Love and Irony in Umbria

 All my life I have been searching for…irony.  I have been searching for love too, but irony has been harder to find.  Love is subjective and varying and fortunately I find it everywhere. For example, I love my parents, I love the man I am about to marry, and I love thin-crust pizza. Irony on the other hand has a clear, succinct and often misunderstood definition. Alanis Morissette in her 1990’s pop hit had it all wrong. When you have 10,000 spoons and all you need is a knife, that is just a major inconvenience. True irony, the kind I have been looking for, requires an unpredicted twist in order to arrive at an outcome contrary to what was expected.   On my recent trip to Umbria for the purpose of wedding dress shopping, I experienced both love and irony.  

I thought perhaps the fact I was getting married in the first place, arriving at pure uncomplicated romantic love after years of dating mockery, was ironic. It’s actually better defined as unexpected. Then I thought that the difficulty of finding a wedding dress in the fashion capital of the world was ironic, but then I realized with Italy’s customer service reputation that was to be....expected. 

One experience dress shopping involved the type of confrontation you consistently find on one of Rome’s public buses. It began with the saleswoman giving me attitude because I didn’t know how to match my gown with the hall where I will be getting married.  After trying on 3 dresses my friend and I were nearly kicked out of the store for “wasting their time” and for speaking our native language to each other while they rushed out to calm their nerves with a cigarette.

Then came an unanticipated email attachment from my father. He thoughtfully often clips stories out of the Buffalo News for me he thinks I will enjoy. Typically these stories involve someone I have met once on one of my tours that has joined the Canisius alumni association. Or the occasional news story about the Pope.  But this story made a big difference.  It was an article about a monastery in Umbria that offers wedding dresses.  The monastery is dedicated to St. Rita, the patron saint of brides and lost causes.  It was indeed starting to seem that finding an appropriate and affordable wedding dress in Italy was a lost cause.   Privileged and faithful women began donating their dresses to the St. Rita monastery as an offering for the blessing of their wedding day.  One opportunistic member of the convent, who was formerly a professional seamstress, was able to fix these dresses up and prepare them for new brides. In exchange for a donation.  Like a second-hand dress with a newfangled blessing.

My girlfriends didn’t hesitate to take me on this voyage to Cascia, about 3 hours from Rome, if for no other reason than to enjoy the view of the Apennines and taste Umbria’s delightful cuisine.  

We stopped for lunch in a charming family owned restaurant. It was called, “The Fireplace” but strangely the walls were painted mint green and so the last thing the interior evoked was a warm and crackling fire.  That misnomer could be considered ironic, but it does not compare to the irony I would experience later.

We ate a plate of cured meats typical from the nearby town of Norcia, and pasta with saffron that is abundant in the region. We then burned the calories straight away on the flight of 100 steps to arrive at the monastery at the top of the hill.

The shared camaraderie of the meal and the drive together felt well worth the trip. I didn’t know what to expect up there. I was sweating not only because of the climb, but because of my nerves.  My fondest memories of nuns prior to this experience was from when I was very young and attending Catholic school. The nun threatened to put her toe in my mouth if I didn’t stop sucking my thumb.  Shortly thereafter I switched to public school. 

It was time for the appointment.  We arrived and a big wooden door opened to a medieval stone staircase.  We were greeted by one elderly sister that resembled Sophia from the Golden Girls.  She pinched my butt and joked there were no dresses for my friend as she looked up at her towering nearly 2 feet taller.

Then we met Sister Maria Laura.  She was modest yet liberal, keeping me covered at all times but commenting on sexiness factors of the dresses.  My friends sat on a swing set decorated with plastic

red roses while she dedicated the next 2 hours to me and the perfect dress.  When I told her I preferred something with more flow, she scurried in the back, among hundreds of dresses, to find something to match that description. She did it again when I’d ask for something of a different shade, or with a different shaped top.  She found a dress of every kind. Even a blue dress. Every dress I tried she strived diligently with a smile to make it work for me, removing inner padding, adding accessories, tailoring the neckline, and adjusting rear fastenings. 

I felt so much love and joy in that room I nearly left with a habit instead of a gown. I truly feel that thanks to her grace and intervention, a miracle really did occur.  I resolved the lost cause of finding a dress. More importantly, I felt so much kind affection from the experience thanks to her patience, support, and sense of humor that I have been forever touched with a new kind of adoration. I’ve converted and adjusted my critical ideas of the Catholic Church and role of women within it.  The irony? I may not need the wedding dress after all if I decide to join the convent of St. Rita in Cascia.