Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace - Couverture rigide

Lamott, Anne

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1410473465 ISBN 13 : 9781410473462

Editeur : Thorndike Pr, 2014

A propos du livre

Extrait :

The heads of roses begin to droop.

The bee who has been hauling his gold

all day finds a hexagon in which to rest.

In the sky, traces of clouds,

the last few darting birds,

watercolors on the horizon.

The white cat sits facing a wall.

The horse in the field is asleep on its feet.

I light a candle on the wood table.

I take another sip of wine.

I pick an onion and a knife.

And the past and the future?

Nothing but an only child with two different masks.

—Billy Collins, “In the Evening”

Prelude:
Victory Lap

The worst possible thing you can do when you’re down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you.

First of all, friends like this may not even think of themselves as dying, although they clearly are, according to recent scans and gentle doctors’ reports. But no, they see themselves as fully alive. They are living and doing as much as they can, as well as they can, for as long as they can.

They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgment you wallow in, without the decency to come out and just say anything. They bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom.

My friend Barbara had already been living with Lou Gehrig’s disease for two years on the spring morning of our Muir Woods hike. She had done and tried everything to stem the tide of deterioration, and you would think, upon seeing her with a fancy four-wheeled walker, needing an iPad-based computer voice named Kate to speak for her, that the disease was having its way. And this would be true, except that besides having ALS, Barbara had her breathtaking mind, a joyously bottomless thirst for nature, and Susie.

Susie, her girlfriend of thirty years, gave her an unfair advantage over the rest of us. We could all be great, if we had Susie. We could be heroes.

Barbara was the executive director of Breast Cancer Action, the bad girls of breast cancer, a grassroots advocacy group with a distinctly bad attitude toward the pink-ribbon approach. Susie was her ballast, and I had spoken at a number of their galas and fund-raisers over the years. Barbara and Susie were about the same height, with very short dark hair. They looked like your smartest cousins, with the beauty of friendly, intelligent engagement and good nature.

Barbara’s face was set now, almost as a mask, like something the wind is blowing hard against, and she’d lost a lot of weight, so you could see the shape of her animal, and bones and branches and humanity. Yet she still had a smile that got you every time, not a flash of high-wattage white teeth, but the beauty of low-watt, the light that comes in through the bottom branches; sweet, peaceful, wry.

We set off. She was our lead duck, our cycling leader—the only person on wheels sussing up what lay before us at the trailhead, watching the path carefully because her life depended on it. Susie walked ever so slightly behind. I walked behind, in the slipstream.

Even on the path that leads through these woods, you feel the wildness. The trees are so huge that they shut you up. They are like mythical horse flanks and elephant skins—exuding such life and energy that their stillness makes you suspect they’re playing Red Light, Green Light.

The three of us had lunch in town two months earlier, before the feeding tube, before Kate. Barbara used the walker, which looked like a tall, compact shopping cart, but moved at a normal pace. She still ate with a fork, not a feeding tube, and spoke, although so softly that sometimes I had to turn to Susie for translation. Barbara talked about her wellness blog, her need for supplemental nutrition. Breath, nutrition, voice; breath, nutrition, voice. (She posted a list on her blog from time to time, of all the things she could still do, most recently “enjoy the hummingbirds; sleep with my sweetie. Speak out for people with breast cancer.”)

Now she is silent. When she wants to talk, she can type words on her iPad that Kate will then speak with efficient warmth. Or she can rest in silence. She knows that even this diminished function and doability will be taken one day at a time. When you are on the knife’s edge—when nobody knows exactly what is going to happen next, only that it will be worse—you take in today. So here we were, at the trailhead, for a cold day’s walk.

I’m a fast walker, because my dad had long legs and I learned to keep up, but today a walk with Barbara was like Mother May I? May I take a thousand baby steps? Barbara seemed by her look of concentration to align herself with all the particles here in the looming woods, so she could be as present and equal as possible. She couldn’t bother with saying anything unimportant, because she had to type it first. This relieved all of us from making crazy chatter.

This is a musical grove. The redwoods are like organ pipes, playing silent chords. Susie pointed out birds she knew, and moved a few obstacles on our route, as Barbara rolled on. Susie is the ultimate support, a weight-bearing wall. She’s not “I am doing wondrous things,” but simply helping both herself and Barbara be comfortable in the duo of them. She has lots of sly humor, but no gossipy edge, except in a pinch.

I have been to Muir Woods hundreds of times in my life, from my earliest days. This was where my family brought visitors. I got lost here at four, amid the crowds, but it was different fifty years ago. For the parents, a missing child was scary, yet you did not assume the child was dead. I was always afraid, lost or not. I got lost so often—once for more than half an hour among sixteen thousand people at the Grand National Rodeo—that until I was seven, I had notes pinned to my coats, little cards of introduction, with my name and phone number: If found, please return, as if I were a briefcase. I have gotten lost all of my life, maybe more than most, and been found every time. Even though I believe that the soul is immortal and grace bats last, I’m afraid because Barbara is going to die, and Susie will be all alone.

I love Wendell Berry’s lines that “it may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

I have a lot of faith and a lot of fear a lot of the time.

The day was so cold that for once Muir Woods did not smell of much; heat brings out stronger smells, but today was crisply delicious. We walked along the path like kids moving as slowly as one humanly can.

We rounded the first curve, vrrrooom. Susie and I spoke of nothing in particular. Barbara pointed to her ear, and we stopped to listen, to the tinkle of the creek, and all the voices of the water. There was the interplay of birdsong and people song and the creek’s conversation, as if it had a tongue, saying, “Keep going, we’ll all just keep on going. You can’t stop me or anything else, anyway.” Every sound is by definition a stop, which is how we can hear it.

We were walking in step with Barbara, as she held on to her conveyance, and I felt myself take on all the qualities that Barbara brought to the day, a fraught joy and awareness. There was a frozen music in the giant redwoods, like a didgeridoo. The trees looked like they were wearing skirts of burl and new growth. I asked Barbara and Susie, “When you flip the skirts up, what do you get?” Barbara pointed to the answer: a tree that had toppled over—roots covered with moss and what looked like mossy coral, very octopus-like. Some tree trunks had roots wrapped up and around them, like barber poles. Some trunks were knuckly and muscular in their skirts, with many knees, and some burl seats for anyone who needed to sit.

The trees looked congregational. As we walked beneath the looming green world, pushing out its burls and sprouts, I felt a moment’s panic at the thought of Barbara’s impending death, and maybe also my own. We are all going to die! That’s just so awful. I didn’t agree to this. How do we live in the face of this? Left foot, right foot, push the walker forward.

When my son was six or seven, and realized that he and I were not going to die at the exact same moment, he cried for a while, and then said that if he’d known this, he wouldn’t have agreed to be born.

Barbara looked at me gently. We studied each other like trees. Her smile was never used to ingratiate herself. This is so rare.

The ferns looked almost as if they had sprung from an umbrella shaft—you could click it and cock it, and the spokes would burst forth or could be put away.

We picked up speed and barreled around the next corner, going one mile an hour: Susie mentioned that they had to get back to San Francisco for a meeting. The city seemed far away, on another planet, but not as far away as a meeting. We passed a great show of burl in a thick lumpy flow, as if it had been arrested in downward movement, like mud or lava. One burl looked exactly like a bear cub. Ferns and sometimes whole redwoods spring from burl. The ferns remind you of prehistory. Dinosaurs hide behind them. They are elegant, tough, and exuberant, like feathers in a woman’s hat.

I asked Barbara, “Are you afraid very often?” She shrugged, smiled, stopped to type on her laptop, and hit Send. Kate spoke: “Not today.”

The glossy bay trees are so flexible, unlike some people I could mention (i.e., me), with long horizontal ballet arms. They are light and sun seekers, and when you are in the forest of crazy giants, you might have to do some sudden wild-ass moves, darting through a small slant of space among the giants—“Oh, wham—sorry—coming through—sorry. Sorry.”

We were nearly to the end of the trail. I’ve always loved to see the foreigners here in their high heels, speaking Russian, Italian, happy as birds. Maybe they have Saint Petersburg and the Sistine Chapel back home, but we have this cathedral. Who knows what tragedies these happy tourists left behind at home? Into every life crap will fall. Most of us do as well as possible, and some of it works okay, and we try to release that which doesn’t and which is never going to. On the list of things she could still do, Barbara included: “Clip my nails with a very large nail clipper, hear songs in my head, enjoy a baseball game, if the Giants or Orioles are winning.” Making so much of it work is the grace of it; and not being able to make it work is double grace. Grace squared. Their somehow grounded buoyancy is infectious, so much better than detached martyrdom, which is disgusting.

This is not what Barbara and Susie signed up for, not at all. Mistakes were made: Their plan was to spend as much time as they could at Yosemite, the theater, Mendocino, and helping people with breast cancer. But they are willing to redefine themselves, and life, and okayness. Redefinition is a nightmare—we think we’ve arrived, in our nice Pottery Barn boxes, and that this or that is true. Then something happens that totally sucks, and we are in a new box, and it is like changing into clothes that don’t fit, that we hate. Yet the essence remains. Essence is malleable, fluid. Everything we lose is Buddhist truth—one more thing that you don’t have to grab with your death grip, and protect from theft or decay. It’s gone. We can mourn it, but we don’t have to get down in the grave with it.

Barbara pointed out a bird so tiny that Susie and I didn’t see it at first in the fallen branches and duff of the forest floor. It was the only thing moving besides us humans. All of a sudden we saw a tiny jumpy camouflaged creature, heard the teeny tinkly peep. We performed the obeisance of delight. It is so quiet here, as though the trees are sucking up so much sound that anything that can get through them has a crystalline quality.

A great bay arch across the dirt was our last stop on the way. It was in full curvy stretch, arched all the way over our path, reaching for sun and touching the ground on the other side. I wondered if it would snake along on top of the duff, always following the light. It is nobody’s fool. Lithe and sinewy, the branch looked Asian: I guess we’re all Pacific Rim on this bus. All of its leaves were gone, as if it had spent its time and life force in the arching. Barbara trundled along up to it, smiled, and made the exact arch with her hand—like, Here’s the arch and I’m saluting it, standing beneath it, and now walking through.

Companions

The Book of Welcome

There must have been a book—way down there in the slush pile of manuscripts—that somehow slipped out of the final draft of the Bible. That would have been the chapter that dealt with how we’re supposed to recover from the criticism session in the Garden, and discover a sense that we’re still welcome on the planet. There are moments in Scripture when we hear that God delights in people, and I am incredulous. But they are few and far between. Perhaps cooler heads determined that too much welcome would make sissies out of us all, and chose instead accounts of the ever popular slaughter, exile, and shame.

The welcome book would have taught us that power and signs of status can’t save us, that welcome—both offering and receiving—is our source of safety. Various chapters and verses of this book would remind us that we are wanted and even occasionally delighted in, despite the unfortunate truth that we are greedy-grabby, self-referential, indulgent, overly judgmental, and often hysterical.

Somehow that book “went missing.” Or when the editorial board of bishops pored over the canonical lists from Jerusalem and Alexandria, they arbitrarily nixed the book that states unequivocally that you are wanted, even rejoiced in.

We have to write that book ourselves.

Where can we begin, in the face of clearly not having been cherished for who we are, by certain tall, anxiously shut-down people in our childhood homes, whom I will not name? How far back does the sense of provisional welcome go? I would start with my first memory.

I am three years old, at our family cabin in Bolinas, before the town becomes a counterculture artists’ community. My grandparents paid two thousand dollars for a rustic one-room cottage that was several hundred yards from Duxbury Point, from which you could see a great expanse of ocean, the horizon, and the reef below.

My grandparents, who had traveled the world in their work as Christian missionaries, had brought back eight or so Mexican sorcery masks made of wood, and they hung these on the cabin wall. Each one had devil eyes surrounded in white that glowed in the dark. The fangs did, too. I had already begun my work as a lifelong insomniac, and would stay up or wake in the glare of these eyes and teeth, terrified to the core. I remember that when my parents tried, grumpily, to comfort me in the middle of the night, I pointed to these masks as the source of my terror. They said reassuring things, like “Oh, for Chrissakes, Annie. Those are just masks!” Strangely, this did not h...

Revue de presse :

“Lamott is beloved by legions for her smart, irreverent take on the human condition, filtered through her unique brand of compassionate Christianity and delivered with delicious, self-deprecating wit. Lamott goes even deeper in these essays.”
—People 

“Anne Lamott is practically a household word in the peeling-back-the-soul department. She's utterly disarming. She's hysterically funny. One minute, you're falling off your chair laughing, and the next, you're gasping for air, because Lamott has just unfurled a sentence that cuts straight to the heart of what you really needed to know. ... Lamott is one in a million... Hers is an inimitable mix of irreverence and deep-down holy wisdom. Her wit is so sharp, her synapses fire so quickly, she deftly connects the dots and vaults across the spiritual landscape like nobody else...Lamott grounds the holy in the messy, hilarious, madcap adventure that is her life. And she sees the truth so piercingly perceptibly, we're left slack-jawed and wiser in her wake.”
—Chicago Tribune 

“A collection of beautifully written essays, filled with nuggets of wisdom gathered over years of mindful living. The stories tackle some heavy topics ... [but] Lamott's candor, and sarcastic, self-deprecating humor lighten the content and engage readers. ...Her words heal us all.”
—Associated Press

“[Lamott’s] insightful and often hilarious prose celebrates the little lessons that everyday challenges can teach us.”
—Women’s Day

“Most [of Lamott’s essays] balance wry, acidic humor with deeper feeling — most often, a longing for grace and a sense of gratitude for its manifestations.”
—The Boston Globe

“Prime examples of Lamott's crystalline insights and wicked wit. There are laugh-out-loud moments...and frank revelations about her personal brand of ‘left-wing Christ­i­anity,’ that sound a clarion call to social activism rather than sanctimonious judgment. It is so good to hear from her again.”
—The Austin Chronicle 

“Lamott can infuse even the darkest material with humor and uplifting revelations. Much loved by fans, her books are on many a nightstand within reach for hour-of-the-wolf reading.”
—New York Daily News

“Lamott is funny, witty and irreverent...Her basic message is love and forgiveness...Not a bad message for any faith.”
—The Denver Post

“Lamott once again summons her calm and reassuring voice to tenderly grab us by the hand and walk us through the most uncomfortable moments we may ever encounter in life: pain, suffering, betrayal and loneliness. Lamott masterfully and matter-of-factly recounts her battles with sobriety, her complex relationship with her family, and how she ultimately found her voice through spirituality. Heavy? Yes. But within each bracingly honest story, Lamott lathers on her trademark humor.”
–NY 1 

“Anne Lamott embraces language and life with equal zest, squeezing from the intersection wisdom of the most soul-stretching kind...A master of the touchpoint between wit and wisdom, Lamott adds to the poignant a wink of the playful...Small Victories is an enormously ennobling read in its entirety.”
—Brainpickings 

“[Lamott is] perhaps the best popular essayist America has produced in decades...[Small Victories] brings together a range of heartfelt journalistic and spiritual writings, which have all the pleasures and accessibility, the humor and surprise, of her longer books...A must for all Lamott fans and a fine point of entry for newcomers.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

"Honest, witty essays on the hidden blessings in life...Sage advice on finding beauty and happiness in life despite bad circumstances.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“An essay collection that tackles tough subjects with sensitive and unblinking honesty...Lamott is refreshingly frank...[and] has the rare ability to weave bracing humor seamlessly with earnest, Christian faith.”
—Publishers Weekly 

“Thank goodness for Anne Lamott. Her writing style, both unfussy and diaphanous, her congeniality, loopy humor and dogged optimism are balms. Her latest book, Small Victories is a gem...Surely, when it comes to questions of faith, Lamott is to essay writing what Marilynne Robinson is to fiction. Awesome.”
—BookPage 

Praise for Anne Lamott

“Lamott writes essays...that are howlingly funny mini-sermons, reminding us of what’s important in life.”
—Los Angeles Times 

“[Lamott] has a gift for putting into words what it means to accept and ultimately embrace the beauty, mystery, and pain that is life.”
—San Antonio Express-News

“The wickedly witty and very funny Lamott...makes you laugh at the same time she makes you think.”
—Denver Post 

“[Lamott] can capture the bliss and beauty of tiny emotional events in a few perfect words, then skewer her own worst impulses with brutal hilarity.”
—Bust 

“Anne Lamott is a cause for celebration. [Her] real genius lies in capturing the ineffable, describing not perfect moments, but imperfect ones...perfectly. She is nothing short of miraculous.”
—The New Yorker 

“Anne Lamott has married a razor-sharp wit to a disarming spiritual sincerity. A ferociously smart, droll, and original writer.”
—Entertainment Weekly  

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Thorndike Pr
• Date d'édition: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1410473465
• ISBN 13: 9781410473462
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 295