Anne Lamott, Author of ALMOST EVERYTHING: NOTES ON HOPE
[0:07]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:27]I am honored to be interviewing Anne Lamott today.
[0:31]Anne is a bestselling novelist and essayist.
[0:33]Her book, Bird by Bird, some instructions on writing in life is a writing classic.
[0:38]She has written seven novels and many nonfiction books, including the autobiographical
[0:42]operating instructions, an account of her life as a single mom during her son's first year.
[0:47]She also wrote, Some Assembly required a journal of my son's first son.
[0:52]She has authored many essay collections on Faith.
[0:54]Her latest book, her 18th, entitled Almost Everything Notes on Hope, came out on October
[0:58]16th.
[0:59]She wanted to call it doomed, but got advice not to do that.
[1:02]She has won a Guggenheim Fellowship and has taught at UC Davis and at writing conferences
[1:05]around the world.
[1:06]She has even been inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
[1:09]She was dubbed the Lefty Guru of Optimism by the New York Times just this week.
[1:15]She currently lives in Marin County.
[1:16]Hi Anne.
[1:17]How are you?
[1:18]Hi, fine.
[1:19]Thank you.
[1:20]Thanks so much for coming on momstone.
[1:21]I have time to read books.
[1:22]I really appreciate it.
[1:23]You're welcome.
[1:24]I'm so glad to be here.
[1:27]So you are an enormously accomplished and revered iconic writer.
[1:32]Yet you started Chapter 6 of Almost Everything Notes on Hope with the following line.
[1:37]So writing.
[1:38]What a bitch.
[1:39]So I was so surprised by that.
[1:41]So do you really not enjoy it or you love it, but it's hard.
[1:45]Tell me your thoughts on that.
[1:46]It's hard.
[1:47]It's hard for everyone.
[1:49]It's hard.
[1:50]I mean, what's the difference is that I've been doing it for so long for 45 years
[1:55]that I know it's going to be hard.
[1:58]And I know it's going to go really badly when I start out.
[2:02]And the blessing of knowing that is that I stick with it, that other people that start
[2:07]writing can't believe how hard it is that really literally is like pulling teeth and
[2:12]they get discouraged and stopped.
[2:14]So it's hard.
[2:15]And then you have every writer, whether it's beginner or an old timer, has these built-in
[2:21]critical voices.
[2:23]And that tell you it's not going well.
[2:26]And even if we start there telling you that it's not going well.
[2:30]And that no one is going to be interested and somebody's already done it or whatever.
[2:35]And you know that you're beating a dead horse.
[2:38]And so, you know, mining is hard and being a house cleaner is hard and writing is a different
[2:43]kind of hard.
[2:44]It can be a mentally exhausting thing to do with you.
[2:48]But you know, there's ways to grind that down and there's ways to just keep doing it
[2:53]it and wait for something to take itself off and let you run alongside of it, turn
[2:58]a capture it.
[2:59]So that will happen.
[3:00]But you have to sit there through the part where you don't think it's going very well
[3:05]or it's ever going to turn into anything meaningful.
[3:07]If anyone's going to ever be interested in reading it, plus you're a terrible writer,
[3:11]you just have to grind that down by sitting there following going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[3:15]I could talk to a bad roommate.
[3:18]And you said to writers, you said right because you have a story to tell, not because
[3:21]you think publishing will make you the person you always wanted to be.
[3:24]There is approximately zero chance of that happening.
[3:27]Right.
[3:28]So you and you say in your book and, you know, in this conversation already just to
[3:33]write just the first step is just getting it all on the page and shaping it later.
[3:37]Is that the way you approached this particular book?
[3:40]I had made a list when I was during 64 of everything that I thought was true that I could
[3:46]pass on to my grandson who lives here half time in my niece that I wish someone had
[3:53]told me when I was younger, such as that, everybody screwed up on the inside.
[4:00]Everybody is insecure and has a raging wounded ego and thinks that they need to lose
[4:06]or gain weight or do this or that or that, you know, the culture just tells you so many
[4:11]lies about yourself and you're in your family.
[4:14]You came up with these crazy ways of surviving stress or whatever and that we all have
[4:21]them.
[4:22]And I wanted the kids to know you don't have to compare your insights to other people's
[4:26]outsides because when you get to know these people who seem so perfect on the outside,
[4:30]it turns out they're just like us.
[4:32]You know, they were all this pretty, it's a human condition.
[4:35]We're sort of afraid and we're sort of blue hard and we're sort of controlling.
[4:41]So I wanted to tell them really what's true about writing, which is that the publishing
[4:46]won't make you well and fill all those Swiss teeth holes inside of you, but the writing
[4:52]will, the being an artist will, the being a co-creator in the world will.
[4:57]And they have to make yourself do it, you know, I taught writing for years and people
[5:02]were always explaining to me why they weren't actually writing right then.
[5:07]You should have to do with having little kids or taking care of their old folks or that
[5:12]they saw at a job or that they were taught whatever.
[5:16]And I said, you know, they said, well, as soon as I moved to the Russian River or as soon
[5:20]as my last kid is, I said, no, you won't write then either, you know, you either are
[5:26]doing it every day for a little bit or it's not going to happen.
[5:32]So that's the other things I knew for sure is that, of course, everything will work
[5:37]again if you unplug it, including you.
[5:41]And that death is really, really not that scary once you get to be 30 or something is terrifying
[5:49]when you're young and then somebody, you see somebody die and they were cared for and
[5:54]blessed and safe and pain free and it's still suck, but that everybody came through.
[6:00]I want you to tell them things like that, which no one had told me when I was coming
[6:03]up.
[6:04]Thank you for sharing that with all of us.
[6:05]I mean, I'm beneficiary of that advice, so I really appreciated it, I'm sure I'm speaking
[6:10]for everybody, but in fact, what you just mentioned, your line, almost anything will
[6:14]work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
[6:17]You made that an entire chapter, chapter four, which was great.
[6:20]That's like the best chapter.
[6:21]I'm like, okay, I read one chapter, now I can go to bed.
[6:25]Yeah.
[6:26]I thought of you this morning when I was unplugging my toaster, which was not working
[6:29]for some reason.
[6:30]So I'm like, plugging it, plugging it back in and I'm like, no, I think I'm supposed to
[6:32]be unplugging.
[6:33]Isn't that what in the mud set?
[6:35]Right.
[6:36]So how do you unplug?
[6:37]How do you unplug and recharge yourself?
[6:39]Well, I leave, I go outside a lot, I leave a phone behind if I can, I unplug electronically
[6:47]if I can.
[6:49]I look up, I take an app every afternoon, I'm really tired, I just love to have a blanket
[6:57]in my dog and to read for a little bit and close my eyes for 45 minutes.
[7:01]That's my big unplug and I, yeah, I make myself get away from the TV and from social
[7:09]media and yeah, I do the same things you do.
[7:13]You know, I get up and I make myself a cup of tea, I go visit people who are really
[7:21]troubled and sad or lonely, I go visit them and I unplug and I sit there and I listen
[7:28]to them.
[7:29]So yeah, the same thing you do.
[7:33]I love also in the book how you said don't let others make you feel unsophisticated if
[7:38]you reach middle age preferring Hershey kisses and you said that versus Hershey kisses
[7:42]versus dark chocolate.
[7:43]That's a whole chapter too.
[7:44]I know that was great.
[7:46]Yeah, because I think 85% cacao is not really, was never intended to be an edible and
[7:53]that it's supposed to be used for shims if you're somewhere with a wobbly table.
[7:58]It's a little 85% chocolate bar and then people eat it because it's lower car because
[8:04]it's a good, supposedly a good diet food or dark, there's dark chocolate.
[8:08]That's like 60% right and 65 if it's great, dark, 85% cacao.
[8:15]It's some strange alien humans love it and I accept that about them but not me.
[8:23]I appreciate this all the way in M&M's.
[8:26]I can't go above 72%.
[8:27]That's my limit on the dark chocolate.
[8:31]You also told a story that a former therapist of yours told you were starting a new diet
[8:35]ages ago and you told your therapist and she said, oh that's great honey, how much
[8:39]weight are you trying to gain, which is such a great reflection on what dieting actually
[8:44]does.
[8:45]I love you on dieting and your relationship with your body basically at this point.
[8:49]Well I really wrote the chapter for my niece who's 15 and way too big and all teenagers
[8:55]think they're defective and unattractive but I wanted to write it to her because that
[9:00]is a reality that you think you're unattractive or you need to do this or that to be accepted
[9:05]by the world but the dieting won't help it in any way and so what will help is a radical
[9:13]self-care and time with your very, very best friend and getting out of yourself to hook
[9:21]into something much bigger and spacious like nature or your spiritual path besides your
[9:28]flies and what your thighs are telling you about your worth or what the scale is telling
[9:34]you about your worth as a human being and 95% of diet, I mean it's wonderful to be healthy
[9:39]and have exercise and to feed yourself delicious nourishing food but a diet is never the
[9:44]answer and I try it all the time but it's kind of like a slip and I tried it for the book
[9:51]tour.
[9:52]I thought well I should get a little thin because I'm on stage and this and that and it didn't
[9:56]work.
[9:57]I mean first of all, I was still...
[10:00]on stage. And I also I was on in room service a lot. And that's never going to be a huge
[10:07]contributor to to increase slenderness. And all I could do finally was just this radical
[10:12]self-care and to say to myself, you look like that old Saturday night life, you'll look
[10:19]marvelous. And put on clothes that I felt pretty in and eat the healthiest food I could
[10:25]at that meal. That's great. I love that advice. You I keep switching gears here to fit
[10:31]everything in. But you've been sober and off of cigarettes since you were 32 years old. And by
[10:35]35, you were already a well-regarded novelist with a newborn. In this book, you wrote about your
[10:40]challenges and some of those of your family members along the way. And you wrote my lifelong and
[10:45]core belief right after the conviction that I was defective mildly annoying and better than
[10:49]everyone else was that my help was helpful. So why did you come to the conclusion that your help
[10:54]wasn't helpful? And then what would you tell readers or listeners to do if they're watching a
[10:58]loved one struggle the way you watch your loved ones? It's important to say that if it's a young kid,
[11:06]you know, obviously you're in charge of their safety and spiritual and physical nurture.
[11:13]But with a grown child, you know, a child over 18, there's a line in almost everything that
[11:19]help is the sunny side of control. And that I had to look at how much I was trying to control
[11:26]my son after he was 18, how much I'm how sure I was that my idea of his destiny was a good idea
[11:33]for his destiny and that he should pursue this. It's all it's disrespectful for one thing. And it's
[11:41]useless for another. I mean, they resist and they recoil. And so it was mostly that you stop
[11:47]trying it because it doesn't work. It's a concept, right? And that you release people, that you
[11:53]release people with love to their own destiny. And if they ask you for advice, you share it, but that
[12:00]to barge onto somebody else's emotional acre and tell them how they ought to be living,
[12:05]A, it's disrespectful, B, it doesn't work and see they're going to have to run in high from you
[12:10]because you're so toxic. That's trouble with you. I love that barge into someone else's emotional
[12:17]anchor. What a great quote. Acre. Yeah. Acre. Yeah. Acre. Sorry. Acre. That's beautiful. So I read
[12:22]that you met your current love interest online. And I was surprised to hear that. Can you tell me a
[12:27]little about that? Yeah. I know, 61, I think I went on match at match.com. And I spent a year with
[12:39]mostly pretty terrible dates. But I learned how to date. I learned what I needed. I learned what I
[12:46]love. You know, I love part. I love really highly intelligent conversation. I love long conversations
[12:55]with women about real things like our lives and our families and our bodies and our deepest truth.
[13:02]And I realized with these guys, I was meeting half of whom brought manuscripts or wanted to bring
[13:08]manuscripts. I realized that I had with settling for guys that had all these other qualities. But
[13:14]except for this thing, I love most, which is to be with somebody who, no matter what the topic is,
[13:20]politics or religion or families or our work or whatever, we're really highly intelligent and
[13:27]sensitive and funny. And so I spent a year learning to date and not finding anyone. You know,
[13:32]I had little runs with certain guys. But then I signed on to our time, which is for slightly older
[13:38]people. And I eventually saw this guy and he was handsome. My life just looks and very intelligent
[13:45]and funny. And I wrote that I liked his profile. It turned out he was very allergic to cats. So I
[13:50]said, well, this will never work because my cat is my life. And then he said, no, if we put
[13:57]brewer cheese on the cats' kibble, it greatly, greatly reduces my allergies. And I said, no, no,
[14:04]and I thought, oh, I'm sure he has a manuscript he wants me to read. But then about a few
[14:08]months later on our time, I saw this really intelligent guy, really good looking, nice sense of
[14:14]humor. I wrote to him, oh, I really like your profile. And he said, you already rejected me.
[14:22]I think it was because I wasn't Jesus enough. And I said, no, it was because of the cat. And so we
[14:29]met for coffee. And when we started talking, we were talking about real stuff. We were talking about
[14:34]life and God and literature and movies and our children. And we've been talking all day every day
[14:43]since it was two years and three months ago. And then about a month and a half ago, we were sitting
[14:48]on the couch watching the US Open tennis matches and at night. And he said, can I ask you something?
[14:54]I said, oh, sure. Because we're putting in a car port. And so I thought he wanted to talk about the
[14:59]gravel because we had a disagreement about the ground in the ocean. And he said, will you marry me?
[15:05]And wait, what? And then he said, no, if you don't want to be married, we can have this life
[15:13]that I love so much. But if you do, I'd love to be married to you. And so then I thought
[15:18]for a minute, I said, okay, can I have a cat? And then turned out he had a ring in his pocket.
[15:25]And it was so pretty. It's just so me. It's pink rose, which rose gold, which I really love.
[15:30]And teeny teeny little diamonds on the band. And so she has my son, Sam, who has a site called
[15:38]How to Human, a podcast with amazing people, Brine Brown and Gloria already and Jack Cornfield and
[15:46]Frank Rich and all these amazing people. His battle cry is we never give up. That's what in his
[15:52]How to Human podcast, he really talks about how you don't give up in this these cold, dark,
[15:58]scary days. And that's my message to people is I'm 64 now. I will turn 65 three days before
[16:05]a wedding and he'll still be 63 because he's 15 months younger than I am. So he'll be one
[16:11]younger in a little while. But so you just don't give up. You don't give up no matter how long
[16:16]it takes. He don't give up just because it looks so doomed or scary out there. You just keep the
[16:23]face. You do the radical self love. You take care of people. You help the poor. You help your
[16:29]cranky uncle. You try to eat as well as you can. You forgive yourself when you don't. And who
[16:35]knows what God's got at her sleeve? Well, that's great advice. Thank you for that.
[16:40]You have done so many amazing things. You've written so many books and contributed so much
[16:44]to society and culture and everything. If you could ask listeners to remember just one thing
[16:49]about you, what would it be? So we love it. And I also have found it very hard here. And that
[17:02]everyone I love that has changed and helped me sustain a really high quality of life has found
[17:11]that to be true. That if you find it to be hard, good, come pull up a seat by the table because
[17:17]we're probably really interested in hearing your story. And don't give up no matter what things
[17:22]look like and no matter how long it takes. That's beautiful. Well, thank you so much for your time.
[17:27]Thanks for coming on moms. Don't have time to read books. And thanks for inspiring me to live a
[17:32]better life. Good. Thank you for having me. Of course. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye-bye. This episode has been
[17:39]sponsored by Bookhampton. Bookhampton.com. Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound for the
[17:44]audio editing and mixing. Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books.