A Winter Prayer

I want to live

(Housekeeping at the bottom!)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac by Mary Oliver

It’s already getting light again. I know that’s sometimes hard to believe. And the truth is, I haven’t noticed this myself, but it’s there all the same. At the end of one week, more than what we found at the start. Late in the afternoon, from my place on the couch, I hold the light in my thoughts. Where it drapes in the corner of my windowsill. Only a minute I think, more—but more. And more coming.

In my friend’s apartment, I admit that I am trying not to write anymore, or, too much, about walking home. I think I’ve kinda overdone it, but it is where I seek a moment to myself, so I suppose what can you do? It is so cold out that to get to this apartment I took a car, and also because I was late trying to find something to wear, and I don’t totally love the outfit, but I’m glad that it is winter, which means I can hide it in my coat for a time. My friend is on the ground and my sister and I on the couch. The arrangement is much the same as when we were last here, the first time we’d met, which was a cold March after we’d turned 28. It had been dark by the time we’d arrived, and I remember, lounging there, the feeling of having made it though I had yet to do anything at all. And the meeting, the newness, prompting some internal exploration of one another, opened us, and consciously we leaned toward each other to be probed and gently taken apart.

It is the same, then, sitting there. The certainty is different. Rather than feeling as though something had been accomplished, there is an inevitability of accomplishment looming. The tenure of this time is coming to a close. I have almost done everything I need to. And I can recognize in hindsight that the original feeling of achievement that March evening was the relief and welcome of the life we would come to share, and meant to have all along.

If it were summer, maybe the world would be open to us, but it is not, so we must be so to each other. We are in a little living room. Gathering like fabric. Moving inward. I feel like a coin in the funnels we used to find at the mall and museums. There is the wide basin, there is the thin tube, and there is the only way we are going.

From my bed on New Year’s Eve, by then early New Year’s Day, I looked at this direction hard. The boundary of one time to the next was seamless and unchanged. The same year waited for me on the other side. The elusive undertow of possibility was not there, as it had always been there, exciting me in January and eluding me until spring. Disappearing altogether by summer and turning up again in December as an idea, promised again at midnight. But if the years were the same, then I knew how this would end.

I wondered if I could do it again, knowing this.

Could I stomach being only who I was?

Pulling the comforter higher, rest overdue, curled under the blankets, I begged and resisted the year to come. The universe passing through my window and watching. The heat of my breath turning the sheets damp with want, I pray.

Let there be twice the dishes to do. Cooing windowsills. Boundaries firm and firmer still. Olive oil, goat cheese, warm bread, messy plates. Worn spines. Homecoming. The open breeze of a spring afternoon and the quiet apartment where I sit. Sinking couches. Accidental naps. The thud of my books all over the ground. Lips to lips. Momentum. Pulling. Biting. Holding. Gripping. Creaking. Cold cola. Lit candles. The sway of tall grasses. Cycling words, impossible to lose. Landing safely. Parallel park. Cash from the pocket. Sweaty thighs. Crawling, overcrowded, sitting on laps. A short drive from there. Over just soon enough. Shuffled decks. Flyover days. And a moment where, before the finish, I’ve saved my own life.

In the timeless space before work begins again, there is nothing else I can think about. I wait for possibility. It does not show up. I pray. But I pray every year, and every year is never as soft as I want it to be. Still, I ask. And maybe they are softer than they would’ve been had I asked not at all.

What I am waiting for does not find me before work begins again. So for my last break of the day, I go into the dark toward the corner store to see what it has for me. The wind stings, and every shop along the street is glowing yellow and orange. There is not enough time to stop, but as I pass, I watch myself in the reflection, scarf wrapped tight and hair bowing out like a button-up in jeans. It will be a miracle if I do not wake up with windburn. Inside, if I focus, I can see who is perusing. Their noses red, cheeks. Hands reaching, they run their fingers along the shelves, the racks. The doors open to people rushing in behind them for the heat. I catch myself again. Is winter so bad, or is it a mirror? With its silvery ponds and puddles. Ice over everything. Dark too long, you find too many windows, your whole self staring back at you, wanting.

I admire winter’s foresight to narrow all channels. To send the people rushing into shops and houses, and jackets, into themselves, their ribs, their cooking. I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to return to myself if winter didn’t ask it of me. It isn’t all the time you feel the world has your best interest at heart.

I buy myself a cola and return.

It takes a few days before it occurs to me that there will be no moment before the finish. Saving yourself begins immediately.

A dozen afternoons later, I’m in bed again.

The door is shut for warmth and difficult writing, and the curtains are drawn. Sometimes going forward is going inward. On the wall, a letter my friend had written me is taped, and I can see that the writing is almost gone, aside from the words LOVE Dalia. But, rather than the black ink that had originally been there, it is a bleached orange color. And it is funny to me that even light can be corrosive.

And as I’m thinking on it, I realize my expectations have not been met. So late in the afternoon, the room should be blue. But it isn’t. There is more light than usual. Turning toward the window, I can see that the sun is almost gone, but we’ve gained a few more minutes. I know that when I leave that night to go across Brooklyn to have dinner and watch a movie with Kelly, it will still be dark. I know that these minutes are tumbling fast, that what we gained will be caught up again. But it’s here, isn’t it?

I dream briefly of spring, and I can feel the way the windows will be open and the music will be playing, and the carpet freshly vacuumed.

And that is a good thing, but it is not here.

This light that I am looking at is real. Good. It floods me with surprise. I am happy to see it. Not the emblem of what’s to come, but what has arrived. I think about it a while. Contented by it. That it is possible to love a thing for what it is, rather than what it will be. That I love this day and season as itself, instead of what it’s becoming.

The light falls, and it’s winter still. My own face now stares back from the window. I take a breath. It’s hard work, but I’m glad to do it. I do not want to be only possible—I want to live. I can stomach this. I say my prayer, and thank winter for her narrow closeness. Let me hold myself again.

I tried not to write of going home.

But I suppose I managed to just the same.

A Winter Prayer

“As soon as his voice us gone I have that feeling I often have when I’m away from my family, like they are moving farther and farther away from me, beginning to flicker faintly as distant stars and I will never ever reach them again. It feels like a premonition of the fact that someday, one by one, we will be separated from each other forever.” Heart the Lover by Lily King

Oh, I am holding myself very close these weeks. Finishing one book and starting two, making my big grocery list of things this year I want to consume and do and become. (Even if the becoming part feels like a phantom limb.) Sometimes going forward means going inward, here is what I have brought with me inside

The Long List of Books I Started and Want to Finish!

(It is obscene, and I hope by admitting my problem of starting things, I can finish them. Here begins my accountability.)

1. Bigger than Fashion by Tyler Watamanuk

2. Upstream by Mary Oliver*

3. Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida

   1. I think this book has the best concept, but I have started and restarted it again this new year, and when away from it have not picked it up, but I am determined to read and finish it as it has everything I love storywise.

4. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

   1. Who doesn’t need something insanely fun at this time of year?

5. Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

6. The Master and Margarita By Mikhail Bulgakov

   1. This is probably going to take me some time to read and I’m okay with that. I’m intimidated, but trying to turn that into curiosity.

7. The Best Short Story 2024 edited by Amor Towles*

8. Notes from the Summer Cottage by Nina Burton

9. Grape Juice By Eliza Dumais

   1. started this in that half hearted between books way and it was so good but I wasn’t ready to commit but I feel as though I’ve started it too so here it is on the list…very obsessed with the writing style

10. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous

*denotes bedside books, which are the books I read and keep at my bedside. One short story one essay a night is the goal and yet…

Movies I want to watch before Spring

(An ambitious list, given that the sweet spot to starting a movie for me is about 5 minutes long before it feels too late to begin, but a list is always motivation for me)

1. The Philadelphia Story

2. Sentimental Value

3. The Mastermind

4. The Maltese Falcon

5. Where is the Friend’s House?

6. Taste of Cherry

7. I’m Still Here

8. Secret Mall Apartment

9. Breakfast on Pluto

Resolutions

(not a big resolution person as they seem, socially, to have evolved into something I don’t like, but I do tend to make them in my own sort of way)

1. Be more curious

2. Leave my house more (solo dates/routine breaking excusrions/texture!)

3. Knit my first sweater

Here is this Newsletter’s mood board! An ode to winter, with its warm windows and silvery decoration!

House keeping

Okay!

This matters to everyone, but especially paying subscribers.

After taking the brief hiatus to rest, I’ve reevaluated how to best create and write with my current lifestyle so that it is manageable to me. When I began, the goal had been to produce in general, and so the monthly deadline created accountability for me to take myself seriously. Now that I take this very seriously¹, the goal has shifted in some ways. To me, now, it’s more about the craft itself, of trying new things, challenging form, finding better ways to present complex and cohesive ideas. But the boundary of one month is not often capable of doing all of this, I’ve noticed, and the monthly deadline is more a stressor than a motivator. In fact, it’s part of the reason so many newsletters were late! The looming deadline was often paralyzing!!!!!!!!

So the question over these weeks has been, what is the best way to be consistent and also give myself space to rest and breathe? And also, how do I accommodate this shift in focus and intention? Here is what I have decided:

1. For starters, each newsletter will continue to have a theme, that is the very first and most important part of the process for me. But I have decided to remove the months from their construction and how I talk about them. The fixed nature of them no longer holds, and my ideas seem more porous than when we began, and take up more space than the 30-ish days allow. So, goodbye to “the June Newsletter” more or less.

   1. (Will, of course, continue all traditions! Gratitude, yearbook, feasts etc)

2. So, of course, each Newsletter will still have a paid newsletter to go with it! And it will also be the same, it will be an extension and elaboration of the theme for that newsletter

3. HOWEVER! It will not be a monthly thing. This is sorta where it’s tricky. It also won’t not be monthly. I very much so will spend each month putting something together, and dedicating my time, but I’m also going to give the idea and myself room to breathe and rest when it calls for it. Does that make sense?

My hope is that by releasing the pressure, I will be able to take proper care, and after the initial adjustments, we will fall into a familiar flow as we have in the past and find our stride again. (With both quality and consistent writing!!) I think this is a better environment for creativity on the whole. I love the idea of coming to the end of the year with 12 newsletters, and I hope that there is a future where that is possible. For now, I want to see what we can do and work from there. I think this will allow for a more cohesive and intentional newsletter that this publication began with.

So you see, I will always be working on a newsletter; it won’t be radio silence, it just might not be as many as it has been in the past. And truthfully, I’m pretty afraid right now. In my nightmares, I’m the newsletter writer that shows up once every 8 months in your inbox and you have no idea who I am or can’t remember when you subscribed (AH!) But I do not want to be that, and so I will not be it.

I’m telling you all this because when you signed up to read my work, there were certain promises put into place, and I want to honor that you might not be willing to continue reading if those promises are not met. Especially if you are paying a certain sum for them. I can accept that part of living a decent and happy life is evolving and disappointing people in the process, and as I continue to make a community, we might outgrow each other. So I wanted to tell you this, because not doing so made it feel shameful and like I had lost some great battle, rather than making a conscious and confident choice for my process.

So! The last choice is allll yours.

As always, there’s no hard feelings.

If not here, we’ll catch up somewhere groovy.

That’s all for now! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save, share, and tag @chloeinletters

Here is My Twitter and my Instagram is @chloeinletters where the DMs are checked, cared, and loved for.

My Goodreads where I sometimes write reviews but keep updated is right here where more of my library is contained as far as books go.

My website is where you can check out my portfolio and contact me

My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!

Here’s to coffee Fridays, to the beauty of inconvenience, to the time we claim as our own.

Love always,

Chloé

1. see instagram stories in which I have meltdown over not meeting deadline for the last 3 years!