The Prayer of the Living

Something like hope, something like desperation.

Hello Beautifuls,

I am humbled and thrilled by the community gathering here, at each new subscriber and each person who’s been with me along the way.

However you found your way here, know that I see your subscription come in and I say your name out loud, a little prayer of gratitude and seeing.

Thank you for being here. It means everything to me.

🌈Please ❤️ this post (and share or restack it) if you’re feeling it! I’d be grateful if you do.

When Angie and her mom came to pick me up in the mornings of our sophomore year of high school, Angie didn't get out of the car to let me in. Her mom popped the trunk while Angie opened the passenger door. I went around to the back, dropped my backpack in the shoebox compartment and slid into the tiny two-seater next to Angie, who propped herself sideways on the center console, her long brown legs stretching across the footwell, her slender fingers curving around the headrest behind me.

I think of her mother now, how she must have worried about Angie, the most beautiful girl in the school, how she must have been happy to have the extra time with her, and also how she might have longed for a few minutes where she wasn't someone's daughter or mother or lover or friend, driving her sports car alone into the rest of her life.

Angie has been on my mind lately. I do not remember the last time I saw her, or what we said. By the end of our senior year, she was dating a semi-professional skateboarder named Joe and my mother had upgraded us to a newer and bigger house, way out into the valley and miles away from Angie and her mom.

In the new house we lived walking distance from a Safeway and I got a job there for a little while. I quit when they told me, after three months, that I would have to start paying union dues. I was not a joiner, especially of a union, and at sixteen I wasn't thinking about staying long enough for it to be worth the cost. What I was thinking about was the older guy who paid me attention, brought me a pear or an apple on my break, who asked me questions and seemed to listen to the answers.

He was older in the way that is hard to gauge when you're sixteen. Maybe he was 22, maybe he was 30. I didn't know much about him, but I knew he understood more than I did about getting drunk and getting high and getting away with it. I knew he flirted with me and I liked it. I also knew he scared me a little and I liked that too. It was good to feel dangerous, good to feel scared about something other than my falling grades, my absent parents, why Angie and I no longer shared hair ties and secrets.

Safeway Guy offered me a ride home one evening, and I took it. It was a short ride and we didn't say much. I was nervous to be in his car, he seemed older in the confined space, and the coin of excitement and fear in my chest spun fast, tipping one way then the other.

He stopped at the curb and I got out and closed the door, but the window was down and I could smell the lingering scent of him mixed with something like hope, something like desperation. I had moved partway up my front walk, but I knew he was still there, he'd said he'd wait until I got inside, and I liked how I could tell he was watching me. The coin toppled towards danger and excitement and I turned around and called out, "Do you want to come in?"

I wonder sometimes, as I take stock of my aging body, the wrinkles, the skin on my thighs that is no longer taught and lusty: would I have a different relationship with myself if I hadn’t discovered the power of my body until later in life? Would I have done anything differently had I known that my muscles and bones would hold my trauma long after the event, long after my mind was ready to let go?

Safeway Guy and I sat on my mother's kitchen floor, drinking tequila straight from a bottle. I cannot imagine what we talked about, and at the same time I know exactly what we talked about. Small mundane things, work or music or the rolling-in storm we could smell through the half open window. Big things, like the pileup on the highway the day before or the string of robberies the next neighborhood over. Because the words are not what matters in these strange and vibrating moments, what matters is the building tension, the fraught desire and the beckoning of things forbidden.

I do not remember exactly what happened after we sat on the floor together and thought our separate thoughts about what was coming. What I remember is suddenly feeling like it was all too strange. It felt one way to invite a boyfriend over while my mom wasn't home: clever, defiant, lonely. But this felt blurry, rasping, as if it would leave a persistent mark.

When I think of myself in that moment, I am reminded of Angie, her white jeans and cropped cotton top against her topaz skin, her long, narrow feet in flat sandals. How she went out with a lot of boys but never had sex because she was saving it for her wedding.

I do not know if she ever got married. I do not know how long she lasted with Joe. We graduated, I moved away to college and I never saw her again.

I do know she died. Young. In Las Vegas. That makes it sound seedy or worse. Maybe it was. I don't know anything else about her life or her death.

When I think of her, I wonder, What if I had waited with her for something more, something better, something different? Would I still be here? I'm old enough to know no matter what our decisions in this life, we can look back and wonder how we could be different now, because of some decision then. And if I've learned anything, it's this: The only way to be different now, is to be different now. To do the things our hearts call us to do.

To take the watercolor paper and the small double-lidded tin of halfway-decent paints to the shore and paint the pine trees we don't know the names of but wish we did. To then look up their names and write them underneath the watery branches. To paint the lake in all its depth with the blues and greens and browns available. To sit in the sun and listen to the lapping of the water and try, as much as we can, to drink it all in, to let it all back out, each breath a prayer of thanks and also desire.

I am struck this week by how hurt I am at what's happening in our country right now. I've been strong in practicing the things that keep me from crying all day long, but some days are harder than others. When Angie crosses my mind, I am surprised to find that even though I say I am done with humaning and I hope this is my last time around, I find I am glad to still be here. I am glad I did not die in Vegas, or San Jose, or Todos Santos or Tamarindo. I am glad I remember the trying and afraid and lonely girl I was, and can say I could have done it all differently, but I no longer feel like I should have.

I wish I could tell Angie about the things she's missed. About how it doesn't get any better or easier when you get older, how there is no such thing as finally feeling like everything is all lined up. About how there are moments that are so beautiful they break your heart and how there are days so bleak they break your soul, but that the best we can do is to get up, make the tea, pet the dog and breathe in and out – the prayer of the living.

Did you know that liking this post helps Hello Beautifuls get found my more people (the algorithm likes likes. So if you’re feeling it, ❤️ this post (or share or restack it). I’d be grateful if you do.

I am also always so excited to see a comment come in. To know that something I said resonated enough to elicit a response. It’s hard to explain what a huge gift that is. ✨So if you feel moved to say anything, please do. I will always respond.✨

With so much love,

xo

j

p.s. I heard this song today, hours after I’d posted it. I normally find this version stunningly beautiful. But today, more so than ever, I hear how Botti captures the longing and heart wrenching backstory, but also the hope and love. All without words. It seemed so fitting for this post, I’m adding at as an addendum to the original from this morning.