Ringing the Bells
February 15, 2009
That’s me, second from the right, in the blue vest and (of course) tennis shoes. Me and the other boys from my Sunday School class, circa 1979–thirty years ago, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in El Cajon, California.
My hair is so shiny blond, like a Breck Girl Ad.
Here’s a memory: I was an acolyte at the church. I wore the robes, the cross. Lit and snuffed out the candles.
When the congregation said “Holy, holy, holy” it was my job to simultaneously ring the bells.
The first time I had to ring the bells I practiced outside of the church for at least an hour before the 8 a.m. service, ringing them over and over and over and saying holy holy holy. My mother was setting up the coffee and punch and cookies for after the service (either that or she was working with the altar guild, setting up the wine and wafers). My wrist began to ache but I wanted to get it down.
Finally, Mrs. Treat, the wife of our priest, Father Treat (they lived at the church), came out in her slippers and housecoat to tell me to “please stop, God doesn’t expect perfection.”
Ringing the Bells
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By Anne Sexton
And this is the way they ring
the bells in Bedlam and this is the bell-lady who comes each Tuesday morning to give us a music lesson and because the attendants make you go and because we mind by instinct, like bees caught in the wrong hive, we are the circle of crazy ladies who sit in the lounge of the mental house and smile at the smiling woman who passes us each a bell, who points at my hand that holds my bell, E flat, and this is the gray dress next to me who grumbles as if it were special to be old, to be old, and this is the small hunched squirrel girl on the other side of me who picks at the hairs over her lip, who picks at the hairs over her lip all day, and this is how the bells really sound, as untroubled and clean as a workable kitchen, and this is always my bell responding to my hand that responds to the lady who points at me, E flat; and although we are not better for it, they tell you to go. And you do. |
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