Vestibule

I like the associated words, even if I don’t know what they mean. Vestibule. Catacomb. Priest Hole. It used to conjure images of people in cloaks in shadowy nooks, conducting secret business.

I went to a Catholic school, but I’ve never been a religious person. I like the belonging it gives people, and I find all religions interesting, but church was incredibly boring. Until the age of 12 or so, my dad occassionally took me on a Sunday morning. It was annoying because it meant I missed Goals on Sunday, and the service – the readings, the hymns, the genuflections and dry disc of bread – took forever.

But it had a huge upside. I realised this on Sunday, as we used our free resident of Salisbury access to the cathedral to take the kids and dog down for a look around. It’s grandiose. In a city the size of Salisbury – quaint, and more of a small town than a city – it feels like a gothic, religious Independence Day when I look up at the colossal structure. It’s 800 or so years old.

And I find it happening again.

Laura is reading a sign about some old king’s tomb to the kids and my attention drifts over to a tour guide surrounded by 20 or so people. In mere seconds, her voice, imparting genuinely fascinating information, triggers a sleepy feeling in me. Conditioning. Years of lectures, and sermons, and tour guides in tourist attractions have created a learned brain behaviour. So I look up.

Above us, maybe 30 or so feet (Though in these buildings, depth perception is distorted so it could be much higher), there are arched windows on an upper level. Stone, spotlit corridors run behind them, and the shadow cloaks are in there again. I smile, recalling those Sundays, when I’d stare at the ones in my local church and my dad zoned out too. Back then, I’d imagine how cosy it could be to spend a night up there with a friend or family member. I’d have a sleeping bag, and find a corner, and if it was raining outside, I’d listen to it driving against the thick stone exterior, and all that history. I’d light some of the little candles and it would be dreamy.

I spent a good bit of time conjuring these narratives between 1988 and 1999 when I left all forms of Catholic institution, but clearly, as the narrative picks up anew, I never lost the sense of wonder these beautiful buildings awoke in me.

Active boredom is a scarce creativity fuel these days. We’re never far from something to keep us in our conscious brain state and ultimately, ideas are worse for it.