I was three years old when I visited New York City for the first time. I couldn’t see the tops of the buildings because it was a foggy weekend. A year later, we returned to New York City and the skies were clear. I could see the tops of the buildings. I thought it was because I had gotten taller.
I also used to write letters to Santa Claus around Christmas time. I asked my mother how Santa read all the letters. There are so many of us, and only one Santa! You’re right, my mother said, Santa, my mother said, is a busy busy man. That’s why each little boy and girl is assigned an elf who will tell Santa what you want for Christmas. Maybe your elf will even write a letter back to you.
I’m not a little girl anymore, but I believe the same can be true for God and his angels, that God himself is a busy busy man, but that not only each little boy and girl, but the grown ups too, are assigned an angel. Your angel tells God what you are praying for. Maybe your angel will even speak back to you.
Am I going to survive?
Yes.
Am I going to survive?
Yes.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Do you promise?
Yes.
I’m a dead man.
You’re not dead.
I’m a dead man, my soul is dead, I have died.
No, you haven’t.
I’m dying.
Yes.
Am I going to survive?
Yes.
I don’t want to live like this anymore. I don’t want to live like this anymore I don’t want to live like this anymore. I don’t want to live like this anymore.
How do you want to live?
I want to live differently.
How do you want to live?
I need to live differently.
Yes.
I want to change everything about my life. Forgive me forgive me forgive me please forgive me please please please forgive me.
I promise everything will be fine, but you must listen to me.
I’m listening.
There is a difference between living, and seeing what you can survive.
“I am profoundly hurt by this.
But I understand you. I understand that the wise organism of your life must immediately repel that which seems to it harmful, in order to keep its functions intact: as the eye repels the object that disturbs its sight.
I understand that, and do you remember? how well I understood you often in the happiness of our contemplations? I am convinced that there is no man of my age (either in France or elsewhere) who is endowed as I am (by temperament and by work) to understand you, to understand your great life, and to admire it conscientiously.”
Rilke
My angel said to me, you see, you are not enough to live for, if you don’t find something beyond you, then you will jump out the window.
When you find the other, when you reach out your hand to somebody, you focus your eyes like one focuses a camera; you either focus your eyes on what you are reaching to, or you focus your eyes on your own hand that is reaching. The difference is significant.
I said to my angel
I want to jump out the window.
I know you do and so do I.
But you have wings.
Not if I jump out the window.
Why not?
Angels have to live or God takes our wings.
I thought angels were already dead.
I'm not sure if that’s true, actually.
You are an angel.
I am.
You should know if you have already lived and have died.
I’m not sure if that’s true, actually.
She thought about what the angel said, and she imagined the angels living like her, not necessarily dead, but not quite alive, merely testing the waters, seeing what they can survive, which, like the angel said, is not the same as living. She imagined an angel jumping out of a window and she imagined the giant hand of God coming from the sky, reaching down through the clouds holding a pair of scissors, and clipping the angel’s wings, the wings it was testing, the wings it planned to rely on right before hitting the ground. She shivered; just as in a dream where you are falling and you wake up just before hitting the ground, she came back to the present before—
She said to the angel
I saw you sitting in the window frame.
I remember.
You were thinking about jumping.
Correct.
I’m sorry.
It’s not your fault.
I can’t believe I let that happen.
It’s not your fault.
I’m sorry too.
I won’t let it happen again.
Maybe, hopefully, probably not, but maybe, maybe God changed his mind before the angel hit the ground. Maybe God gave the angel its wings back.
It is never enough to live for your self, by your self, of your self, and if it feels like enough you are already dead but maybe just maybe God will give you your wings back, maybe for free, maybe for a couple thousand dollars (but who can put a price on life? sure as hell not me).
What makes us want to kill ourselves? Fear? Maybe. Indifference? More likely. But indifference is the sort of wanting to kill yourself where you never actually kill your self. Suicide that actually happens is triggered by fear of living, of truly living, because the things we fear are the things that are inside of us. Fiction is too far from our hearts—the stories we are told are not familiar enough to be truly feared. But the things we have experienced, (even/especially) the worst of things, we have acquired the tools to survive. It is that which we know intimately (and we know it because we are able to activate it, we know this on some level) that we are truly fearful of.
Sometimes cowardice saves our lives.
A shaking child hiding under the covers in fear of the monster under the bed. Scared. Only to come out from under the covers and realize they were have been under the bed the entire time.
I reached out my hand thinking I had discovered Life, thinking that I was reaching for Something, but my lens was focused on my hand. I shifted my focus.
Oh.
The angel speaks back.
Am I going to survive?
Yes.
Am I going to survive?
Yes.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Do you promise?
Yes.
I’m a dead man.
You’re not dead.
No, but almost.
Almost death, they say, is worse than death. Death is eternal, which is different from almost dead, which is purgatorial. Purgatory is infinitely finite. I hope I go straight to heaven, because purgatory sounds like shit. It sounds worse than hell. I’d rather go straight to hell.