Anne Lamott to the Rescue (Again)

Over the years, the words of Anne Lamott have helped me through some very difficult and challenging times in my life: my son’s addiction, my father’s death, an extended period of unemployment, and a cancerous tumor on my kidney, to name just a few. So, it came as no surprise whatsoever that Dusk Night Dawn: On Revival and Courage found its way into my hands the same week my father-in-law had a massive stroke and lay in a hospital bed with a very uncertain future. (Cue Twilight Zone theme song here.)

I am incredibly grateful for Anne Lamott and her writings. (So much so that I started the Anne Lamott Quotes account on Twitter, which you should definitely go follow!) To be honest, I’ve pretty much fallen in love with every book she’s ever written. (Full disclosure: I haven’t read any of her novels!) That’s why my brand new love affair with Dusk Night Dawn was entirely predictable. But, even though I may be a bit biased, please trust me: This one’s another winner.

Annie tells it like it is and, quite often, tells it like she wishes it was. After all, she admits to us that “most of my life force goes into trying to self-will life and me into cooperating with how I think things should be.” On the other hand, though, she seems to be making some progress in her “third third” (love that term!) of life. “I am slowly making my way from a hypnotized engine of delusion and self-obsession to being a bit more real, a smidge more alive more often. I’ll take it. I am learning to live more often in reckless love.”

 

Speaking of love, that’s covered in Dusk Night Dawn, too, as Annie frequently talks about her still-relatively-new marriage to her soulmate, Neal. Sure, she loves and adores him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a target at times. “When I’m watching him, I observe what a tall, nice-looking, thoughtful focused know-it-all he is. He comes from a family of know-it-alls. His brothers are just like him. I love them, but at our family vacations it is like Wikipedia with PMS.” 

My favorite essays in Dusk Night Dawn are probably “Lunch-Money Faith” and “Light Breezes.” In “Lunch-Money Faith,” Annie talks about her friend Terri who, one day at church, told her, “I have made a life and career out of being a good sport…And I am worn out.” Annie concurs. “Me too. I am sick and tired of being such a good sport and worker bee, chin up and adorably ironic, while we notice how much worse things have grown.” Amen to that. Aren’t we all just a little tired at this point?

 

Meanwhile, in “Light Breezes” Annie explores one of my favorite “D” words: Dread. As a lifelong catastrophizer, I can easily relate to what Lamott calls “my most reliable companion, always there for me, like God in a bad mood,” sharing with us that “Dread was my governess growing up.” She adds, “If Dread is not still right there at my side, she’s there in the wings, humming her hymns, drumming her fingers, knowing there is always a place for her in my heart. Life will push her call button.”

 

In true Anne Lamott fashion, though, there is lots of positivity in Dusk Night Dawn, too. “Yes, these are times of great illness and distress,” Annie writes. “Yet the center may just hold.” She also posits that “Hope springs from realizing we are loved, can love, and are love with skin on. Then we are unstoppable.”

 

Dusk Night Dawn is classic Anne Lamott, full of observation, honesty, sarcasm, positivity, self-deprecating humor (“I have a doctorate in morbid reflection.”), and the occasional eff bomb (“Never disobey Sunday school teachers. They will fuck with you.”). If you need a little bit of hope and courage, do yourself a favor and read this book. And remember: “The kitten isn’t dead. The kitten is in the living room.” (You’ll have to read the book to understand the meaning of that!)

"In the third third of life, you may become just as miserable and prickly as ever, but you cycle through more quickly. You remember other dark nights of the soul and how by dawn they always broke. You discover that everything helps you learn who you are, and that this is why we are here. You roll your eyes at yourself more gently. You sigh and go make yourself a cup of tea." --Anne Lamott