Illuminated Clementine

Raised Catholic, I was indoctrinated in school with the notion of soul. The nun, in her old-style black habit, tried to give us a compelling picture. The soul, she said, was like a white sheet, and each sin was a little black mark on that whiteness. Sitting at my tiny desk, my shirt tucked into my short pants, I felt panic because her description didn’t ring true. All this talk of the soul was too abstract for me. I was skeptical, which was probably a sin. I thought about our neighbour complaining to my mother that she had hung her sheets out to dry, and when she took them in, they were covered in tiny specks. “Fly shit,” she said with some venom, before her voice dropped to a whisper. “Aren’t they spreading pig manure across the road?”

My neighbour’s more visceral description of her fly-spotted sheets came closer to illustrating the concept of soul than the nun’s did. But, in all fairness to Sister Clare, the task was almost impossible. Not long after, I had my own...