HOW DO NUNS LIVE?

I almost found out how nuns live, something I have always wondered about. I never quite believed it was exactly like it is in Sister Act and Sound Of Music. And I really was curious about it, still am.

I probably would have found out. I was sitting right next to a nun on a flight from Edmonton to Hamilton. There was plenty of time to ask questions, only I didn’t know she was a nun. She seemed like an ordinary person reading a book. I was reading too.

The weather was bad on the way toward the ground, bad enough that even the most private traveler could not fully pretend to be reading a book. When we had landed safely, and the thundering applause of the passengers had faded away, leaving us only the sound of the giggling children, we began a little conversation, the kind of grateful chatter you undertake on such celebratory occasions. She observed that the children thought the bumps were included at the end of the ride as part of the price of admission. I asked a few questions, and learned she had been visiting a sister in Alberta. I assumed she meant a sibling.

Instead of racing off the plane, we stayed in the cabin, lightning flashing, hale pelting. When we had been there half an hour, and the stewardesses had given up trying to keep us from going to the bathroom, my seatmate got out a cell phone and made a call.

“Sister Anne,’ she said, “This is Sister Mary. I’m in Hamilton. Sister Joan is supposed to pick me up here, so if she calls can you let her know I’m here, but we can’t get off the plane until the storm passes.”

The voice of adventure spoke to me. This is your chance, it said. This is perhaps the only time you will ever be fully free to learn about the life of a nun by asking simple questions. But the voice of propriety spoke louder. It is rude to listen to telephone conversations, she said. It is even more rude to ask questions about the things you overheard while listening in on telephone conversations.

I went back to reading, vigorous reading, the kind of vigorous reading that inspires curiosity in others. I was reading Braille, as I so often do on planes. I had already finished the book I had brought, but I was hoping my reading, and our new friendliness would give her the courage to ask me a question about the Braille. So many other strangers have sat beside me over the years, waiting for the right moment to ask about my book. They say, "Is that Braille you are reading? Or, "Are those just letters or do some of the dots mean actual words?”

If only she would ask, then I would get a turn to ask. Just what I would ask I did not know, but I was sure I would think of something. Maybe I would start with, “I just couldn’t help but overhear your conversation in this small space, and there are some things I have always wanted to know.”

If she would just ask, then I would ask. But she didn’t ask. Maybe she already asked some other blind traveler about Braille. Maybe she’s a Braille teacher. Maybe she is simply too well mannered to intrude on the reading privacy of strangers. Maybe she isn’t even a curious person, not even a little bit curious, though I doubt that. Whatever the reason, she didn’t ask, and so I didn’t ask, and now I don’t know, which is too bad because I really wanted to know how nuns live in the 21st century.