Story #3: Distance Run

Distance Run

3.03 miles: the distance I travel to escape the monastery, to abandon all community commitments and passive aggressive comments about the cleaning schedule. Orvieto is a small town, but the monastery is even smaller. On this Monday afternoon, avoiding my nineteen other peers proved impossible as I bump into a few in the kitchen, a few more in the sala, another three in the classroom. And in each room, there is someone from my cleaning group, ready to comment on how my hands are holding my iPod instead of a mop from the cleaning closet. Yes, yes! I’ll do it later. I know, I know. Yeah… I’ll do it.

            Before lunch, the entirety of our hour-long chapter meeting is spent discussing the cleaning schedule for the monastery and the new rotation for the week. I sit, listen, and clutch my growling stomach and while I contemplate my hatred of mopping stone floors covered in dust. My crankiness increases as chapter meeting continues and Professor Doll gives another concluding passage from Nouwen: The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community forms the basis of the Christian life and should therefore be the subject of our most personal attention.

I’m silent. I’m distant when I cross the monastery courtyard and ignore a shout from the window above: “Hey Megan – I’ll leave the mop over here for you when you get back.” The speed of my steps increase as I pass through the iron gate and (accidentally) slam it behind me, breaking into a run as I turn the corner down the main corso. A few conservative Italians disdainfully glance at my radical running pants, probably wondering what the blue lettering of “Gordon Field Hockey” means on my grey t-shirt. But Gordon Field Hockey is what I need to return to in a few months, fit and ready to lead as a captain – days of gelato and pasta won’t get me there, though.

My Asics strike the cobblestones and I eventually slow and then quickly cross the street, making my way closer to the stone archway that separates the countryside from the cliff of the town. I just barely make it past an older couple, a few tourists, and a biker, before I reach the steep path and gasp. Huge tears escape my red eyes and my pace changes to a slow jog, coughing and gasping as I sob. My chest heaves and my eyes sting, blurring my vision as I trip on a loose cobblestone. Mondays. Even in Italy, Mondays are the worst.

Guilt seeps in at once as I mentally complain about my troubles, because I know that at the end of the day, I’ll receive emails and messages from friends and family asking about how wonderful my study abroad experience must be, one month into the program. Here I am, sobbing on the outskirts of Orvieto, completely failing at my plan to complete a good workout before dinner – and cleaning.  

Is this solitude? Crying on foreign cobblestones, wondering where God’s now absent-voice is and questioning if my relationship with Him was left in America, back in the churches with open communion and English sermons. I long for friends that know me, for people that really understand me. I don’t want to pretend to be interested in the weekly cleaning schedule or work through any community problems. My silence, my distance, they amplify my anger and I crave something different. I don’t want to go home, but I miss the idea of comfort, of contentment in friendships. This task of building nineteen other relationships overwhelms my introverted self, as there is always a friendship to work on. At breakfast, at lunch, at dinner – with every bite of pasta comes a new basic question about my major, my siblings, and my home state. I’ll politely smile and then immediately check to see if there’s anything in my teeth, anxious to scare away my new friends.

I reach the opposite side of Orvieto and begin the slow turn around the hilltop town, making my way to the long stretch of cliff that will lead me back. What am I supposed to tell my parents when they message me tonight: Italy is great. I skipped cleaning and cried about how much I want to come home. Oh, and I feel lonely even when I’m surrounded by other people.

I turn onto the long, paved walking path and my breath catches. I pull my headphones from my ears and move closer to the edge of the cliff, leaning on the stonewall. Knowing that my iPhone could never do it justice, my now dry eyes widen and I try my best to memorize what I know will eventually become a blurry memory, stuck in my journal simply as “I saw the best sunset EVER!!!” I try to turn away and finish my route, but I continue to look back as the unreal landscape sits as a photo shoot backdrop. Even better than the best Google images search for a “sunset desktop pic” couldn’t rival these colors on the cliffs of Via del Popolo – one of the only streets in Orvieto reserved for pedestrians. Or in my case, reserved for runners who are avoiding their community cleaning duties.

I jog on and reach the basement studio of the monastery and knock on the door – I never run with my front door key. Tyler opens the door and shouts “Ciao Zmeg!” (A nickname they had given me after the Italian refrigerator company, Zmeg). I quickly move through the studio and up the stairs, feeling refreshed but still slightly apprehensive about bumping into anyone from my cleaning group in the halls. I dart into the kitchen for some water – much needed after my tears and sweat.

“Megan! We’ve been waiting for you! Let’s have tea time now, we made you a cappuccino.” Laura grins and motions for me to move into the refectory to sit with her, Sara, and Jenna. Jenna pulls out a chair for me and Sara passes the biscotti. I smile and thank her, feeling ready to rejoin – the best conclusion for a 3.03 mile exile from home.