The Traveling Writer: Writer at a Monastery Slips Up

The Traveling Writer Slips Up In Search of the American Dream

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Ha! I know what you were thinking: she crept into forbidden territory, the monk’s residence wing…

Ha!

The story is that I went for a walk on the Saturday morning, after breakfast and before the writing workshop. Not content to stay on the asphalt switch-back driveway, which was not enough walking in my opinion, I sought to lengthen my time outdoors by following a few paths.

Traveling writer in search of the American Dream

This monastery overlooks the Hudson River. More pics below.

The paths were just mown grass. The grass was wet and the ground soggy. I was so determined to get exercise and fresh air, however, so I stuck with it. My sneakers got damp, then soaked. But a good walk would set me up for the day, I reasoned. I had another pair of shoes with me. All would be well.

But the path didn’t lead all that far before a sign appeared: "Private: Monastic Enclosure". I was hungry for exercise. I decided I’d try to go down to the riverfront. It had been to soggy the previous day. I felt thwarted from my river fix.

I left the mown path and walked back to the driveway and down its slope to the monastery. My feet were cold and wet, and so were the bottoms of my pants, but if there’s anything I do well in life, it’s persevere.

I stepped onto the mown path that led down the slope toward the river. So far so good.

I came to a tree. The mown path looked pretty muddy, not too good. Down the hill from the tree, however, a woman was walking up the slope from the river. If she had made it, so could I.

I started down the muddy slope next to the tree, using tufts of grass to gain traction. So far so good.

And all of a sudden, things weren’t so good. My feet started slipping – I guess those tufts were muddy and slick themselves. There was so little traction. My arms started windmilling. I tried to hold the hand with my cell phone up high. Maybe I could make it.

Then my legs started windmilling.

Splat! Flat on my back, watery mud soaking the back of me from head to heels.

I sat up. I noticed the woman walking up the slope on the opposite side of the tree. She hadn't seen me make a fool of myself apparently.

Feeling foolish, in sight of anybody looking out the monastery's windows at the beautiful river view, I clambered carefully to my feet and made it onto safer ground.

My cold, wet clothes clung to me. Black mud had spattered even the front of my white linen blouse.

But by golly, I was this much closer to the river. There was no point in going back to the monastery before I’d seen the water’s edge.

I have a little ritual I do at the edges of bodies of water. It’s a mini-baptism I give myself. I’ve done it in the Pacific, Caribbean, Atlantic (from the French side), and Mediterranean, at Barcelona and Positano. I would do it at the Hudson River too.

I walked through the monastery's woods. The path switched back and forth, down to a little beach covered with stones.

Usually when I do my mini-baptism, I take at least one shoe off and get at least a few toes of one foot into the water. This time I couldn’t stand the thought of bending over, cold wet clothes touching new places, to untie a shoe. Both shoes were squishing-wet anyway. I just stuck the toe of one shoe into the river and committed, again, to excellent writing and to following Jesus. Then I trudged up the hill praying I’d get help in the monastery.

Getting Help While In Search of the American Dream

Well, thank God, the receptionist was at her desk, even on a Saturday morning.

“I heard someone slipped in the mud,” she said when she saw me. The woman walking up the hill maybe told her – though she hadn’t asked me if I was okay. Or someone looking out the window shared the embarrassing news.

“What can I do to help you?” she asked.

“Would you run the clothes through the washing machine – twice?”

She said yes.

Upstairs in the communal bathroom, I got the mud out of my hair and off my body. I dressed in the only other outfit I had brought with me. I made a bundle – including my sneakers -- and took it back to the receptionist. I told her I’d carry the bundle to the machine for her, but she said she would do it.

“Is there anything you don’t want to go in the dryer?” she asked.

“The white blouse,” I said. It looked horrible – black mud all over the back, black splatters on the front, dirt ground into the elbows. It was a great blouse. I hoped my perseverance hadn’t ruined it.

Then I went to the kitchen and asked for a bag of rice. My poor phone was smeared with mud too, and plenty of it had seeped inside the case and maybe inside the phone.

Ten minutes later my phone was snugged into a generous nest of rice and I was sitting amongst fellow writers in dry clothes.

Later, the walking clothes appeared on my bed. The blouse was wet, the rest of the clothes almost completely dry.

At home I soaked the blouse for hours in stain-removing solutions.

Today, only I can tell what that blouse went through.