How I Davened During Senior Year

Notes from High School- On Prayer

Every morning I pray in the stairwell, even though the rest of the student body prays in the large hall. I put my prayerbook on the window ledge, cross my arms over my chest and put my feet together. That is how I stand, for thirty minutes. I won't tell you what I pray for.

But what I will tell you is that the Ecuadorian cleaning woman usually sweeps the stairs while I pray. She is young, pretty; she hums Latino songs under her breath. And, two landings down, a girl will talk on her phone. One of the special-needs kids who laughs and cries without shame. She calls her mother and then her father.

"How do you say almonds?" she asks. "All-monds or aaalmonds? I say all-monds but the girls in my class say aalmonds." The parental voice answers back slowly, patiently. When she says goodbye, she has trouble hanging up- "bye Daddy bye-bye mwah bye, bye angel, mwah, bye-bye, thank you. Bye-bye. Have a good day. Love you. Bye-bye mwah bye-bye."

Neither the cleaningwoman nor the girl see me, and I wonder if prayer renders me invisible. Perhaps I disappear as I say "May our eyes behold Your return to Zion". I imagine how people later will find only my prayerbook and a list of Hebrew names of the ill, resting on the window ledge in the sunlight, facing east.