A precious evening

 

Guacamole sustained us.

 

The Moulin Rouge soundtrack lifted us.

 

Fuzzy socks and a loud scarf comforted us.

 

Jill and I were self care queens last night, discussing at great length how we were going to make it through our marathon trek to Santa Barbara on a school night, how we were going to treat ourselves the next day, Tired Today. We quoted aloud our Queen Anne, who taught us both about practicing "radical self care."

 

Anne beckoned us in with her miracle writer's beam. Up the coast we snaked, alien fog gracefully misting and settling into our open pores, open to the night and its treats.

 

***

 

I ordered mole, as a nod to Kimmy Schmidt, and gawked at the guac, so creamy.

 

We walked quickly up a hill back to the car, re-parked, and walked quickly to the theater, bellies full of beans and rice and big writer hearts ready for the Queen.

 

The Queen talked about mercy and hope. She told us, unfortunately, that we must cease our practice of not writing. She said we have a choice to do the hard work of telling our story or live with the regret that we didn't.

 

She told us that birds and birdsong are proof enough to her of something Greater Than Us. She said that pelicans are her favorite. She left us with the benediction to take off and land, take off and land. As she exited the stage she readjusted her knit purple shawl, and for a moment she had wings. Our Queen, our angel, our bird. Our bird who had flown into hundreds of lives in that room, teaching us that it's OK to be a person of faith with fear, it's OK to tell the truth, it's OK to cry or laugh in any moment, any moment at all.

 

***

 

I bought a copy of "Hallelujah Anyway," and I wanted to tell her as she signed the title page that a year ago I read it to a man in a coma, a man who soon later died, that his blood pressure mellowed as her words filled the ICU at 3 a.m. I wanted to tell her Thank You, but she was tired and so instead I gifted her with the grace of moving out of the line so she could rest.

 

How many times has she let me rest; I could only return the favor.

 

I do not say it lightly that Anne changed my life. I may not have chosen to speak openly about my hurts, I may not have believed that I could write them down, were it not for Anne.

 

Anne first let me rest when I was 18, showing me that I could have questions about God but still want Him in my life.

 

She offered respite from crippling worry and heartache, an ache I feared I could not escape, when I was navigating life after college. Her essay titled "Junctions" in "Grace (Eventually)" is one my heart returns to, years later. It is a beautiful piece about being in a stark, dusty place of life, going on a dusty hike, and finding some sort of peace. Whenever I call it to mind I am back on my tummy in my twin bed, my only reading lamp the afternoon Kansas sun.

 

"Some Assembly Required" held me safe in an office basement in Missouri.

 

"Stitches" rocked me to sleep in a pool house in LA, a la the Fresh Prince(ss).

 

"Help Thanks Wow" gave me wings on a plane headed west.

 

***

 

An audience member last night asked our Queen about her Christian faith, likely poking at how it plays into her life, given the current world climate.

 

Anne answered without mention of mules or pachyderms. She told the story so many of us know well: joining the Jesus Freaks was never something she wanted to do, and a group of singing voices in a dilapidated Northern California church soothed her hungover, hungry heart.

 

She told us of the children she teaches on Sundays, the children whom she calls upon one at a time and assures them they are loved and chosen.

 

She said of her church and fellow Christian family, "It's my precious community, and I show up."

 

***

 

Brave and emboldened by our Queen, Jill and I went deeper into the night that had already grown late, deciding to wait in line to get autographs, then veering off course for dairy products.

 

Chocolate glue and rainbow sprinkle glitter hid my vanilla ice cream from sight, and I spooned childhood into my mouth as Jill dined on what can only be described as a hefty smear of Nutella atop her churro-flavored froyo.

 

We talked and talked in the Toyota, our faithful sand worm zig-zagging us back to La La Land (this is not a review of Jill's driving, the road is just windy along the ocean, Friends).

 

***

 

My church, too, is my precious community. Fellow believers I meet in bars and airports and Walgreens parking lots are my precious community. Brothers and sisters who don't know what they believe are my precious community.

 

My family is my precious community.

 

Honest writers are my precious community.

 

Jill is my precious community.

 

I can't imagine life without any of them, and I can't imagine life without Anne. It is truly a miracle that I have been gifted with all of the above, not to mention so many more heroic people who show up in my space and make me better, make me OK, make me safe.

 

Full nights in the middle of the workweek are not for the anxious of heart, which is why Jill and I began texting days before last night's event to make sure we would be properly fed and mentally prepared for our evening excursion.

 

Yesterday, in a town so much quieter and cleaner than our city of residence, we communed with our precious community. For Anne, we showed up.

 

***

 

We could not see the sea as we drove home in the dark, but I knew she was there. Lapping at the shore, waving hello before dipping her head in a somersault back out to herself, where she could gather greetings from the orcas and the kelp, translating their message and carrying it back to the people.

 

Take off and land. Take off and land.