I am one of the most fearful people on earth, and one of the bravest. (All truth is a paradox.) My closest friends are just as afraid as I am—of humiliation, aneurysms, hair loss, losing a beloved, the threat to democracy, killing someone in the car while texting, weight gain, bad reviews, you name it (although my friends are not as obsessively afraid of snake attack as I am.) And they are so brave that it brings me to tears, over and over, even as they reel from the very worst life has to offer—lost children, savage attacks to their own health, the indignities of old age. Yesterday a best friend lived through the 24th birthday of a child she lost in January. Tuesday an 81 year old best friend took off her clothes in front of me and slid into cool lake waters.
Someone said that courage is fear that has said it prayers, and all of my books are essentially about how scary life on earth has been for me. This is from Dusk Night Dawn:
“Praise songs were not a part of my childhood. We were too sophisticated. We didn’t believe in an invisible and loving companion. We believed in Dad, who did not love Mom, so life was scary. Dread was my governess growing up. She kept me alive. I didn’t run out into the street, didn’t talk to strangers, didn’t sass, wiped front to back, minded my manners and teachers, stayed on my toes, did well in school. She would have made an excellent character in the Old Testament—“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom”—although as my parents were atheist, she would have had to tone down the blood atonement. It was into her arms that I retreated from the emotional land mines and overwhelm of the world and the dining table.”
I’m teach my Sunday School kids that the soul is immortal, that death is ultimately just a major change of address, that love is always the answer, beginning with the love of our sometimes appalling selves. I believe all these things. I will be with a bunch of sober friends and family in our open-air carport this morning, and we will all know a number of acronyms for fear—false evidence appearing real; f**k everything and run; forgetting everything’s all right. But my perennial favorite is the Frantic Effort to Appear Recovered.
The extent to which I need to present myself as being just fine in all circumstances is the extent to which I am going to experience much more anxiety. Sometimes when I have tried most urgently to appear just fine, I have actually gotten a tic in my eye, so I stand there smiling, hail woman well met, with my eyelid flickering away. Oh my god, and the stomach issues, and insomnia, bad self-esteem, terrible judgment of others. Eeeesh. Yet the crazy thing is that the viral load of my fearfulness is about 80% less than it used to be, after 35 years in recovery, 20 years of therapy, and 2 years of a healing marriage.
Did I just write that it is 80% less? That’s incredible. That blows my mind. I live by the mantra of Rev. David Roche, founding pastor of the Church of 80% Sincerity, that 80% of anything is a miracle—sincerity, humility, generosity, honesty. (Instead of telling his wife that he will love her through all eternity, he tells her with great love that he will love all the way through dinner.) If a friend demonstrated 80% courage in the face of this dangerous world, our country, Covid, aging, and life, I would be moved and inspired. I would want to be just like them when I grow up. And I guess I am!
Let me remind my tiny princess self of one more acronym for fear: fear expressed allows relief. So here, off the top of my head, are today’s fears: I am afraid my cherished grandchild will have another bad Little League game, that my husband’s book will get a public and very stupid review, that my feet will hurt too much to get a walk in, and that I will eat too much at dinner with our friends tonight. I am smiling as I write these words, not because these fears are gold-plated and I am not in a war zone and do not have cancer, but because I instantly experience relief in sharing them, saying them out loud. Maybe it will give you the courage to share your fear with someone safe, or in a letter to the great universal spirit, or in the comments section below. Us dealing with our fear makes the world a sweeter place. I just want to say thank you for listening.
via {anne lamott}
picture of the Hudson just a few miles from my house
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