The Parish Dance

I saw the film Brooklyn during a visit to Toronto, and the scene in which Saoirse Ronan's "Eilis" meets Emory Cohen's "Tony" could have been filmed in the basement parish hall of an old Toronto Catholic church. (I have checked, and it was filmed in Montreal.) The low ceiling, the two-toned pillars, and the stage are just so familiar. 

I found a clip of the dance scene on YouTube, and in the comments a wistful viewer writes "Wish i could meet someone this way... Not at a club, not online, just a nice old fashioned dance."

It just occurs to me that Polish Pretend Son met his wife, not at a nice old fashioned dance, but at a tango-dancing festival. I had put his chances of meeting a Nice Catholic Girl at tango at zero, but I suppose the odds of meeting a Nice Catholic Girl in Poland, even at a tango festival, are still very good. 

However, we don't all live in Poland, so you are as unlikely to meet a Nice Catholic Somebody at secular tango-dancing, Latin dancing, and even swing-dancing events as you are at Tequila Jack's or the Opal Lounge. And back when my grandparents were young (and when my parents were children), young Catholics went looking for other young Catholics at their parish dance or--as Tony did in Brooklyn--at another parish dance. If you wanted to meet Irish girls in New York, you went to an Irish parish in New York. 

Young Catholics today may feel nostalgic for the dances they never knew; I am feeling nostalgic for a parish hall. When Father Flood and Mrs Keogh organized dances for the young folks, they already had a parish hall. Poor, poor Mrs McLean is a TLMer, so she doesn't have a parish hall. She must pay for everything. Therefore, she must also solicit donations and sell tickets. 

The Eastertide Dance is my most recent attempt at resurrecting the Nice Old-fashioned Parish Dance. (Unlike the parish dance in Brooklyn, however, there will be wine and beer, tea and coffee, crisps and cake.) Catholics who love the Traditional Latin Mass are a minority within a minority in Scotland, so my original idea was to bring them together for a night of merriment. (Unfortunately, I haven't yet figured out how to provide childcare.) This worked well, I thought, at the Michaelmas Dance, so now my goal is to attract an even larger crowd. Of course, the difficulty with being a minority within a minority is that the community is not necessarily very big. Thus, I have invited a priest at a conservative-enough parish to tell his youth group all about it. As Generation Z supposedly makes all its decisions at the last minute, I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Oh, and experimenting with direct marketing. 

Looking at videos of the Brooklyn parish dance, I note that poor Dolores, who so badly wants to meet "fellas," is darting glances around like a crazed cockatoo. The viewer is invited to consider if anyone is likely to ask her to dance. One of the strengths of the Eastertide Dance over that dance is that we have 7 ceilidh dances planned. Our dance balances out "couple" dances with "group dances." Dolores, if she deigned to dance our Scottish gambols, could stop worrying about the fellas and just dance.

The Frogs on the Tiling

Once upon a time I was very entertained by "transformation" scenes in popular films. It was fun to believe that streetwalkers could be transformed into elegant ladies, dowdy schoolgirls into princesses, and tough-talking cops into beauty queens over the course of a day at a beauty salon, plus new clothing. 

Sadly, I have never found that beauty services plus new clothing transformed me into someone better, unless there is a particular virtue in having less money. In terms of physical appearance, what really does--or did--the trick is sleep, sharply curtailed calorific intake, a job involving much walking, and going to gyms up to 10 times a week. 

When I lived that way, I worked at a Canadian passport office and, still possessing the arrogance of youth, marvelled at the difference between older women who had clearly given up fighting the ravages of time and older women who seemed determined to fight them to the grave. "Older" meant over 40. And I was in a unique position to know exactly how old every woman was, as it was written on her passport application and printed on her birth certificate. 

Having worked hard to become athletic and slim, I was very much on the side of the Over-40s fighting time. And after I reached 40 myself I was among their number until 2017 when I was going so often to visit my husband at the hospital that I bought a bus pass. The bus pass photo showed an exhausted, worried middle-aged woman, a most-unfashionable kerchief tired around her mad hair. She looked terrible, like an Over-40 who had given up the fight. 

"Who cares?" I thought. "So be it." 

What I did not know when I was a slim 20-something is that you don't get the face and figure you deserve after 40. You get the ones handed to you by life. If you are blessed with good genes and good luck, you can appear youthful for decades. If, however, you are walloped with illness, family illness, unexpected deaths, financial disasters, political unrest, emotional betrayals, fire, flood, and goodness knows what else, it shows up in your appearance. Nowadays when I see an obese old woman on the street, I try to picture the slender teenager she probably once was and wonder what life did to her. 

Sometimes you can actually feel years of life taken from your body. This definitely happened to me in 2018 when I came back to the Historical House after an unpleasant social call and discovered the priceless, irreplaceable, never-to-be-touched-without-gloves contents of the museum collection set out on the front lawn. 

Benedict Ambrose and I had been more-or-less guarding that collection with our lives, so I thought immediately that B.A. could be, despite months of the NHS's hard work, dead. However, he suddenly became visible, breaking away from the huddle of people and precious furniture, coming towards me wearing a hard hat, and calling, "I'm all right. It's all right!"

It wasn't, really. The worst thing that can happen to an old house is fire. But the second worst--which had happened--is flood. The fire retardant sprinkler system had malfunctioned while we were both away from home. Almost all my clothes (right under one of the sprinkler heads) were destroyed, but it always seemed churlish to mention that (let alone demand redress) given the damage to the national treasure. And, of course, we were suddenly homeless. 

Catalogue of Alarums and Excursion:

Amoris Laetitia, the brain tumour, the Deluge, homelessness, brain tumour again, experimental radiotherapy, finding a mortgage, buying a flat, double-taxation (now resolved), COVID lockdown, B.A.'s subsequent voluntary redundancy, Traditionis Custodes, spinal tumours, more experimental radiotherapy, Fiducia Supplicans and, slowly yet unexpectedly, B.A.'s inability to walk unaided. 

No, I do not think a day at the beauty salon and a Rodeo Drive shopping excursion would suffice to soothe the ravages of time.  

You will be surprised to read that the intent of this post was to think in print about renovating the bathroom. The opening sentence was going to be something like "I have lost the desire to renovate myself, and now I desire only to renovate the bathroom." Bathroom renovations, I am assured by the internet, are naturally difficult, stressful, and involve many decisions. Mistakes are costly. And, sadly, in our case renovations are absolutely necessary, as B.A. can't climb over the side of the bathtub without risking his neck. Thus, it too gets added to the list of alarms and excursions. 

I veer between wanting to cut a hole in the side of the bathtub (and covering the edges with rubber trim), which would cost £30, and wanting the local bathroom designer to build us a spa, which would cost £15,000+. (American readers: this is not a request for funding! One of the most wonderful things about Americans is your overflowing generosity, but we both have jobs and are not on our uppers yet.) The good news is that home repairs done under the duress of a physical disability are sales-tax free. The bad news is that my preferred approach to life improvement is to remove things and habits that cost money, not buy new ones. 

However, I will have to lump it because B.A. doesn't like the hole-in-the-side-of-the-bathtub plan, and I have long since wearied of the frogs on the tiling. 

Observations from Misfortune

I was exhausted by bedtime last night, thanks to a long day dominated by travels by bus, car and rollator to and from Mass. 

I once thought being car-free was a great blessing; now I think it is a luxury we can no longer afford. The last time we took a taxi anywhere, it became obvious that the driver had no idea how to navigate the area without a GPS, the GPS took us on a highly original route, and the driver charged us £30.72. 

The first thing I noticed yesterday was that if I stand back and allow Benedict Ambrose to lift his lightweight rollator up or down a step, strangers will lunge past me to grab it. I am sure they mean to be helpful,  it's lovely to live in a society where people care, and. B.A. is a humble, patient man. But it leaves me feeling like a seeing-eye dog who has just been chastised for laziness. People, ask first.

The second thing I noticed was that there was dried dog dirt on a wheel of the rollator. Mindful of the car we were going  to travel in after our two bus rides, I wiped it off with a clean paper napkin I fortunately had in my pocket. I know everyone says this, but honesty, do pick up after your dog. Not everyone can see where it poops, especially after dark. (We had gone to a dinner party the night before, and our return journey was out of the Odyssey.)

The third thing I noticed (not for the first time) is that everyone is horrified when I mention the quotes given to us by mobility bathroom salesmen. Amazingly, nobody else has been asked to pay £16,000 for obviously cheap materials and a crew guaranteed to finish the job. I keep checking the internet, and it keeps telling me that people remodelling a small bathroom in the UK in 2024 should expect to pay between £4,000 and £6,000, unless they go all out and buy luxury goods.  

One salesmen told us the high price was due to COVID and Brexit. He also told us that nobody uses plywood for waterproof wall panels anymore, and in fact plywood comes from Russia. (The horror!) On the coffee table before him was a catalogue of wall panels from a rival firm, and their centre cores are made from plywood. 

As I have not yet spoken to a firm that remodels bathrooms, not just mobility bathrooms ("We did the bathroom for  X hospital, have a look at the photos!), I cannot say if it is the word "mobility" that adds £10,000 to the bill. However, as the people most likely to hire a mobility bathroom firm are the elderly and disabled, which is to say the most vulnerable adults in society, I suspect an investigation is in order. 

The fourth thing that I noticed is that my nerves are fraying, and that we both need the services of the cancer support service. Unfortunately, the cancer support service is two bus rides away, and when we were last near it and had time to go at once, it was closed. 

The fifth thing that I noticed was that I reached a flow state yesterday afternoon while reading my daily two pages of Bolesław Prus's Lalka (The Doll). It is set in 1878, it is hardly a text for foreigners, and when I go over it unaided, I can only get the gist. However, it is great fun to compare the text afterwards to a translation and fill in the gaps. 

This reminded me that I sometimes want to write a post arguing against feeling sad all the time. When Benedict Ambrose was very sick in 2017 and I was combining full-time work with second-guessing doctors and either begging them to do something or visiting B.A. in hospital, I received an angry email from an up-to-that-moment cherished friend disgusted by my blogposts about learning Italian. Apparently this then-friend believed that I was not doing enough to help Benedict Ambrose and that I was criminally negligent. I needed to stop going to Italian class and follow her [expensive and lunatic] care plan.*  

What she didn't know was that Italian class, and thinking and writing about how speaking a second language changes a brain, and how and why second and third languages get scrambled up when you try to speak them, gave me a respite from acute mental torment. She knew Benedict Ambrose was suffering, but she couldn't seem to grasp that his wife was suffering, too, and that if she sent her wacko email, it would scar the latter for life. 

Anyway, when someone you love is very sick, you don't have to be sad all the time. You should feel free to admit that you are sad, but you should also work on keeping depression at bay. Fortunately for me, I have never thought solitary drinking or drugging the path to joy. I am also not a fan of lying on the sofa reading endless paperbacks although I know that works for others. Instead, I disappear into the world of foreign languages, and quite a wonderful world it is, too. 

*Yes, I know I have written about this recently. But it was, hands down, the worse communication I have ever received in my life. Never, ever write to the spouse of a very sick person accusing her/him of maltreating him/her. 

Thinking about Our Boys

I tried to write a companion post to "Talking to Girls", but it got bogged down in the caveats about the minority of men who are mad, bad and dangerous to know, so I gave up. Let us put all that Daily Mail stuff aside and think about only those good men to whom you have been introduced at the Newman Center, CSU, Juventutem, on pilgrimage and/or at the After-Mass Coffee and Tea. In fact, let us talk about Our Boys.

Thinking about Our Boys suggests discrimination, and that's exactly what women should exhibit towards men: discrimination. After all, the Christian woman's ideal is to share her life with only one man (or, if a nun, only with the Son of Man) while being a cordial neighbour to the other men around. It is easier to be cordial when these men are sane, good and safe to know. And the easiest way to ensure that is to avoid the other kind completely. 

Sanity, goodness, and safety are merely the essential basics, of course. Young marriage-minded women often have a long list of traits that the Ideal Husband should have. It gets shorter as they get older and realize some of the things on the list are very trivial, or when they fall in head-over-heels with someone with few of the characteristics written secretly in the back of the notebook. Look at me: I married a man with a beard who can't drive.  

However, Benedict Ambrose was definitely one of Our Boys, which for me meant that he was a Catholic who went to Mass every Sunday and prayed every day. And since shared Catholicism was my number one value of values, I knew that however much B.A. might irritate me in future (if he did), I would stick by him through thick and thin: he was one of Our Boys. Also, he was funny, clever, kind, talented, and had great dinner parties. But that said, while B.A. was sliding into a coma, all that was left was the shared Catholicism. It was enough. 

The importance of thinking about men who share your most cherished values as Our Boys is that it helps dull the negative effects their more amusing traits have on you. In my experience, young women have a harder time understanding that men are not just women in larger, more rectangular bodies. Thus, it might seem hilarious when men are not as good as women are at certain things: striking up conversations with women, colour-coordinating outfits, reading micro-expressions, walking gracefully. It isn't really. 

Incidentally, as I am writing primarily for Our Girls, I am sure I don't have to explain how unreasonable it is to say men "just shouldn't look" or "should keep better custody of their eyes" in response to complaints to immodest female attire. Of course, some of the more original-minded of Our Boys will argue that women should dress like statues of Our Lady of Sorrows. He is, of course, making the error of thinking that women are just men in smaller, rounder bodies who will dispassionately weigh such ideas in an abstract fashion and not view them as personal attacks or think immediately of the Taliban. Naturally, it would be an error to take these Our Boys seriously, just as it would be an error to dress like statues of Our Lady of Sorrows. Tell them that you  tried dressing like OLOS at one point but gave it up when you tripped on your hem in front of a bus. 

In short, I am counselling patience, understanding and kindness. It is a terrible thing to laugh at a well-meaning young man. It is also a bad idea to scold him. Given the very anti-male turn our society has taken, and given the female domination of the education industry, the average young man in the West has been bullied by women from birth and is mighty tired of it. Therefore, instead of employing the "delightful raillery" used by millionaire's daughter Elizabeth Bennett when punching up at the billionaire Mr. Darcy, it is a better idea to give young men the impression that you think they are marvellous. 

There is an appropriate degree to this, of course. You don't want to give the impression that you are man-mad, and obviously you must be super-careful in what you say to married men. However, I cannot see that there is anything wrong in giving voice to positive, if trivial, thoughts that come into your mind when you see a pullover you like on a fellow Single or feel that your dance partner has greatly improved. 

And that's all I have to say. To recap:

1. Avoid all men who are mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

2. Develop feelings of solidarity with the men you know who share your most cherished values, aka Our Boys.

3. Plan on marrying one of them, or someone like them, one day. 

4. Be patient, understanding and kind when Our Boys, though well-meaning, are tongue-tied, puppyish, clumsy, or colour-uncoordinated. 

5. Some boys come up with weird abstract theories that you should neither take seriously nor get upset about. If possible, make a joke about it. 

Boy: Women should never work outside the home. 

Girl: That's why I'm going to marry for money. What's your major?

Boy: Women should dress like Our Lady.

Girl: I tried, but then I tripped in front of a bus. 

Boy: Women should not go to university.

Girl: But then how would we homeschool our sons?

6. If your outfit would have been morally acceptable in your town in 1962, it's fine now. 

7. Their female-dominated education may have been rather tough on Our Boys. Feed and water them with kind words.