At ten years old, all I know are narrow hallways that smell vaguely of melted butter and popcorn. I walk, or sometimes skip, between walls of finger-painted guardian angels, colors smeared and smudged to concoct a golden-brown halo atop a head of cascading hair. Paper chain-link Advent calendars hang from the ceiling and rock in rhythm with the air ventilation.
I’m criss-cross applesauce on a baby blue carpet embellished with clouds, and Ms. T is talking about death. Her voice, a delicate croon, hushes the classroom.
“I see my sister with the angels,” Ms. T remarks with a soft, knowing smile, “Every Thursday mass, when I gaze up at the ceiling,” She pauses, dangling the prospect in front of our wide eyes, “They sing with us.”
There’s a heaviness to her words. Her eyes are tired, as if she knows that we, too, will have to wait sixty years to see the chorus in the sky.
At ten years old, I begin to wonder when God will trust me enough to show me his angels.
At fourteen years old, religion becomes habitual. Memorizing the Nicene Creed is treated with the same validity as learning geometric formulas. Each Thursday morning mass, as I prop myself upwards against the church kneeler, I devise a calculated plan to disassociate during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. As the priest rattles off his prayers, my brain reduces his words to mush, and the mush scatters and pulsates until it’s nothing but white noise. I practice absolute stillness until the cushion eats away at my kneecaps, raw and sticky with sweat.
I’m sitting in a rickety, baby blue chair. The backrest is sloped so aggressively that it is impossible for me to carve my spine into it. The room is damp, chalk-white, and full of girls my age. No one dares say a word.
Mrs. O has the waistband of a tan, pleated skirt cautiously gripped in between her pointer finger and her thumb, as if the promiscuity of its length might catch and spread like the flu.
“This skirt,” She proclaims curtly, “is inappropriate, and unacceptable.” She pauses, dangling the creased fabric in front of our wide eyes. “Can anyone tell me why?”
The correct response hangs in the air above us, a chorus of angels crying chants of purity, chastity, and “one inch above the knee.”
Yet, we sit in unified silence.
There’s a certain unanimity between twelve girls wearing the same collared navy blue polo shirts; twelve girls mentally measuring the distance between the end of their skirt and the beginning of their kneecap; twelve girls searching for Ms. T’s angels.
“You girls...,” Mrs. O trails off with an exasperated sigh, “In God’s eyes, it is much more important to be pure, than to be attractive.” Her eyes scan our bare legs, “Kneel on the floor. If the ends of your skirts don’t touch the carpet, it’s an infraction.”
And as the carpet chafes my kneecaps until they are red and tender, once again, my brain mashes Mrs. O’s lecture into a smooth puree, nothing but a gentle frequency.
At fourteen years old, I begin to wonder if I would even enjoy the angels’ company.
At twenty years old, I sit in Heinz Memorial Chapel, simply because I love the architecture. I sit, and sometimes I think, but mostly I just observe. I observe the swooping carves in the rusted pillars. I observe the soft pink hue that seeps through the stained glass windows and pours onto the pews in front of it. I observe women with crinkly, trembling hands clasped in their laps, heads outstretched toward the ceiling, gazing.
And although I resented the angels’ chorus for many years, I must admit, I still always listen for it.
giulia mauro