94 The witching hour

3 am. Loud bang on the door. Someone starts reciting something loud. What is that? Oh. It's some kind of bible verse. I was never that familiar with verses. Our nuns were progressive Dominicans. They'd read a few sentences, but we never memorized anything from the bible. We talked about the meaning of love. It was always the priests that sucked.

I was groggy. Probably still had weed inhalation from Washington. "Why are they doing that?" "Time to get up." "No thanks. I'm going to sleep." "We have to get up to make breakfast." "In the middle of the night?" "There's a lot of people. The men go to the fields at dawn."

Just the menfolk

They left me alone. I got up when the sun started coming up and the clang clang clanking started. So the men got to sleep later and wander over to the mess hall at dawn. I went in there and most of the women ate after the men because they were dishing it out. 😑 Some women were sitting at a separate table. I sat down with them. They did other female stuff like sew and clean. "No. Don't know how to sew."

No coffee. Some kind of molasses and chicory drink. Alright. A bowl with a big plop of oatmeal. No milk, no sugar... nothing. Plain. Good. I'm into simple stuff. But why get up at 3 am to make a plop of oatmeal? Everyday it was the same. 

The menfolk went up the hill to the fields. The kitchen women were cleaning up. The sewing women went off to their room. I went and got Zac and brought him outside. There was a clearing between the women's cabin, the mess hall, the sewing room and a couple of small cabins. We played in the dirt. Not a typical hippie commune, I didn't see any dogs running loose. I don't think anyone had any pets. It had dawned on me pretty quick that this place was really strict and was mostly into reciting bible passages. I didn't worry too much yet.

The field work stopped mid afternoon. Damn, I was hungry. It was a long time since that plop of oatmeal. If I was picking berries I'd be shoving a few in my mouth. The bell rang again. I filed in there with the other women. Walked the line. Oh. Lentil sandwich. Delicious. This time as we finished our delicious lentil sandwich... I don't remember what we had to drink, water or lemonade... people, I mean men, became joyous. It always started with one particular fella getting up and praising god. People would join in with big smiles. I just sat there. 

After some jubilation we went outside to listen to more passages. I sat there and looked around, enjoying the experience. Whew. This is something. Look at all these people digging words. I noticed there were a few couples allowed to sit next to one another. They were officially married. But the sexes were separate and I definitely wondered why the women stood for it. I wanted to hear. I was so open to different lifestyles. But they pretty much uttered quotes. Ok. Do what you want, but I'd like to hang out with a couple of guys. I don't like cooking very much and forget the sewing.

It went on for quite a while. But I thought we'd have dinner too? "No dinner?" It probably would have been lentils again anyway. "Sometimes we get a snack."

Well, luckily I still had some peanut butter and Zac still had food. We hit the sack early and I started to completely ignore the bible verses. It was non-stop.

It started all over gain. The banging on the door and the loud voice reading. Goodnight. I pulled the pillow over my head.