Friday, April 25, 2008

The True Story Of My Life #28 (Ansgar Santogrossi's Romance)

Br. Ansgar had a romance planned which I knew little about. For someone expressing a romantic interest in me, I was clueless as to where he was trying to take things.

After I first noticed Br. Ansgar checking out my "rear end" I was so embarrassed, I didn't go back to the library to study for months, which meant I didn't spend my reading time there on the weekends. Instead, I went up to the Abbey and looked for, and checked out books when I knew he would be called away to a prayer time.

I had always dressed modestly, but I felt self-conscious. I had initially gone to the Abbey library to avoid attention from men, and I felt I had aroused the interest, possibly, of at least one monk. So I avoided going there when I knew he would be present, thinking it was probably just a normal male response to seeing a woman and nothing more, but something I would help him to avoid. I still didn't know how monks, or "brothers", were different from priests in vows. I was very illiterate as to the RCC beliefs, rules, and structure.

I continued to correspond with Br. Ansgar though. At some point, I did feel there was something more, possibly for me even. I thought maybe I was attracted to him, but looking back I think it was an intellectual attraction primarily. I think this is true, because I never imagined kissing him or being with him in a physical sense, and once I decided to TRY to imagine kissing him to see if this was what my interest was, and I couldn't imagine kissing him.

I was 25 but very naive, having kissed only 2 people, legitimately, in my lifetime, and not having much contact with the sensual world, even in watching movies. I had also gone to a private christian school in junior high with enforced dress codes prohibiting shirts without sleeves and skirts more than 2 inches above the knees. After being raped, I pretty much covered up entirely, not wanting to draw attention to my body.

When I thought Ansgar was interested in me, I felt flattered and important that he would notice me. I respected him and admired his intellect, and I thought perhaps he appreciated me for my mind and my knowledge of scripture and theology, which wasn't something most women my age had an interest in, and probably not women who were attractive as I turned out to be (not saying I was a knock-out, but I was probably prettier than most serious female christian scholars/students).

I found myself anticipating his letters and after I noticed his physical interest in me, combined with his sending me an article about marriage, I think it was after he gave me a book that had belonged to his mother, that I "broke things off" the first time. I was afraid, in a nervous way. If he was a monk, I figured he shouldn't be interested in me. I didn't know the rules, and if he could leave the monastery, but I treated him the same way I treated a young man I had probably been in love with, who was engaged and got married. I felt a man should make up his mind to set himself free from his other obligations before pursuing another relationship. I wasn't an engagement-wrecker, or a monk-wrecker, or anything. I didn't want someone to choose me after they felt confident they could get me. I felt someone should know for themself that their current arrangement wasn't right for them, and then be willing to pursue something with me, or, if not me, someone else.

I had not sent Br. Ansgar any correspondence of a romantic nature at ALL until I decided I had to quit writing to him. So I sent him a quick note, explaining I thought I might have feelings for him and so was cutting off our correspondence. It was simple, and not suggestive. I think I may have, either THEN, or later, also written something funny about myself which I also thought would be a turn-off, telling him I was a slob anyway, and he was probably the type to line up his socks in a drawer while I was the type who had them hanging over a lampshade. I think I sent the one with more detail about myself later on. But initially, I just cut it off. I also told him I was moving to a new apartment.

Br. Ansgar wrote me back, after I cut things off the first time. He had written to the postmaster on the outside of the envelope: "Please forward if necessary". In that letter, Br. Ansgar confessed he also had feelings for me.

If he had just left it, with my cutting him off, I never would have written him again. But it seemed he was inviting further correspondence. WHY was he telling me he felt the same? He addressed me as his "rose in my desert": "Didn't you know, couldn't you tell?" (and then he wrote that he also felt the same).

I remember I had told Josef, the librarian, about the book Br. Ansgar gave me. Josef's eyes widened when I said it had been his mother's. Josef was shocked and said that wasn't the Ansgar he knew.

I noticed one very rotund monk at the Abbey, with his eye on me and Ansgar when we spoke at the library. He didn't seem mean, I actually had the feeling he was honing in on something though. He was younger, tall, and large. I remember him later, too, watching from a balcony, much later, at a Christmas music concert at the Abbey. At one point, I gave him a letter to be delivered to Ansgar. Another monk heard me, towards the end, shouting at the Abbot Nathan Zodrow from a phone inside the guesthouse. He was dark-haired, tall, and thin, and seemed concerned. He had also noticed.

I am sure there were a few monks who knew something was being concealed, but what they were told, I'll never know. I do know that while the Willamette Week quoted the Abbey attorney as saying I was going there, wearing seductive clothing, and disturbing the peace...I know not one monk saw me wearing anything inappropriate when I went to the Abbey or library. I covered up, to the end, except for the last day I showed up there, at the end, after I had been accused of all kinds of things.

After I was treated like a sex object and objectified, again, by monks I thought were protective of me, who sought to harm me in the end, I mocked their portrayal of me as "seductress" and purposefully wore a black bustier (which fully covered me but showed a little cleavage) under a black suit jacket with jeans. And I sent the Abbot a mock satrical photo collage of me in various pictures where I am not immodest, but wearing shorts, and have pursed lips. I did this, only AFTER they lied about me, as I found out, to police, and had started harassing me. I am a very patient person by nature, and all my life I had been submissive and respected authority and I certaintly had held them in high regard. I thought they were "christians" with consciences. It took several months before they broke me down enough to get me to react, and then they took that reaction and tried to claim to everyone that this was their "proof" and that it wasn't satire, and that I had been this way all along, not that they had provoked me through extreme means. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

To start, I cut things off with Br. Ansgar, and he sought me out again anyway, unwilling to let me go without letting me know how he felt, and that there was a mutual attraction.

All of this was happening while I was researching the dogmas and church history. I began to correspond more with Fr. Joachim, in the absence of Br. Ansgar. Fr. Joachim and I exchanged emails on an almost daily basis. It was mutual, and it went back and forth. I also met with Fr. Joachim, in the counseling rooms of the guesthouse, on more than one occasion. He told me I should go into finance, or be an engineer. We talked about religion, but more than anything, about my life and "journey". And we exchanged anecdotes and funny stories. Sometimes I almost thought Fr. Joachim was attracted to me too, but if so, he never said anything to me about it. In a way, Br. Ansgar was the drama queen, and Fr. Joachim was the kindred spirit. I thought.

I didn't tell Fr. Joachim about what was going on with Ansgar at first. I kept the two separate and didn't divulge information.

After a couple of months, I missed turning over ideas with Br. Ansgar, and one day I was in the Abbey library, and I pulled out a book, and found a note inside. It was written in French, and it looked like Br. Ansgar's handwriting. I debated what to do, and finally thought maybe it was a "sign" I should pick up correspondence with him, about religion. I sent the note to Ansgar, asking if it was his writing and he was impressed I had noted this and said yes. We began writing again.

No comments: