Molly Speaks

Molly’s Blog

I apologize if I haven’t blogged since my initial entry. My life is always chaotic. I don’t know particularly why. It just is. As a scientist, I pride myself in logic and order. In my own life, I’m like the cat who got into the catnip.

Archaeology is in my blood. Really. I love sifting through time, pulling back of old floorboards and discovering centuries old secrets. I live in an old Victorian in Boston, which suits my personality. It’s big and spacious and I can roam from room to room when I’m in one of my frenetic moods. It’s also cozy with three working fireplaces. Tabby, my six year old cat, and I love to curl up on the couch under a blanket and read together. Not always science. Sometimes a good romance. (Trust me, I’ve had my share of hunks.) I have pried into every wall space in the house, dug up the front and back yards, gained a following of the neighborhood dogs who come sniffing by, to Tabby’s great chagrin, to see what I’m up to. The men in my life understand. At least, they better.

How did I come to archaeology? As I said, it’s in my blood. My mother was an anthropologist. I never knew my father. Mom was the youngest tenured professor at Mt. Auburn College. I was a campus rat. Everybody in the science department knew me. And everybody on campus knew my mom. That was in the 70s. She was a campus radical. Outspoken. Daring. Always smiling. What memories I have of her are dim but pleasant and colorful. Singing. Swinging in this hammock somewhere near a beach. She died when I was four. In a fire. And I still miss her. She was a hippy, a wiccan, a believer in the Earth Mother, which was strange and daring because she was teaching at a respected Jesuit college and had the admiration of a very rigid administration. What they thought when she delivered me out of wedlock I’ll never know. She was fearless.

Me, I was a troublemaker. Still am in some ways, I suppose. The seed not falling far from the tree. Though as I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to rein in my grossest impulses. When she died, (I’m told because I don’t have many memories of that time), I descended into darkness. I was out of control. No amount of medication or therapy could help. People tried. My aunt and uncle raised me. All of my mother’s old colleagues adopted me. Mt. Auburn College became my home, but it took the Church of all things to return me to sanity and to get me into archaeology. I am a scientist. But my loyalty to the Church remains strong for what it did for me in my darkest days.

My aunt Kathy and Uncle Frank are Catholic. Kathy’s a nurse and as devout as St. Paul himself. Frank’s a cop. He likes to dig, too, only his digging usually involves murder. We share war stories. He nods off in church. But he tells me how I used to sit in the front pew, eyes wide, fascinated by the sermons that Fr. Lunt used to preach. I especially loved the stories of the Old Testament. Frank tells me the moment we got home, I’d take a pail and shovel meant for Carson Beach in Southie and start digging up the flower garden. Searching for the remains of Ur or Sodom among Frank’s prized begonias took my mind far from home, far from my mother’s ghost, and into a world that has captivated me ever since.

Thanks again to Peter for giving me this opportunity to speak to you guys. It’s therapeutic in some ways. I know Peter knows something about therapy as he works with homeless folks. A good man. Check out his web site at http://www.peterclenott.com and remember to blog me at http://gospelofhannaniah.bolgspot.com.

Next time.