My mother the nun

While my search for hidden details originally started as a possible way to appear on "Oprah" or "Sally Jessy Raphakl," I soon saw my mission as a quest to recover missing history. It seemed disturbing that the only thoughts that ran through my mother's mind from age 18 to 32 concerned gardening tips and phonics lessons.

Meanwhile, college view books full of frisbee-tossing, fun-loving female students were arriving in my mailbox. I couldn't understand how silent prayer could seem like a rewarding experience to my mother when she was my age. If Mom wanted to tell the postal clerk that she prostrated herself before Christ and then oh-so-casually ask for a book of stamps, fine, but I was her daughter. I was the living realization of a dream that, for 14 years, she never even considered. What was there to know? Everything.

And then I received my acceptance letter from Wellesley.

Although my choice to attend a women's college in Massachusetts might suggest that I had an affinity for the idea of sisterhood, I never saw myself as following in my mother's footsteps. Mom pledged vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to her Lord and Savior; Wellesley did not mandate such a requirement for graduation.

Yet, like my mother, I encountered dropped jaws and interrupted swallowing reflexes when I announced my intention to go to Wellesley. I started to think that maybe it wasn't the bride of Christ thing that made nuns an endless source of fascination but their decision to live in a community free from the influence of men. Perhaps we were pioneers, my mother and I, and those gasps and stares we faced were ones of admiration! Disbelief! Awe!

Or perhaps these all-women communities are viewed as having great potential for some really kinky shit. (Certainly when I ran into Will, a high school classmate, in the grocery store during my first holiday break, and he asked if I was having a good time at Wellesley, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to know about my astronomy course or the strengths of an all-female classroom; he wanted a tale of hot lesbian sex. Right there, without a doubt, hot lesbian sex in the cereal aisle.)

For her part, my mom has had to grapple with endless comedy sketches and cheesy cable movies that reduce her former vocation to tales of knocked-up sisters and forbidden romps in the confessional booth. Never underestimate the timeless power of naughty servants of God going at it!

The list of campy B-horror flicks or romance films featuring a nun and seduction -- probably a priest or a rugged millworker, too -- is long. For two ends of the spectrum, try "A Nun's Story," in which Audrey Hepburn is forced to resist her attraction to a handsome doctor at the Congo missionary hospital (with its naturally steamy atmosphere) where they both work, and "Shattered Vows," a 1984 made-for-TV feature in which Valerie "Mrs. Eddie Van Halen" Bertinelli is a nun who falls for a priest played by David Morse.

Hard images to project on my mom, a woman who has been happily married for 30 years (to a non-Catholic guy with whom she never exchanged one furtive glance until two years after she left the convent) and has raised two children. But folks still try.

After I graduated from Wellesley, I thought the attention would evaporate. Instead, I handle a steady stream of inquiries -- from friends, neighbors, dry cleaners -- about life at my alma mater. (As in: "I went to Wellesley," followed by "Oh, what was that like?") If I opt for the truth, that was made up of working hard to be able to watch syndicated reruns of "Full House" every evening. That was a high level of excitement generated by a baked potato bar for dinner. That was nothing, to a mortifying degree.

"Oh, it was fine," I'll say with a grin, as my mother's own story -- or lack thereof -- starts to make more sense. Of course, when dealing with perceived fantasies of naked ritual dances and girly pillow fights, one-word replies delivered with a mysterious smile only add to the intrigue. I finally get it.

Recently, feeling depressed and more than a little bitter about my singleness, I called my mother in tears, searching for advice. Where could I find available men? Why did I feel like a spinster at 26?

"What can I tell you?" Mom asked over the crinkling of a potato chip bag. "I was in the convent at your age. It wasn't an issue."

I stopped crying. Jesus Christ, I actually felt blessed.

• View blog reactions