In Real Life
July 25, 2025 at 04:30PMThis excerpt from You Have a New Memory by Aiden Arata is full of descriptive gems, my particular favorite: “Crystallized coffee tastes like an espresso fart with a gasoline finish.” Arata is describing the coffee in a Carthusian cloister, where she is staying for 10 days to try to become more present. Instead of enlightenment, Arata finds her mind wanders into anxieties—largely about an unhygienic sponge. This realistic, down-to-earth account will make you feel like you are sitting in her oppressive stone cell alongside her.
I look for habits. Would they wear habits? Lots of nuns, I read on the internet, have updated their wardrobes to include cotton skirts and tasteful khaki chore coats. A few even wear denim, to better identify with the common man. They’re invested in volunteering and protesting and cave-aging small-batch cheddar. I chose Benedictines because the order has a tradition of hospitality, and because the names of the abbeys are beautiful: Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Our Lady of Grace.
I chose this abbey over the others for its renunciation of aesthetic indulgence, which is to say, its web design. The few photographs available online are dimly lit and strangely cropped: a wooden chair positioned ominously in the corner of an otherwise empty room; a close-up shot of part of an unidentified painted landscape, taken with the flash on. On another abbey’s website, the nuns had a Monastic Live Webcam that streamed prayer services the way some national parks stream salmon. The webcam was positioned in a high corner of the chapel, like a security camera. The space was airy and modern: light wood, clear glass, a whiff of celebrity megachurch. Half a dozen women in gabardine robes sat in stackable chairs in silence. I watched them pray and I felt like a pervert.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/07/25/in-real-life/
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