a company that i dance with is working on a piece about catholicism, and i’ve found some of the ideas have worked their way into my non-dance life. during the week, i meditate almost every day in a catholic church near my office, and since our group started working on this piece, i’ve noticed patterns i never saw before.
i avoid the hours when the church is full and a priest is talking. when i’m there, it’s cool and dim and quiet. but there is movement. it’s small and subtle, but there’s a regularity to it.
there are the tourists wandering in, walking towards the altar in their sneakers, clutching bags of souveniers, then walking out again.
and there are the homeless guys. sometimes they’re outside asking for change, sometimes inside sleeping on the pews, and sometimes roving around up and down the aisles, going in and out of various doors.
one day last week i was in the church before noon, the first time i’d done that in a long time, and it took me awhile to realize that people were lined up on the right side of the pews. they were ordinary business people, big-shouldered guys in suits who looked like they belonged in politics, clean and colorless women in business casual outfits. they were there for confession, i realized, and after disappearing around a corner for a few minutes, they’d reemerge, faces passive as ever, and walk over to another part of the church to pray on their own.
there are some regulars. there’s a grey haired guy who comes fairly often; he sits so relaxedly in the pew, his left arm stretched out along the top of the bench, that he could be at a football game. stays for hours.
and there’s a mysterious woman all in black who’s there almost every day. her hair is almost white and she wears it in a bun, but she’s quite lovely and is probably younger than she initially seems. red lipstick, black shawl, often a fan in her hand. she roves the aisles, up and down, walking slowly and patiently, stopping at her station at the far right corner of the pews, then walking again. and she has this weird noise she makes with her mouth, kind of like a constant rolling of her r’s that goes on and on. i think it must be a devotional compulsion that she makes herself do. she’s the spiritual caretaker of the place, i feel.
and behind it all are the cleaners, always moving, always there. they’re the backstory, the drums behind the soloists. they’re two latino guys who must work on a rotating cleaning schedule. some days they’re vacuuming the carpet, other days organizing and dusting the pews, other days waxing the floor up front or cleaning the front doors. one guy is thinner and a bit nervous looking, with lines around his mouth; the other is heavier and a bit hunched. neither one seems the least bit spiritual, at least while working, and i always wonder what they think about toiling in such a beautiful church every day.
i’ve just begun saying hi to the thinner guy, and i like that. and i sometimes say hello to the woman in black, though she creeps me out a little. but i generally avoid looking at anyone else. it’s great–anywhere else, i’d probably feel bad about not looking in people’s eyes and somehow connecting with them. but in the church, i feel, we’re all there for personal reasons, not to connect. being in the church is my time, my space.
