, miss,' he said. 'People were throwing it around -- I don't know who it belongs to.'

I looked at what he had given me. It was my scarf -- the one I had given away and that had recently reappeared around a pupil's neck. The technical teacher, on the way out the door, laughed. 'It's yours now,' he said to me.

I wanted to tell him that it was mine to begin with, but I said nothing. Alone in the room, I laughed. There was a message here, I thought, and my mind went to the bags of clothes waiting to be taken to the charity shop -- my work clothes, clothes that I may never need again.

'Nothing is wasted in God. God is the arch-re-cycler,' my wise monastic advisor had written me. And here was proof -- the silly scarf I had given away back in my hands. I shook my head and laughed again and got on with my work.

Nostalgia

It's a gift, I think, to have memories of very early childhood. Not everyone seems to have them; my mother claims that my siblings and I do because we talk about them so much. My very earliest memories are of dreams, when I was too young to comprehend the difference between them and my real, wide-awake life.

I think it's a related thing to go through life with a strong sense of nostalgia. I read somewhere recently that everyone is nostalgic about their school days. I disagree with this; there is little from my school days I look back on with fondness. Christmas is another story. Christmas is saturated with nostalgia for me, right down to the memory of the smell of the artificial tree needles when they melted on the gaudy coloured lights.

I'm sure that Christmas nostalgia is common enough. I'm not as sure that's the case with being nostalgic about the years shortly before you were born. Although I appeared two weeks before the decade ended, the country music of the Seventies sends waves of nostalgia washing over me.

I'm thinking of a particular song -- I first remember hearing my fellow Nova Scotian Anne Murray's 'Danny's Song' as a teenager on an car ride on a golden sunlit autumn day and falling in love with the song and the day.

So what is it will all this nostalgia today? (And how many times have I used the word 'nostalgia' in this post?)

As a wise monk recently explained to me, the point is that 'the most powerful nostalgia is for our true homeland -- heaven. It's worth moving heaven and earth for that homeland!'

So that's it. It's the explanation for that strange, sweet ache I get when I see the moon rising over the wintry mountains in my beloved Hebridean island and when I listen to John Denver singing 'Country Roads.' It's the longing for heaven that's part of every cell of all of us; the experience of St Augustine's insight that 'our hearts are restless until our hearts rest in you.' It's the pearl of great price; it's the treasure in the field that I will sell everything I have to buy.

'Good life!'

...was the reaction of a dear colleague when I told her about entering the monastery the other day. Which is ironic and appropriate -- it is a good life. It's the best life -- 'the better part' -- why else do it?

I've been booking tickets this evening for the trip down to the monastery this summer. The airline booking form required me to select the reason for the journey. 'They don't give joining the nuns as an option,' I texted to the friend who is going to accompany me. I settled on 'leisure.'

When my sister got married the year before last, she and her husband were told 'to play the honeymoon card' at hotels and restaurants. I told this to my friend when we first began to discuss our travel plans. 'Oh yes,' she agreed. 'We'll definitely have to play the becoming a nun card.' Although I'm not sure what people would offer you when you play the becoming a nun card. Quizzical looks? Incredulous laughter? A complimentary glass of Blue Nun? Hmm...

Happy Feast of Saint Scholastica!

We got nun

Although a Protestant, the father of an old friend had a Catholic education. "As the nuns used to say in school," he told her. "If you don't got any manners, get the hell home."

I told that story to my own father. "The nuns at my school had a saying, too," he told me. "We don't got nun."

Which is something my own family, deo volente, will not be able to say in years to come. They will have got one nun -- a Benedictine in a monastery on the other side of the water.

This news is something that I'm gradually beginning to share, as plans have come together in the last little while. What do people say when you tell then you're becoming a nun? I've begun a list.

Very kind, very devout landlady (with a sigh): "It could be worse. You're young yet, anyway."

Scottish gal pal, fellow spinster and travelling companion (when I reported landlady's reaction): "Worse? How could it be worse? You could get knocked down by a car, I suppose."

Little sister in the big city: "Awesome. Are you allowed out to go for Chinese food?"

Friend and work colleague with a penchant for dressing up as a nun: "I hope I haven't offended you by dressing up a nun. I promise I won't do it for your leaving do."

I assured her I didn't want a leaving do, but if I did, an appearance in her nun costume would be a nice touch.

Not long to go...

...before it's time to return to the Hebrides. It seemed that I was back in the Old Country this morning when I was awoken by a pheasant calling. Shades of Pluscarden Abbey. They are impressive birds. When I was very small, my favourite breakfast was Quaker Instant Oatmeal -- the apple and cinnamon variety. I can't remember if it was birds or wild animals in general that featured on the packages, but my favourites were the pheasants and the owls.

My younger sister recently pointed out that our elder niece and nephew are now at the age that we can remember being. My nephew, who is three, is on the way to the house just now -- my mother was going to take him for breakfast and to see if the car-carrier ship was in.

My niece will be four in a few months. "That little one's not too stupid," is my mother's way of describing her.

"Sometimes I do things that are bad," she informed me the other day. "Like when Mommy told me to go upstairs and get her phone."

'Why didn't you go get it?" I asked her.

"Because I didn't want to."

And there's our flawed human nature summed up by a precocious preschooler.

On Christmas Day, we were gathered at her house, and she was showing my younger sister's husband, who is Jewish, the nativity scene. "This is Mary, and this is Joseph, and this is Baby Jesus -- or God," she told him.

It's not over

Christmas is not over. It's not over until January 6. Or January 8, if you live in a country that has transferred Epiphany to the Sunday. Or maybe February 2, the Feast of the Presentation. It's not time to take down the tree or the decorations. The Wise Men haven't even got there yet.

A related rant -- why do they stop playing Christmas songs on the radio on December 26? Could they at least not continue until New Year's Day? I was only slightly mollified that when I was in the car at 11.30 on New Year's Eve, I heard U2's New Year's Day, followed by advertisements for two different gyms. It would have been nice to hear Abba's Happy New Year, but I'm sure that it was playing on some radio station somewhere.

And a final curmudgeonly moment -- spending Christmas in my native land, it's become very noticeable that many of my Maritime compatriots often wish each other a "Happy New Year's," and ask each other "What are you doing for New Year's?" Has this become more common or just more obvious to me?

Advent

Catholics obviously don't believe in karma, but I was raised to believe in comeuppance. As in "he'll get his comeuppance; just you watch." I think I get a bit of my own every time a child I teach questions what I say. After all, I happily corrected teachers throughout my school career.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking to a class of Catholic pupils about Advent. "Does anyone know when Advent starts this year?" I asked.

"December first," one of the boys volunteered confidently.

"No," I replied. "It's a different date every year and it's not December first this year."

I noticed a few faces looking bemused. "But it is," another child insisted. "That's the first day in your Advent calendar. That's the first door you open for a chocolate."

Which led other children to chip in with their approach to chocolate Advent calendars -- saving them all up until nearer Christmas, etc.

"We're talking about church Advent, not chocolate Advent calendar Advent," I had to specify. I decided not to mention that I had purchased my chocolate Advent calendar during a trip to the mainland in October. It has Lindt chocolates in it.