Practicing Goodness With Anne Lamott

I just recently finished reading Anne Lamott's honest musings on human interaction, life, etc. in her new(est) book Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith.

I feel like every bone in that woman's body has got to be made of sarcasm and joy.

As a writer, I find that I'm drawn to other writers who are exceptionally good at telling the truth.

Wait.

Isn't that, after all, what we're all (and I don't mean writers but everyone) trying to do? I think, however, that the separation from the crowd begins with their ability to tell the truth in simple ways without compromising the meaning therein. Without a doubt, Lamott's life experience turned phenomenal skill (miraculously) fits within these brackets of description. Though it only seems appropriate that I imagine her, elbows up, trying to widen the gap. She has that sort of spunk.

What I love most about Lamott's memoir-ic prose is her complete disregard for creating herself elegantly, making things seem rosier than they may have been, not always having the appropriate amount of time to catch her dignity as it often slips down off the countertop and tumbles to the floor. Crashing halts and whatnot, she's still manages to gracefully reveal her sometimes ungraceful humanity, and not only does this make for stunning humility, but also somewhat hilarious prose.

One of Lamott's questions that resounds most through this interrogation of faith is her wondering what we are truly like as people, and what elements of our nature are most defining. I think that if she doubts herself at all, it is only because she is not sure if our more feasible and despicable natures outshines our moments of quiet gentility. Or vice versa.

For example, am I myself right now, as I sit here with wet hair, in old slippers, no one to impress with a cup of tea in my hand (with incredibly dry skin, even) and the unexplainable need to scratch my neck every few seconds? Is this a definitive moment? Or are we instead to come to terms with ourselves through bigger circumstances, more elaborate occasions, places and moments where we are forced to make difficult or unmake-able decisions? Are the ordinary days equal in importance to the milestones? Does it matter excessively? Not quite at all? Who are we in front of others compared to who we are in front of ourselves, in those simple, forgettable times against our limelights, our debuts, moments of glory and shame?

Surely there are immense differences.

Lamott's assertion is that we do this as a form of self-protection. That we know our ugliness and are intrinsically designed to be ashamed of that. That we are well aware of how to behave when we need to, but that it is in fact exhausting to be good. So we use all our energy to be publicly balanced and then as soon as we are behind that curtain or closet door we are a mass of screaming madness, we have hatred, we have fears.

But if we are aware of how we should be, and if we can in fact obey what we are convinced is better than our self's reality, then are we not capable of betterment, however forced? Is this better half an equal portion to our negatives, our shortcomings?

Is pretending to be better the same as being good? Sometimes, anyway?

I don't know. I'm not sure if Lamott knows, or if her opinions (strong as they usually are) necessarily go in one direct way or another. This, however, is what she says:

".. And it's good to be out where others can see you, so you can't be your ghastly, spoiled self. It forces you to act slightly more elegantly, and this improves your thoughts and thereby the world."

Well, much as I love her. Every time I manage to have one good thought (and by that I mean, "I like pears" or something so equally simplistic that finding something bad about it would be extraordinarily difficult) I am not quite convinced that the world is becoming a more livable place.

The idea, however, seems worth a shot.

We learn by practice, right? Those piano lessons that you hated growing up, the scale excercises, the chord sequences, they only got easier when you did them for twenty minutes a day, did they not? You certainly had no interest in doing it, and you could never quite understand your mother when she insisted that if would make you a well-rounded individual. All you could understand was that you were missing out on other activities, on hide-and-seek, on cartoons.

So to see you would display a miserable face and dragging hands, an obvious discontent to be hung over eighty-eight keys playing Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer."

But to hear you meant you could play it. And that, after all, was all.

So if we can learn to play the piano, or speak a language, or the rules of chess, how to tend to tulip bulbs, to recite a prayer, if we can willfully put the time in to practice these things and retain them by repetition, then will our stabs at goodness, perhaps for twenty minutes a day (though for myself it is often less) produce a similar result?

In the same way, if we neglect our transitive verbs or let our rooks and knights settle under a timely coat of dust, will we also lose our ability to smile at strangers, have compassion for the unlikable, think well of those who have mistreated us?

Lamott, throughout her writings, feels fully free to admit to all of us when she has fallen short of such tasks. She even speaks of often immediately regretting ill words or thoughts, unfair or immature reactions, silent grumbling. She gets it, she says. She knows that we all need just enough space to make a big mess. Just as long as our willingness to clean up doesn't leave us, we're going to be okay.

So I guess really what Lamott means is that we should do a little good even when we don't want to. When we have been snapped at by a customer, we should smile, even if we'd really like to pop their head like a balloon.

And she gets that some days you're going to go for the popping, which could leave you hugely embarrassed or with one disgusting mess. Either way, we're entitled to losing it. No one, least of all Anne, is expecting you to glide through, blessing every miscreant you come across. She is, instead, trying to give you (and I) a small nudge and a knowing look that says, Sure, today you're the victim. But tomorrow you'll be the one who needs compassion.

So, for today, let it slide. If you can, that is. If you have yet to exhaust your daily token of goodness for the world, let it go.

Practice won't make (umm), well you know. But, as Lamott would agree, it could certainly be the start of something better.