Get me to a nunnery
Last week, I went ‘location-scouting’ in Kensington. This hallowed practice involves me wandering around until I find a place I ‘vibe’ with. I cannot articulate what it means to ‘vibe’, which parts of my soul commune with the spirits of a place, it just is.
I walked around a square which features in the novel I’m currently writing, and took in its details; the houses with servant's entrances, the replica gas lights painted a lurid green and, by far and away the highlight, the nuns.
Catholicism and its rich aesthetics have long been a source of inspiration for horror stories and psychological thrillers, such as Immaculate, Black Narcissus and Brideshead Revisited, but, choice of footwear aside, I find nuns utterly charming.
Having lived in France and Poland, it would always delight me when I saw a flock of nuns. I love a Wimple, a Cornette even more, and clothing myself head to toe in black. Having never seen a tall nun, I am not particularly scared of them, but their aesthetic makes them the perfect harbinger of doom.
Alfred Hitchcock agrees. When he adapted The Living and the Dead by Boileau-Narcejac into Vertigo, he specifically added more nuns. Hitchcock even changed the ending to be more nun-centric, maybe because the Hays Code wouldn't permit Jimmy Stewart strangling Kim Novak to death, or maybe because he had a fever and the only prescription was more nuns.
Into my book, the nuns go.
You know, I have this belief that things come into your life when you need them to, which is to say that I've been really getting into the twelfth-century nun, Hildegard Von Bingen recently.
The subject of multiple films, an off-Broadway musical, as well as the namesake of a minor planet, Hildegard Von Bingen was a writer, composer (shoutout to O Frondens Virga), philosopher, mystic, medical practitioner and scientist. Were I not so busy with rewrites, she would definitely be my current hyper-fixation (sling your hook, Fouquet).
Or is now the time to hyper-fixate? Maybe Hildegard's prolificacy begs the question, could I be more dedicated to my craft and commune better with my creative spirit if I became a nun?
No. Obviously not. Piety aside, of which I have none, I don't respond well to authority, and I'm just not convinced that there would be a bed long enough for me to sleep in at the convent (unless I can convincingly fake prophetic visions and convince my sisters that it's part of God's plan for me to have a Kingsize bed). I also use inshallah and Baruch Hashem in conversation too much, and I'm not willing to relinquish an essential part of my identity to receive the Lord's bounty.
I'd like to tell myself that if I were a nun, I'd be a Maria Von Trapp, but let's face it, if anyone I knew was going to have a mental breakdown and go ham with red lipstick at the sight of David Farrar's calves like Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus, it's...not not going to be to me, is it?
Maybe I'd fare better as a Vestal Virgin, but I'm not sure how fulfilled I would be by dedicating my life to guarding a fire and maybe, but not definitely, keeping mystic secrets.
I think I just want a veil, if only to feel like that bit in the first act of La Bayadere when Nikiya enters and the music swells as her veil is removed, every time I take it off.
Still, never one to not appropriate something for my own gain, I told St Francis (the patron saint of writers) to get lost and appointed St Hildegard as my patron saint.
Two days later, I came home to a very generous tax refund. Baruch Hashem! Thanks Hildy xxx