Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation. -Kim Hubbard

It's been a week and much has transpired in Portland, Maine.

On the way to collect my car from the King Middle School parking lot
(where it was parked during the citywide snowban), I watched a young
woman a few feet in front of me slip and fall on a piece of ice.
Careful not to give the neighborhood a repeat, I inched slowly across
the sidewalk. Boom. Fell exactly in the same place.

Embarrassed but not to be stopped, I stood up and immediately felt a
sharp pain in my left arm. No good. Did I mention that I fractured my

right foot TWICE this past year? This was not going to another
fracture. No.way.sirreee.bob.

I walked to my car, massaging my elbow; hit the closest CVS and packed
on the ice and advil. By noon, my elbow had ballooned into some sort
of foreign looking limb. I decided to hit the emergency room. After a

few hours of bandaging, x-rays, ooohs and ahhhs, it was declared..."a
fracture."

Bummer.

Well, so much for wishful thinking. I am wondering whether I'm
supposed to receive a higher message from this incessant fractur-ing.
Too bad I'm not getting it... but at this point, the whole mess is
starting to get funny.

Despite the bruised bones, I am hard at work...developing my stories
for Salt.

One story takes place in Waterville, Maine at the convent of the
sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. I met with Superior Sister Mary
Catherine this past week and explained my interest in their
"contemplative community."

She looked at me smiling: "Well, dear....you are welcome to spend time
with us....although I don't think we are very interesting."

I beg to differ. The sisters are mostly above 55 and some came to the
order after becoming widows. A total of nine live in the convent but
the story doesn't end there.

"Dear, you know we are a traumatized community," she continued.

In January of 1996, Mark Bechard, a young Waterville man who was in and
out of the Augusta Psychiatric Institution for much of his adult life,
broke into the convent and attacked four sisters during prayer. Using
a knife, religious statues, and one of the sisters' canes, he murdered
two and severely injured the remaining two. A tragedy on both sides,
Bechard was acquitted of all criminal charges in relation to the event
and institutionalized indefinitely in a Maine psychiatric facility.
His story is the story of many mentally ill....lost in the gaps of the
system, many are left to suffer in silence or to act upon
hallucinations precipitated by their devastating diseases.

Despite the horrific crime, the sisters issued official forgiveness just days after
the crime was committed.

The then Superior Sister spoke to a journalist of Mr. Bechard at a mass being held a year after the murders: "He's certainly deserving of our prayers. Our stance is still forgiveness. We stand by that."