by anne
lamott
we begin
to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already
truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. the only
problem is that there is also so much other stuff, typically fixations with how
people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us
happy, and with keeping our weight down. so the real issue is how do we gently
stop being who we aren't? how do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of
people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the
backpack of old pain, and the psychic spanx that keeps us smaller and
contained?
here's
how i became myself: mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive
reading; limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment, and
endless conversations with my best women friends; the loss of people without
whom i could not live, the loss of pets that left me reeling, dizzying
betrayals but much greater loyalty, and overall, choosing as my motto william
blake's line that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love.
oh, yeah,
and whenever i could, for as long as i could, i threw away the scales and the
sugar.
when i
was a young writer, i was talking to an old painter one day about how he came
to paint his canvases. he said that he never knew what the completed picture
would look like, but he could usually see one quadrant. so he'd make a stab at
capturing what he saw on the canvas of his mind, and when it turned out not to
be even remotely what he'd imagined, he'd paint it over with white. and each
time he figured out what the painting wasn't, he was one step closer to finding
out what it was.
you have
to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. you take the action, and the
insight follows: you don't think your way into becoming yourself.
i can't
tell you what your next action will be, but mine involved a full stop. i had to
stop living unconsciously, as if i had all the time in the world. the love and
good and the wild and the peace and creation that are you will reveal
themselves, but it is harder when they have to catch up to you in roadrunner
mode. so one day i did stop. i began consciously to break the rules i learned
in childhood: i wasted more time, as a radical act. i stared off into space
more, into the middle distance, like a cat. this is when i have my best ideas,
my deepest insights. i wasted more paper, printing out instead of reading
things on the computer screen. (then i sent off more small checks to the sierra
club.)
every
single day i try to figure out something i no longer agree to do. you get to
change your mind—your parents may have accidentally forgotten to mention this
to you. i cross one thing off the list of projects i mean to get done that day.
i don't know all that many things that are positively true, but i do know two
things for sure: first of all, that no woman over the age of 40 should ever
help anyone move, ever again, under any circumstances. you have helped enough.
you can say no. no is a complete sentence. or you might say, "i can't help
you move because of certain promises i have made to myself, but i would be glad
to bring sandwiches and soda to everyone on your crew at noon." obviously,
it is in many people's best interest for you not to find yourself, but it only
matters that it is in yours—and your back's—and the whole world's, to proceed.
and,
secondly, you are probably going to have to deal with whatever fugitive anger
still needs to be examined—it may not look like anger; it may look like
compulsive dieting or bingeing or exercising or shopping. but you must find a
path and a person to help you deal with that anger. it will not be a hallmark
card. it is not the yellow brick road, with lovely trees on both sides,
constant sunshine, birdsong, friends. it is going to be unbelievably hard some
days—like the rawness of birth, all that blood and those fluids and shouting
horrible terrible things—but then there will be that wonderful child right in
the middle. and that wonderful child is you, with your exact mind and butt and
thighs and goofy greatness.
dealing
with your rage and grief will give you life. that is both the good news and the
bad news: the solution is at hand. wherever the great dilemma exists is where
the great growth is, too. it would be very nice for nervous types like me if
things were black-and-white, and you could tell where one thing ended and the
next thing began, but as einstein taught us, everything in the future and the
past is right here now. there's always something ending and something
beginning. yet in the very center is the truth of your spiritual identity: is
you. fabulous, hilarious, darling, screwed-up you. beloved of god and of your
truest deepest self, the self that is revealed when tears wash off the makeup
and grime. the self that is revealed when dealing with your anger blows through
all the calcification in your soul's pipes. the self that is reflected in the
love of your very best friends' eyes. the self that is revealed in divine
feminine energy, your own, bette midler's, hillary clinton's, tina fey's,
michelle obama's, mary oliver's. i mean, you can see that they are divine,
right? well, you are, too. i absolutely promise. i hope you have gotten
sufficiently tired of hitting the snooze button; i know that what you need or
need to activate in yourself will appear; i pray that your awakening comes with
ease and grace, and stamina when the going gets hard. to love yourself as you
are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now. and
now is all we have, and love is who we are.
love.vidya
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