On Beyond Zebra

This is so good you guys. I could heat it in the microwave and spoon it over ice cream! It’s by Anne Lamott (or as my tribe refers to her, St. Anne), and it’s about fucking up BIG. Like HUGE. Some might even call it self-sabotage.

But then it’s about forgiving yourself (which if you’re like me is about as impossible as losing those last ten pounds.) Because when we do that it allows the universe to get a word in edgewise. And maybe, just maybe, lead us to the miracle in the mess, or at least some peanut M& Ms to console us while we wait.

I’ve already sung the praises of her new book HALLELUJAH ANYWAY but this is a Facebook post. Written at the airport. I mean seriously? I can’t even!

Take it away St. Anne!

xox

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“We all secretly think we are defective–this is why our parents were unhappy, or unfaithful, or abusive, or whatever.
Believing this gave us our only shot at control in households that were chaotic or cold: If we were the problem, then it meant our caregivers were good parents, capable of nurture and the healthy raising of children. And it meant we could correct our defects, and then our parents would be happy, finally, be nice to each other, and stop drinking.

I have spent 30 sober years healing from this survival tactic, of thinking I am annoying or a screw-up. I have just toured the country promoting a book on mercy, called HALLELUJAH ANYWAY, whose main premise is that if we practice radical self-care and forgiveness, this will heal us and radiate out to our families and communities, bringing peace.

However, I have done something so out there, so On Beyond Zebra, that it drew into question every aspect of that guiding principle (i.e., that I am NOT defective). I thought I was 80% over this. As a child, I agreed to believe it because it helped my family function and helped the other members feel better about themselves, because at least they weren’t screwed-up, annoying me.

But I have outdone myself. I have done something so amazingly incompetent and so profoundly inconvenient to so many people I love that it will allow you to forgive yourself for almost anything. I will be your new gold standard; you will no longer be secretly convinced that you have Alzheimer’s. You will think you are just fine and have been overreacting. You will understand why my son, Sam, so frequently mentions the website A Place for Mom to me.

So: six months ago, I was invited to give a talk at the 2017 TED conference in Vancouver. This was very heady stuff, as sometimes millions of people see these talks online and might want to buy your new book, saving you from financial ruin and having to go live at the Rescue Mission and live on government cheese, which is very binding.

So I wrote and sort of memorized my 15-minute talk, and my various caseworkers worked for months to get me to Vancouver this morning from Seattle, where I did a reading last night.

I got to the airport an hour ago, got out my passport, and tried to get a boarding pass for a flight I’ve been booked on and obsessing about for 3 months.

That’s when I’d realized I had grabbed the wrong passport at home. The expired one.

Therefore, I would not be able to catch a flight to our tense new enemy, Canada, to give the biggest and most important talk of my life.

It is hard to capture my feelings at that moment: terror, shame, self-loathing and catastrophic thoughts about my doomed future.

I texted my agent, ran to TSA, pleaded my case and how I must be HUGELY important (albeit brain damaged) to be giving a TED talk.

No go. And no way to get on board any flight to Canada. I was doomed.

But those 30 years had not been in vain. Because within a few minutes, I had remembered 3 things:

God always makes a way out of no way.

Radical self-care and forgiveness are always possible – always — and always the way home.

And HALLELUJAH ANYWAY is half about how there is nothing outside of yourself that can heal or fill you or make you whole unless you are waiting for an organ. A TED talk was never going to have been able to fill me with respect. That’s an inside job.

I hate and resent this, but it is the truest truth — union with God or Goodness, including our safest, most trusted friends, and deep friendliness and forgiveness to one’s sometimes very disappointing self.

So five minutes later, my agent and the TED people had worked out a plan whereby as I write this my son is flying to Seattle with my passport. He’ll be here in 5 hours. There’s a late flight to Vancouver, and the TED people have created a space for me tomorrow morning out of thin air. Talk about making a way out of no way.

Additionally, I charged $30 worth of medicine, magazines and a sack of peanut butter M&Ms.

I’m not sure what the message of this is. I quoted Samuel Goldwyn in Bird by Bird, who told screenwriters that if they had a message to send a telegram. All I have to offer is this story: that we get to make huge mistakes, and that the one I made this week is almost certainly bigger than any of yours. But neither of us is defective. We are perfect children of the universe, although maybe still a little funny around the edges, with tiny character issues and failing memories. We possess every day the capacity to extend gentleness and forgiveness to ourselves and those suffering nearby.

I am smiling gently at all the miserable frantic people at the airport and telling them I like their hats. I gave a sobbing child my IHOP crayons. (This is the path to world peace.)

And I will never, ever hear the end of this from the people who love me. Ever. Believe me.”