Morning Prayer

It was the start of a new month. We had set the clocks back, and I woke up slowly. I slid from dreams gradually as the room grew light with morning. I wanted to linger in that half-awake space.

And I had an urge to…pray. Is pray the word? I had an impulse to silently give voice to a feeling of gratitude and awe, and to also, somehow, quell my anxious thoughts.

I drifted for long minutes beneath the yellow comforter in this rental apartment whose décor and furnishings were chosen by the landlord. The washer and dryer against the wall in front of the bed seemed to eye me like a pair of glass-faced quizzical robots, and through the window, I could see a red umbrella on the patio, a weathered wooden fence, and the pale greenery of an olive tree. It’s certainly not the view I used to wake to, and sometimes it feels like an enclosed and alien place, but the light was gentle, and the day was a gift, and I floated there, postponing coffee.

I could not entirely tune out the anguish and the tumult, of course, but I rested in the oasis of this moment and place. I felt safe. The one I love was in the next room. A new day was beginning, and a new month, and I even have a brand new hip. My luck is disproportionate to my worth, but this is where I’ve landed.

Last week, an old friend died. He had been ill for some time, but the news still felt sudden, and I remembered him across the years, dapper and robust. We were neighbors in the canyon. We went on walks and hunted for chanterelles and watched the creek rise after storms and even hosted holiday parties together. He was proud of his academic career, but in this part of his life was usually on his way to a surfing destination or exotic adventure in some faraway place. “I gotta get outta here,” he’d say sometimes if I met him at the mailbox. And time’s winged chariot hurried at his heels.

Loss and illness seem to be trending among our cohorts lately. We are feeling very vulnerable.

But also, there is a sense of urgency. There is no time to be vague. No time to be silent or to passively watch the destruction of our democracy and our planet. By the time this post appears, the midterm elections will have taken place, and we will either be infused with renewed hope or…well, I don’t even want to go there. And I have no illusions: even if the outcomes are good, we have a long, hard, sustained effort ahead of us. But at least we will know our moral compasses are intact, and we will proceed in the right direction.

Meanwhile, almost as if I had opened a door, the whole procession of my beloved dead stepped out—they know who they are. As Kunitz asked, how shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? It never is. But I decided to proclaim them all alive and well, to recommit to the alchemy of turning sorrow to compassion, and to celebrate the gifts each brought me in how I live my own remaining years, honoring their triumphs and their suffering by being true and decent.

I did not always realize how much I was given. I was treasured sometimes, warmed by many lights, a recipient of handwritten letters. I am often disenchanted with humanity, and there’s plenty of reason for that, but I hold fast to hope, and in my own life, kind and well-meaning people are the majority. I bear witness daily to a spectacle of wonder, and it surprises me anew each morning. I try my best to document and not forget.

For this beautiful and heartbreaking world—and to it—I am saying thank you.

A quote I read by the French writer André Gide (1869-1951) clicked with me recently: “The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say — because they were too obvious.”

It’s true, isn’t it? What I regret most in my life are the kindnesses I did not offer, the loving truths I did not speak out loud, the exuberance and joy I failed to express. Were these obvious? Love unspoken is a hobbled thing; gratitude unexpressed goes nowhere.

I know someone who says she does not believe in God, but she prays anyway. It’s a mystery, but she says it helps. And what is prayer but a powerful impulse to articulate what is felt, even if obvious? To empower the sentiment with word or thought, to direct the energy to the source of it all, to give voice to the fear or the love.

On this morning, I woke up wanting to pray, and it came out like this: Thank you.