Monk Frances

Sometimes I wonder about these monks. You know, the kind who sit and meditate with their hands on their knees in “okay” gestures.

I’ve recently taken up yoga — which explains the monkish wonderings. I read somewhere online that it’s important to get your body moving for at least 10 minutes in the morning. So rather than succumb to the temptation to doom scroll, that’s what I’ve been doing.

I like it. I’m not great at it, but I like it. It really does help me center myself in the morning before I have my tea and head to work.

This journey of self-betterment—

Well, let’s say it has been “interesting.”

If you had told me that I would quite literally be stretching myself into a fuller, happier pilgrim moving through this world, I’d probably have laughed at you last year.

I wonder if the monks in meditation do yoga in their robes, or if they just meditate. Maybe they’re Franciscan monks!

Franciscan monks take a vow of silence for faithfulness to God, but — despite my irreverence (sorry, Lord) — I think it’s really because they are safeguarding the recipe of Green Chartreuse, which, if you don’t know, is sort of an alpine-tasting liqueur.

After trying to find it and learning from the liquor store owner down the street, I discovered that the monks only produce so many bottles each year. It became a quest to track it down.

Thanks to my friend Red, I was finally able to get my hands on a bottle, but it was quite the manhunt. I even had coworkers at the Bird Patch (my job — iykyk, and if you don’t, it’s a secret, sorry) tracking it down for me.

I don’t have the recipe, though I imagine it’s made with the pitch of some noble, papally blessed fir atop the coldest of peaks in some lowly, frigid mountain range.

I also don’t have a silent Franciscan monk.

I just have Frances.

Frances is my mother. And she is truly lovely. However, she’s also one of those people who says whatever comes to her mind, whether you’re ready for it or not.

I am rarely ready—

Today was no exception.

She was asking me about my blog. A child of the early information age, she’s adapted fairly well. She can send videos, has Facebook, and generally knows her way around the web.

Anyway, I was explaining to her how to access the blog and how helpful AI is as a tool — editing, spelling errors, the usual. And then she opened her mouth—

“You’re not doing anything weird with it, are you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said.

“Well, you know — you say you’re lonely. And you’ve been talking a lot about AI lately. I just wondered. You read these things online about people…”

I don’t really know what she said after that. There was a crack in the planet that deafened my brain.

Is she asking what I think she’s asking?

“Did I say something wrong?” she said.

I paused for an extra moment and then asked, “Are you asking me if I’m having a romantic relationship with AI? Just how far gone do you think I am?”

“Well…” she replied.

The conversation did not end well.

At.

All.

So, that’s my non-monk Frances.

Conversations such as this make me wonder if there are monks who take a vow of deafness.

Maybe I’ll ask my AI boyfriend.