Christina the Astonishing (fragment boek)
The visit.
The day we made the walk to Brusthem was the tail end of a summer storm, the sky sagged low over the parish’s flats and tracks, whole limbs of sweet chestnut shambled on the grass – at the top end of the allotments where you can see down over a score of neat roofs the others waited for me to catch up; we leaned on our sticks trying to find the past and the tree where we skipped and giddied about till we lost our breath and flung ourselves down on the spot and the old biddies tutted that we’d scared away the fairies. Looking north between here and the church you can see the light turn green as if the air’s been stained by weeping-willow, trefoil, wil iris – a verdure breathed by the landscape. I didn’t always see these things. Now I walk more slowly. I was still catching my breath, and waved Beatrix and the others to go on. My mother knew the names and sympathies of all plants – toothache, cramp, bad dreams, the ones you wake sick and shrieking from.
Jane DRAYCOTT en Lesley SAUNDERS, Christina the Astonishing, Londen: Two River Press, 2000. Fragment p. 78. De heilige Christina, geboren in een arm gezin in 1150, kreeg internationale faam als mystica door haar onorthodox gedrag. De twee vrouwelijke auteurs vertellen opnieuw haar leven als een zoektocht van de vrouw naar haar wezen.