The Angels Come to Visit Us

And we only know them when they are gone

Photos by John P. Weiss

Somewhere deep within you, there is an angel.

Beneath the insecurities and comparisons and nagging fears, your forgotten angel longs for release. Everyone has this inner guardian, that sacred part of ourselves that shines with love and kindness and quiet benevolence.

In childhood they spilled out of us freely.

Back then, our angels had no reason to hide. Their light was effortless. If you doubt this, stand near a playground and listen. The laughter, the shouts, the wild-hearted imaginings.

Children sparkle with a purity that adulthood slowly buries.

The magic of childhood is its innocence, before adolescence and hormones and the wreckage of grown-up life send our angels retreating into subterranean rooms of the soul. Then come the wounds, and the angels fold their wings. Cocooned. Waiting.

We unwittingly sentence them to a long hibernation.

---

Sometimes I go downtown with my hybrid rangefinder camera.

Photowalks get me out of the house and out of my head. Street photography reveals much about people, about life, about the masks we wear.

When I slow down enough to listen and observe, I sometimes recognize in strangers different shades of myself: the impatient driver cursing a red light; the woman at the café talking too much; the old man adjusting the grocery bag that strains his back.

We all share the same small burdens. Impatience. Ego. Aching joints. A desire to be seen.

A good photowalk, if you quiet the noise inside your own mind, will soften the hard edges of your soul. It sands down the calluses of envy, pride, insecurity, and greed. Those ugly things that imprison our better selves.

And if those edges soften long enough, the wintering angel within might sense a thaw. Might loosen the blankets of despair. Might dare to step out again.

It’s a fragile process.

You have to make an effort. Create the conditions. Step outside of yourself. Risk a little.

I prefer the safety of home. My books, journals, cats, and coffee. Morning light in the backyard. A good novel. A gentle breeze. It’s peaceful there, and the angel within me whispers easily when I write.

But the angel needs more.

Wings don’t unfurl in confinement. Light requires motion. And that motion begins when life becomes less about ourselves.

So I go downtown with my camera.

I let myself dissolve into the city’s current of tourists, shoppers, wanderers, and dreamers. I stay aware of the traffic, the unpredictable folks. But I observe.

Outside a coffee shop, a group of older friends converse with easy familiarity. No phones. Just presence. They smile and laugh and inhabit the moment fully. I raise the camera and capture it.

“You need to learn from them,” I tell myself. “Put away your phone. Stop rehearsing what to say. Listen. Be present.”

Further down the street, I hear snoring. A man sleeps in a small alley. His shoes are tattered, his clothes soiled, his fingers still curled around the stub of a cigarette. Beer cans sit beside him.

I take the picture.

I don’t often photograph the struggling. Their lives are already so exposed. But in this case, his identity is hidden. The image reminds me how uncertain life is.

Any one of us can fall.

My long career in law enforcement taught me that. Put away your judgment. Yes, people make bad choices. Yes, there are paths back. But grief and illness and loss can break even the strongest spirit.

What if it were your child who died of a glioblastoma?
What if your grief hollowed you out until your spouse fled the darkness?
What if your job, your last anchor, slipped away?

How can any of us be so sure we’re different?

---

I think of the film City of Angels.

In the story, guardian angels wander the city in black trench coats. They hear the unspoken fears and hopes of the people around them. A woman applying makeup tells herself, “He’s going to leave me.” In a pediatric ward, angels sit beside parents keeping vigil for their sick children.

The angels are silent, invisible, radiating love.

What if we unearthed the angels within us and acted more like guardians? What if I had bought that man in the alley a coffee? Sat beside him? Listened?

The old cop in me rattles off a hundred reasons not to. He might be mentally ill, intoxicated, unpredictable. He might follow me. Ask for money. Any of it. But what if the opposite happened?

What if he welcomed the coffee and told me his story?
What if being heard changed something in him?
What if light returned?
What if wings unfurled?

Why is it so hard to believe such things are possible?

A small sadness crosses my chest. I keep walking toward an area where families gather. I want something uplifting.

The street obliges.

A man walking his dog makes me smile. I wonder what he has endured, what he has survived, what lessons he carries quietly inside him. Dogs, too, have their stories. One I met, Scooter, was a rescue.

His owner said, “He knows when I’m down. He always does. It’s like emotional radar.”

The angels within us have that radar too, but we forget how to use it.

Imagine what this fractured world might look like if everyone awakened their angels. Some people do, and we celebrate them: the Mother Theresas, the quiet helpers, the kind souls who move through the world leaving it gentler than they found it.

I stroll a few more blocks.

The sun sinks. One more photograph, I tell myself. One more small grace.

Two showgirls spot me and ask if I want a photo. I tell them I’m a local, that I shoot candid street scenes to inspire my writing.

They laugh and say, “Then take our picture for free.”

The work isn’t glamorous, they admit. Men harass them. Others are rude. The sun is relentless. But they need the money.

I tip them both. They brighten. They walk away. I hope life treats them kindly. I hope their angels stay visible in a world that too often bruises young women into doubt.

I walk back to my car in the shade of the Fashion Mall’s garage.

I take the backstreets home to let the day settle. Back home, I return the camera to its shelf until next time. Brew a coffee. Pet the cat. Sink into my leather chair.

It was a good day.

There’s a passage in George Eliot’s Scenes of a Clerical Life:

“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”

Life moves too fast now.

We forget how to slow down. But when we do, when we listen, observe, breathe, a small trapdoor loosens within us. That’s how the angel escapes.

The trick is to notice the small moments.

Big moments are too loud. Too crowded with expectation. Birthdays, weddings, promotions. There’s little room for magic.

Magic lives in the negligible.

In the outstanding memoir I Regret Almost Everything, Keith McNally quotes his brilliant friend Jonathan Miller:

“The more you concentrate on the negligible, the more you end up with the grand.”

Slow down. Pay attention. Tend to the tiny miracles:

A neighbor’s brief hello.
Children laughing on swings.
A cat warming your lap as you sip coffee.

Let these small graces soothe your soul and rouse your sleeping angel. Slow down. Look. Listen. Open that trapdoor.

Let your angel back into the world.

---

Support my work

Weiss Journal is a free publication. If you enjoy my work, please consider leaving a one-time donation of any amount via the secure PayPal link below. I appreciate it.