The Lonliest Man, Continued

Sept. 7 1998 continued
Mass in St. Theresa's South Lake Tahoe. Over doughnuts in the church hall, I met the young priest with a handlebar mustache who sang the entire Mass--including the words of consecration. Met a woman who gave me her card stating she was, among other things, a holistic nurse kinesthesiologist, clinical pastor?, several other counter-cultural forms of medicine. She told me she is "one in mind, soul and spirit" with an 89-year old retired Jesuit who is blind. She spends time with him every afternoon, does his laundry and correspondence, takes him to appointments, and then they talk on the phone from 9:00-10:30 or so later every evening. We exchanged phone numbers, but there was an awkward moment when she said she wants to teach courses to laity who don't understand, who need to be educated about the documents of Vatican II. She also dropped the name of a famous post-Vatican II theologian, who is an acquaintance of hers.

She is very thin, very well-groomed. The things we have in common are a desire to create community with other Catholic women, and a sense of isolation and feelings of abandonment (mine are lessening every day).

Bought Filipino food for lunch at the church: lunch meat, roll and sweet rice wrapped in a banana leaf, with sweet coconut sauce. Was stuck in SLT traffic for 1/2 hour, started eating in the car, pulled off to a beach that costs $6 to park, turned around and left without paying. Drove through the rest of the Sierras in late afternoon.