“Who knows what special day is coming?” she asked—and looked at me. Before I could answer, someone shouted, “Easter.” Then everyone shouted. We made a lot of noise.
“That’s enough.” Sister Ignatia gestured, finger to her lips. A day earlier, cardboard eggs, chicks, and pure white bunnies had appeared on the bulletin boards. The effect was magical. We longed for spring.
“After lunch, we’ll draw Easter bunnies,” Sister promised. True to her word, after recess, she passed out sheets of oaktag paper. We snatched up pencils and crayons, hardly waiting for directions.
“Watch me.” Sister Ignatia stood at the front of the room. I watched Sister’s slim arm in motion, chalk moving across the board in confident sweeps, wrist flexing like a falling leaf, the long black sleeve of her habit pushed back on her shoulder to allow greater freedom of movement.
“Two circles, one on top of each other. Then, two more small circles at the bottom for feet. Ears, two upside-down V’s.” When she finished drawing, the rabbit on the blackboard sat up straight, waiting for a face. Then Sister explained.
“When you’re done, bring your drawing up to my desk. If you do a good job, we’ll put a bow around your bunny’s neck.” We set to work, pencils moving across paper. But I had a question.
“Can I draw my bunny sideways like the one up there?” I pointed toward the decorations over the blackboard.
“No,” Sister Ignatia said. “This is the way to do it.” She pointed to the blackboard.
I bit my lip and drew circles and “V’s.” After a few minutes, my impatient, crooked bunny looked nothing like what she’d drawn. Wrong, I thought. I began again.
Soon, other children went up to Sister Ignatia’s desk. One by one she accepted their drawings, stapled pink bows onto them and taped each drawing to the wall beneath the lip of the chalkboard. A parade of bunnies, all the same, marched across the room.
I took mine up.
“This one isn’t ready,” Sister said. “Can you try again?”
“Yes.” I wanted to say more, but Sister frowned.
“Do it over. You want a ribbon, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
I drew, each bunny more lopsided than the other, none worthy of a ribbon. At the end of the day, I packed my schoolbag, crushing down the papers, grinding them to the bottom. I tossed my crayons on top, not bothering to put them in the box as we’d been taught.
That night, Mom cleaned out my school bag.
“What’s this?” she said, holding the ragged sheets of oaktag in both hands. I cried. Then Mom told me to draw some bunnies before bedtime while she did the dishes.
Surrounded by sheets of white typing paper and Number 2 pencils, I drew bunnies, one after the other: large ones so extravagant they reached the edges of the page; and small, fluffy ones with powder puff tails and ears bumpy as cauliflowers, waving like flags in a storm. Mom took my drawings and fixed them to the wall with adhesive tape from the medicine closet. All the bunnies in the world looked back at us.
“Good job,” Mom said. “I like them all.” But the next day back in school, I didn’t see my drawing on the wall.
Time passed. I entered the order associated with my school, took vows, kept the rules. Each year teaching brought me closer and closer to my students, but farther and farther away from views I’d once accepted. One night I awakened in tears. I’d been chasing rabbits, wild brown things. They twisted underneath bushes, raced over logs. I followed them into the woods, a crayon in my hand like a wand. By that time, I’d begun to ask more of tradition. I began to believe in a larger vision. It occurred to me that I didn’t need a pink ribbon anymore.
Author's Comment
This November marks seventy years since I entered religious life as a teenager. In mid-life, like many others, I reconsidered my choices. The world was changing; we were changing. But the order did not. This brief story is an excerpt from my memoir in progress about the decades I lived as a Catholic nun.
NOT a Father’s Daughter is an intimate portrait of a woman who unknowingly declared at age eight that she would not be a puppet on a string, not a father’s daughter. Unaware of why her resolve to reject patriarchal dogma was so strong, she reflects on how she observed the world around her and fought the injustices she encountered. Interwoven into her memories and experiences, an inspiring manifesto springs forth for women and men, with equal measures of spirit and soul.
Unapologetic and with courage and compassion, important and controversial issues of the day are explored. Through thought-provoking analysis, light is shed on the ways in which the acquired mind upholds traditional gender roles and thereby the patriarchy and the damaging effects of the patriarchy’s assaults on both men and women.
The reader will be drenched in a lively, thoughtful discussion to trigger reflection and provide understanding to the question, “Why do….?
With candor and wisdom, the author’s call to action requires a dismantling of the acquired gender differences and the bonding together of both men and women of all ages, of all ethnicities to smash the toxicity that pummels and plunders our institutions, our cultures, our country, our world. This dismantling requires the soul and spirit and compassion and courage of each of us.
Available in March from online book sellers, local independent bookstores, or from the author.
Learn more about the author at https://www.elizabethrodenzauthor.com
A native of New York City, Antonia Lewandowski has lived in Largo, FL, since 1989. She is a 2024 recipient of the Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Award. Her spoken word installation, “A Walk among Words,” was shown at the Creative Arts Gallery in spring 2024. Her craft articles on writing appear in Arts Coast Magazine. She is the author of Tangled, a poetry collection, published in 2023. Her most recent feature essay is “Dinghy in the Neighborhood,” published in the March/April issue of Good Old Boat magazine. Retired from teaching writing at St. Petersburg College, she writes creative nonfiction and poetry.
Teresa Fasolino is a contemporary American illustrator widely known for her detailed, intriguing mystery novel cover illustrations. The roster of Fasolino’s clients include: the United States Postal Service, Grand Union, Penguin Putnam, United States State Department, United Nations Postal Service, Pfizer, The New York Times Magazine, and Trattoria Dell’Arte. Many major art galleries have exhibited Fasolino’s art, including the New York Academy of Sciences, the New York Historical Society, SVA’s Visual Arts Gallery, and the Norman Rockwell Museum. Her work is included in the collections of Nabisco and Grand Union, in private collections, and in the permanent collections of the Society of Illustrators, the Smithsonian, the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, and the Norman Rockwell Museum. Her poster was this summer’s School of Visual Arts' selection for its New York City subway series.
I’m probably one of many who can relate to a teacher’s obtuseness and indifference. These incidents stick with children for years.
Wonderful read.. It takes a tremendous amount of courage and self-acceptance to let go of “the ribbon.”
I felt every stage of this charming story! It reminded me of the disappointments I suffered in school as a child, unable to keep up with others in some areas.
In retrospect……it was a valuable experience in many ways and prepared for a life that didn’t always match the crowd.
Thank you for your sensitive reading. I think we’ve all “been there” at some point.
Loved the story of the rabbit and the nuns. What a wonerful mother you had.
Sure your students could draw whatever rabbits they chose. I was once a teacher. Thank you.
Thanks, too. I was a teacher (at all levels) for a long time and love the profession still.