I
WAS ABOUT TO CALL IT A NIGHT, after eating a burrito (after midnight) as big as
my upper arm running from my shoulder to my elbow, and after telling the clerk
at the 7 - 11 how foolish I felt and that I was no longer 27, I re - discovered Anne Lamott on Facebook, who made it all
seem okay, and placed everything into perspective:
"I am going to be 68 in six days, if I live that long. I’m optimistic. Mostly.
"God,
what a world. What a heartbreaking, terrifying freak show. It is completely
ruining my birthday plans. I was going to celebrate how age and the grace of
myopia have given me the perspective that almost everything sorts itself out in
the end. That good will and decency and charity and love always eventually
conspire to bring light into the darkest corners. That the crucifixion looked
like a big win for the Romans.
"But
turning 68 means you weren’t born yesterday. Turning 68 means you’ve seen what
you’ve seen—Ukraine, Sandy Hook, the permafrost…Marjorie Taylor Greene. By 68,
you have seen dear friends literally ravaged by cancer, lost children,
unspeakable losses. The midterms are coming up. My mind is slipping. My dog
died.
"Really,
to use the theological terms, it is just too frigging much.
"And
regrettably, by 68, one is both seriously uninterested in a vigorous debate on
the existence of evil, or even worse, a pep talk.
"So
what does that leave? Glad you asked: the answer is simple. A few very best
friends with whom you can share your truth. That’s the main thing. By 68, you
know that the whole system of our lives works because we are not all nuts on
the same day. You call someone and tell them that you hate everyone and all of
life, and they will be glad you called. They felt that way three days and you
helped them pull out of it by making them laugh or a cup of tea. You took them
for a walk, or to Target.
"Also,
besides our friends, getting outside and looking up and around changes us:
remember, you can trap bees on the bottom of Mason jars with a bit of honey and
without a lid, because they don’t look up. They just walk around bitterly
bumping into the glass walls. That is SO me. All they have to do is look up and
fly away. So we look up. In 68 years, I have never seen a boring sky. I have
never felt blasé about the moon, or birdsong, or paper whites.
"It
is a crazy drunken clown college outside our windows now, almost too much
beauty and renewal to take in. The world is warming up.
"Well,
how does us appreciating spring help the people of Ukraine? If we believe in
chaos theory, and the butterfly effect, that the flapping of a Monarch’s wings
near my home can lead to a weather change in Tokyo, then maybe noticing
beauty—flapping our wings with amazement—changes things in ways we cannot begin
to imagine. It means goodness is quantum. Even to help the small world helps.
Even prayer, which seems to do nothing. Everything is connected.
"But
quantum is perhaps a little esoteric in our current condition. (Well, mine: I’m
sure you’re just fine.) I think infinitely less esoteric stuff at 68. Probably
best to have both feet on the ground, ogle the daffodils, take a sack of canned
good over to the food pantry, and pick up trash. This helps our insides
enormously.
"So
Sunday I will celebrate the absolutely astonishing miracle that I,
specifically, was even born. As Fredrick Buechner wrote, “The grace of God
means something like, “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you
are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.” I will
celebrate that I have shelter and friends and warm socks and feet to put in
them, and that God or Gus found a way to turn the madness and shame of my
addiction into grace, I’ll shake my head with wonder, which I do more and more
as I age, at all the beauty that is left and all that still works after so much
has been taken away.
“So
celebrate with me. Step outside and let your mouth drop open. Feed the poor
with me, locally or, if you want to buy me something, make a donation to
UNICEF. My party will not be the same without you.”
