Breathe
By Susana Moscatel
For as long as I can remember I listened to the Beatles and, of course, Let it Be in the voice of Paul McCartney echoes the moment in my life that I began to understand the power of music to generate emotion, change, awareness and connect with something bigger than myself.
Clearly that was not something I could have put those words and importance to in my childhood. I had not seen or lived long enough to know what a prayer was to the desire to believe in something. And as an agnostic by upbringing and a Jewish, Mexican, question-asking woman always, by identity, I have never related religion to anything that might be a connection to that which is the supreme union of the universe.
No. I don't know how to pray. I have wanted to, when I lost my father, my brother. When the terrorist attacks occurred last October 7 in Israel and the terrible human loss in that region of the world since then. There are always moments in life like that, don't you think? But if there is one thing I know, it is that I cannot become a believer in anything for the sake of convenience. I can't talk to a God only when I need to. My father said goodbye to me, quoting in a way his idol Isaac Asimov, saying that that was the end of his story and to look for him only in memories, love and learning. I honor him by listening to his favorite composers, Mahler, Shostakovich, Bach, while I look for him in my dreams to ask him if today, in these times, he still thinks the same. An eternal contradiction of my desires and my beliefs.
