To live a good life is to decide to stop living unconsciously and to make a decision that you are going to
Wake up to all that is beautiful and holy and that still works and to remember that if you want to have loving feelings
You need to do loving things and you just keep doing these
Actions that are about awareness and that are about love and that somehow are helped along by learning to breathe
You know left foot right foot left foot breathe and when we breathe we're sort of spritzed into awareness and when we breathe
We're so deeply nourished and it creates an umbilical cord between the beauty of life the awareness of life and the beauty of the people
Who against all odds just love us more and more with every passing year a good life means that you get outside every day
That you somehow get outside and you look up you look at the stars you look at the moon you look at the sun you look at the sunrise
Those are the things that to me constitute the good life
So every time I talk with Anne Lamont I just feel like I've been embraced by kindness and humility loving a
Whole lot of laughter and is a multi-time New York Times best-selling author whose latest book somehow thoughts on love
Offers profound yet practical wisdom that can really help transform our lives in our conversation
She shares insights from her seven decades of living loving and learning as she turns 70 and releases her
20th book which is rich with stories and humor and reverence and love and insights all told in a way that only Anne can do
Despite her success she describes herself as a kind of an unlikely elder who has accumulated a lifetimes worth of insight through her
Experiences and somehow and compiles her most important learnings on love and leaves them as a bit of a parting gift to her son and grandson
She explores the power of compassion
Community and are interlives to anchor us through life's turbulence and ants wisdom is really humble yet
Eliminating blending wit and candor that speaks to the shared human experience and she also shares a deeply moving story
About her dad in his final months and how he became her makeshift first reader and editor
For a book that would eventually tell her side of their shared story very early in her career
So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project
Hi, this is Janice Torres from Yolkieto Dinedo if you own or operate a business whether it's a local operation or a global corporation
Partnering with Bank of America could be your smartest move
By teaming with Bank of America you'll enjoy exclusive digital tools
Award-winning insights and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter
Position your business to capitalize on opportunity in a moment's notice
Visit bankofamerica.com slash banking for business to learn more
What would you like the power to do bank of America NA copyright 2024?
This message comes from BOF sponsor eBay
You'll know real when you get it. It'll say eBay authenticity guarantee and you'll feel it
Maybe it's a head-turning handbag a watch that says it all
Jewelry that makes you look like the gem or sneakers and street wear so fresh every step feels fly
eBay gets it so look for the blue check mark next to that thing you love and be confident that every inch
Stitch, sole and logo is checked by experts with eBay authenticity guarantee
You can trust that feeling of real is always in reach
Ensure your next purchase is the real deal visit eBay.com for terms
Good life project is brought to you by air doctor makers of those amazing your purifiers
I keep in my home studio and have been talking about for a long time now
So even though I talk for a living my vocal pipes could use some help dealing with indoor air which can contain so many different irritants
Luckily my trusty air doctor uses an incredibly advanced ultra-hepifilter to capture particles
100 times smaller than old school
Hepifilters we're talking smoke pollen mold bacteria all those nasty micro critters in the air my air doctor
Just gobbled them up so I can podcast and breathe and write and be in peace and with peace of mind
So give your indoor air a purification boost with air doctor air doctor comes with a 30 day
Breathe easy money back guarantee so if you don't love it just send it back for a refund minus shipping head to air doctor
Pro.com and use the promo code good life and you'll receive up to
$300 off air purifiers exclusive to podcast customers
You'll also receive a free three year warranty on any unit which is an additional $84 value
So lock this special offer in by going to a I R
D O C T O R
P R O dot com or air doctor pro dot com or just click the link in the show notes and use the promo code good life
It's funny. I was catching up a little bit as when you nail gotten married that you're you're sort of like your song leaving the grove
Was van Morrison's into the mystic and I was literally just talking to a friend and
And we were describing to each other what's the feeling of the song that you would love to be the feeling of your life
And that's the song they came to mind. There's just something that's kind of so easy going about it
Especially in this day and age I feel like I almost want to have that on repeat. I know I
Have been listening to that song as medicine for about 40 years now literally as medicine
Yeah, you and me both that was also catching up
I know you written a couple of pieces in Washington Post recently one of them was a superpower of old age powerlessness
And you shared a story about a call from a friend who was upset and it sent you into this kind of spin about like
How do I fix it? How do I fix it? How do I fix it? And then you have a couple of sentences further on the piece that read
By 60 or so you've had enough of participating in the punch and duty show
I've tried to get things to turn out the way your positive they should you've learned to surrender otherwise
Always be pissed off and exhausted
And that's no way to live out whatever years you have left and I feel like so many of us
Would love to be at that place where we can surrender to that, but we struggle so much with it
I know what you're talking about. I do too left to my own devices. You know, there's a
Saying and the recovery movement that the willingness comes from the pain
I eat the willingness to stop drinking or to try to find another way of living to stop
Binging on food or dieting or whatever your addiction is
the willingness comes from the pain and
That's been my experience and when the pain of making myself so
uptight and judgy and
And fixated on manipulating people into doing what I'm positive would help them have a better life
I surrender I put down my weapons and I come over to the winning side which is
That state of releasing people to their own heroes journey, you know their own destiny and their own consequences of their behavior and their bad choices
so that if somebody has
Embarrassed themselves or done some kind of damage enough times
That is really
Heardings they're being they might be ready to fill in the blank start to
Consider sobriety or start to find a pass out of gambling addiction or start to whatever start to get the writing done
You know when you get to the pain if not having ever gotten around to getting your writing done
Maybe you're gonna take a look at that, but for me to release people is
contingent of me having made myself just nuts by not
I'm sure so many can relate and I'm raising my hand very along with you
It's so easy to write that we know that this is the way to sort of like peace and ease
But to actually do it in the moment completely different story almost requires like you know surrendering over a piece of your humanity
Yeah, not realizing what's actually happening. Yeah, it's interesting because this feels me
I want to dive into some of the you know the specifics
But it feels to me to a certain extent like this is almost like a
compilation of so much of what you written and shared and they both in books and pieces and articles
over a period of so many years and it was all brought together into this one
Almost like piece of advice that you would hand over and say this if I could leave you with something that really matters most
This that's what it felt like from the outside reading in was that the intention on the inside out
the intention was to
compile
Everything I know that has ever worked before
During really hard patches and difficult futures that have arrived that I could leave for my son and grandson when I'm gone
And I could say this is always work community love has always worked
Taking care of the poor always feeds our own souls let alone feeds the tummies of people we may be able to help
Have delicious meals
certain things have always worked and so and I'm positive that they will again
Pro my son Sam and his 14 year old jacks and so I just started telling stories about
Gatherings or by the same token ways of being very silent and inward and ways of being in nature and ways of
Of this radical self-care and all of them
One way or the other had to do with love and so I started to think of it as the love book
Although I didn't I really didn't know much except that I wanted it there to be as you put it a
compilation in one place everything I know that may come in handy no matter what their future holds and by all accounts
It's going to be really rough. It's going to be really hot that you and said four years ago that we had 12 years
Terratically turned things around and of course we haven't at all and who knows what the election will bring and
What kind of democracy they'll be living in and I just thought there are things that are
Outside of circumstance, you know that have to do with the soul and the spirit and what fills and comforts them
when in dark times it feels to me like one last book and
I always hate publication. I'm always a nervous wreck and I don't like traveling
I'd spend the rest of my life on the couch if I could get away with it
But that's what it feels like to me feels like a book end, right?
And it is to release it sort of like at this moment in time
Yeah, and I love the notion of you sort of writing this in a way to Sam and Jack's two years on a two year grand son
Knowing that like these ideas these insights will be relevant to just the broader readership. I'm curious when you write
Do you find yourself do you normally write to one person or to two people or do you write more broadly?
No, but you may be remember there's a chapter in bird by bird my writing book on
Called writing a letter and the first book I wrote my novel called hard laughter
Was a love letter to my dad who was going to die of the cancer I wrote about he had a brain tumor
But he got to read it before he got too sick with the brain cancer and
It was really I mean it was funny and snarky and kind of dark humor and also just
Really in it because no books like that existed in the 70s like what do you do when an atom bomb drops on your family?
And my dad was the center and the soul of our family and we weren't gonna have him for long and
I went to the library and there was just nothing I've always told my writing students right what you'd like to come upon and I would have loved for someone to say
You are gonna be okay
Although a lot of time you're not gonna believe that for a second and what's gonna help is telling the truth with each other and
Sharing how you really feel instead of how you think you're supposed to feel or what would be most
Inspiring if you felt and you're gonna have days where you just see nothing but grace and mercy and and all the reasons for having been born and
Other days are just gonna be too long and there's no way around it and it did the same thing when my best friend got sick
Which I wrote about in operating instructions that was another time when I went to the library
I was a single mother. I didn't have a scent and I wanted books that were kind of funny
But really honest that talked about how bored you could get talked about how
You suddenly realize you don't like children, you know or how how you get in touch with your anger when you're a parent because you're
So exhausted and just so pushed beyond
Anything you've come through before and there weren't books like that there were books all of which could have been made into hallmark
Movies and I wasn't experiencing that so I wrote that book and in about three months into having an infant
My best friend got sick with a cancer that she wasn't gonna be able to get over and so I wrote the book as a love letter to her
And so I very
Specifically wrote this new book somehow to my son and grandson. I wanted it to be like an onerous manual when I'm no longer here to tell him
Oh, this too shall pass or you know what we need to do
We're gonna all have a cup of tea and then we're gonna go to Target
Or whatever but in general
I mean this is my 20th book and it's out on my 70th birthday and
all the books I think
Have somehow or other been about the themes that you and I have talked about so far like
Coming through how do we come through when life gets really lifey and
Without giving up without losing faith or without losing heart or without
Doing damage to other people by our efforts to save and fix and rescue and manipulate them
But I don't really sit down with an audience in mind. I know who my readers are and I have a
sense of
What is universal what you and I was completely different
biographies
share
energetically and in terms of our hearts and in terms of
how hard some of it has been since we've been here and how
Surprising and delicious life can also be when you are paying attention to that
You know, I think I mentioned three years ago when we were talking
This priest and eight what a started in 1935 who was not an alcoholic but he was a real mentor to Bill Wilson
And he said to Bill sometimes I think that heaven is just a new pair of glasses and so a lot of my books have been about
What happens when you have the awareness or the best friendships to remind you to put on a better pair of glasses
to see what is still beautiful and
Can only be beautiful to see what will nourish us to see what is
just so silly and and
Fun that it can't help but lift you so beautifully said. I'm curious now also
Since you shared that the book that you wrote for your dad and then he was able to read while he was still with you
Did he know you were working on that friend? Oh, he told me he came to me when he was diagnosed he had a
metastasized melanova and it had gotten in his brain and in the 70s no one had recovered from that
He said I'm gonna tell my version because he was a writer
Ken Lamott
He said I'm gonna tell you my version of this story. Why don't you tell yours? So I've been he was you know
I've been watching how to be a writer since I was a very small child and what you do is you sit down every day
He sat down at 530 every morning rain or shine or
Head cold or hangover and at 530 you'd hear tap tap tap tap from downstairs on his old Olympia
Typewriter and he taught me it was a habit that you do it by prearrangement with yourself
You don't hope you're gonna get around to getting some work done today
I would never have written a word. I sit down at the same time and so he had taught me how to be a writer
And I've been writing for a few years
But I didn't really have a story
Kind of a necklace of a story
I had lots of beads I'd written like vignettes and moments and insights and dreams and whatnot
And when he said why don't you tell your version of this? I just started
I remember I had an opening line and I may have it a tiny bit wrong
But I think it is there were many three-legged dogs in the town where I live
Because when our family was hit with this there was an amputation in our sense of security and our identity as a family was
Was shaken and then I just started writing these short chapters that captured
What it's like I was 23 when he got sick and
What it was like one day at a time?
How do you not go under? How do you not try to just keep trying to pump the other person up with like nice
bumper sticker, you know platitudes how do you get real and not just lose your mind when you're gonna
lose someone that you literally can't live without
Mm-hmm. So he definitely knew and then I published it while he was still doing really well. He had a year
He had two years from the time of diagnosis till when he died and he was very very
Ment cognitively sick for about the last eight months and then really for the last few months
But he was well when I sold it to Viking, you know, it was like this miracle. We had both
Distrapped up and he had read it. It was just so fantastic the way it worked out and
Literally at the end of the world when he died
What was it like for you to give him like I would imagine he saw the manuscript before it was a book
But or maybe not but oh he was reading a chapter by chapter. Oh, yeah
Because he was my editor and he was my of course, you know, you have to have a reader
You have a main reader and he was my reader and he just loved it. You know, he could tell
I would need to be edited because it was so young and
He could also tell that I found my voice which was
Heartful and deep and intimate but also really funny or could be really funny
My first review was from publishers weeky weekly and it came in the snail mail because that's how your agent
Communicated with his end, right and they couldn't text you. It was what was it 50 years ago and
Publishers weekly said something like whatever meager charms this book possesses are ruined by her constant show off
He overkill
now
I was 25 luckily I was still drinking
Because otherwise I don't know what I would have done
However, Jonathan for the rest of my life
I've been super conscious of show off the overkill and if not trying to be funny
Just so that people won't think I'm a buzzkill. So I needed and my dad knew I'd find an editor who would help me
Find the balance between being you know seeing
Seeing that things are absurd and kind of lovely and sometimes funny and our family really had a great
Gallows humor without
Halfing to be funny or just shoe horning in something funny, you know
So that people would think how witty and ironic you are so I mean that that review
Probably changed the trajectory of my writing. It's amazing. I mean what an incredible gift for him
For you both to see each other in that way. I mean he saw you not only was on your heart in your mind
But also he saw your voice emerge as an artist. Yeah, I was able to not just be a witness to it
But be a participant in it exactly and he saw that we were going to survive we were going to come through
Yeah, so beautiful so powerful
Good life project is brought to you by air doctor makers of those amazing air purifiers
I keep in my home studio and have been talking about for a long time now
So even though I talk for a living my vocal pipes could use some help dealing with indoor air
Which can contain so many different irritants luckily my trusty air doctor uses an incredibly advanced
Ultra hepophilter to capture particles a hundred times smaller than old school hepophilters
We're talking smoke pollen mold bacteria all those nasty micro critters in the air my air doctor
Just gobbled them up so I can podcast and breathe and write and be in peace and with peace of mind
So give your indoor air a purification boost with air doctor air doctor comes with a 30 day
Breathe easy money back guarantee so if you don't love it
Just send it back for a refund minus shipping head to air doctor pro dot com and use the promo code good
Life and you'll receive up to three hundred dollars off air purifiers
Exclusive to podcast customers. You'll also receive a free three year warranty on any unit
Which is an additional eighty four dollar value so lock this special offer in by going to a
I R D O C T O R P R O dot com or air doctor pro dot com or just click the link in the show notes and use the promo code good life
Good life project is sponsored by Lexus GX so have you ever owned something that inspired you to just up your game?
For me it was this high-end mountain bike
I love the ultra light frame the suspension the precision gearing and I realized it deserved to be written to its full potential
So I started training harder so I could experience the joy it could give back to me and it paid off that by help me
Discover just new levels of performance and straight up joy when we own exceptional things they inspire us to do
Exceptional things the all-new Lexus GX has an exceptional capability that will have you seeing possibilities you never knew existed
It's advanced technology and luxurious interior mean that wherever you go
You'll never go without imagine tackling rugged landscapes with the available 33 inch all-terrain tires and
Multi-terrain select then unwinding with the available front-row massaging seats
This is a vehicle that inspires you to go further to live up to its full potential
So why settle live up to the all-new Lexus GX luxury beyond limits experience amazing at your Lexus dealer
Good life project is sponsored by wonderful pistachios
So listen up all you busy buses running around town fueling your days with sad desk snacks
This is a PSA that it's time to give your afternoon pick me up a super yummy and very crunched
Tastic makeover with wonderful
Pistachios I'm talking six grams of complete plant-based protein packed into every
Satisfyingly crackable crunchable ounce that's all nine essential amino acids, so whether you're an old school roasted salted fan
Which is kind of me actually or you'd like to walk your case buds over to the wild side with jalapeno lime
wonderful pistachios have a flavor for every craving and
If you don't want to crack shells, which I happen to love doing for some odd reason wonderful pistachios
No shells let you skip the mess and get right to the fun
So do yourself a flavor pistachio people make your snacks more nutritious and delicious with the protein punch of
Wonderful pistachios or three p.m. Hunger pangs and taste buds will thank you and quit settling for those sad desk snacks
You deserve better visit wonderful pistachios.com and get cracking
There is this theme of just deep and enduring love no matter what comes your way that has woven through pretty much
Everything you've written. I want to say I've even seen it show up in like parts of bird by bird
You know the latest book so this comes it was about four and a half five years since you and Neil got married
No, well Neil and I got together seven and a half years ago
And we are coming up on our first fifth anniversary
Right, yeah three days out. I may not we got married three days after I started getting social security
But perfect. Yeah, I'm curious whether you feel like that relationship that sort of like new season of love has
Influenced what's ended up flowing into this book. Oh, I love that question. Well
One thing I'm not sure if that you know is my husband is a writer too
And he's recently been out on tour for a book called better days
Tamier inner critic and he does this work with clients, but from about our third date on he started teaching me
About this parasite that we've had
Whispering to us since four or five years old that did keep us alive
It kept us running out into the street. It kept us from swimming out too far and
70 I'm really very good with traffic safety and and I know my limits in the surf
But I have had this voice in my head that has kept me
worried about my value and about the
Horrible possibility that I might make a mistake God forbid or that people might get to see who I really am deep down
Beyond my persona and so I can honestly say that
That works that inner critic work changed me so dramatically because he taught me how to notice it because before I'd
I was think oh that could be true. I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't write that I shouldn't
Try that and he taught me just to go. Oh, it's you again and I'm fine
But thanks. Why don't you go read now? I'm gonna try my hand at you know, I've written these five pieces at the post actually
on getting older and I was kind of insulted that they wanted me to write about being older because I'm so youthful
But ha ha but I decided to give it a try and it was partly because of Niels work with me on noticing this
externalized voice that keeps me ashamed or small or
Just afraid of making a mistake that everybody will see so
He's also become a great reader for me and he's a wonderful writer and he edits all my stuff
He's my first read now and some days that really works other days hill
Some days I'll come and I'll say oh I love this. You are just so brilliant
And I'll say there are a couple tiny things. I think you know, then you thought
Errrr
And other times he'll come in and I can tell he likes it or that he's going to love it and
And then I feel extremely nervous and I doubt whether I should have married him to begin with
But he always a hundred percent of the time makes my work better
So you know, and it's just changed me. I mean I've been in a couple of long term relationships
But I hadn't ever made the I always knew I could leave before I'd never been married
And I always knew that I could go back to my house or get a new house or or whatever and now
I've made this commitment and it means that when I'm unhappy or
Typically when I don't get my way or when his view of things is completely different than mine
His view of our life especially then wow, I have to do the deep dive like
When I first got sober in 86 when I was 32
There were people would say if you got a problem go look in the mirror and before I was married
I never had to do that before I would just have to be able to to really artfully describe
What a jerk the other person was and then help them understand that they were doomed without me those were usually my two
Fallbacks and now that they won't work
You know because we really have crafted this beautiful life
It's real life and that means there's conflict. There's disagreement and we've had to learn to find a way to
To work through that and every time we do it deepens our relationship
It deepens our love. I mean there's that one story you've read in somehow that where I describe what typically happens
I guy stomp away and I won't go into it here
But it's changing as a person, you know
There's that whole last chapter in somehow that talks about William Blake's great line that we're here to learn to endure the beams of love and
Neil really kind of boxed me into the corner of having to learn to endure his love and
So yes, yes to your question. Yeah, because I was wondering even in the opening of the book
You know the overture you talk about love being you know the concept of love being present in everything around us and
Like I said that's certainly it's showed up in so many different ways in your writing over the years
But it felt in some way more more present day in the way that you were describing it almost like in a state of
Wonder like you don't need to it's just all around you in the simplest things everywhere you go
Like you don't need to look for it. You just need to see it. It's true
It's a better pair of glasses that I've developed a habit of you know fishing around for I think also COVID changed us
and desk night dawn. I think I'm not positive came out in 2021
Right and that was a year into COVID and I was starting to already really feel like we're gonna come out of this a different people
We are going to be more introspective
So much of my sense of myself and my value as a human being had been racing around
Getting a lot of things done and being all things all people and you know having a to-do list and when we had in the first two years of COVID
You didn't race around mindlessly you didn't race into stores. You didn't suddenly think oh I have to do that today
And you couldn't go drop in on people just because it was on your heart you had to find a different way to
Show them some healing love by usually by listening you couldn't sit with them and listen
So don't you feel the COVID changed us? I absolutely do I know it changed me in a lot of ways
It just made me so much more aware of
How fleeting everything can be how impermanent you know just that literally every relationship every person every moment
And you're pushing like you're human you know so you forget like nonstop at the same time
I think it lets you drop back into that remembering a little bit more readily
Mm-hmm curious what your take us on this too. I wonder if the further we drift away from it being such a profound crisis
if that sense of
The importance of really drinking in the moment and seeing it and who knows you know how long this will last
I wonder when it's gonna leave us at some point and we'll sort of like fall back into yeah
To be revealed you know more will be revealed
But I feel that a lot of it it changed me like molecularly it changed me
It did make me more introspective it did instead of going to very beautiful places
I mean outdoors I could always go find a cathedral or a you know a glade of of serenity and beauty
But it meant that I started to find and create little altars inside
I started to find little altars inside of my own self
Let alone on the bookshelves and on the windowsills
But there was so much more puttering time so that you might pick up something that you had been on this in the same place on the same
Bookshelf for 15 years, but you hadn't really even noticed it because we were so busy and so now
Then I'll tell you and I think we all cleaned the bad drawers right during the first two years of COVID
When you couldn't figure out what else to do you cleaned out the the junk drawer?
You're looking for new bad drawers like maybe I missed something somewhere
Exactly
That's funny. I think that ties in nicely also with one of the themes and somehow
Would you write about the notion of shelter?
You know exploring the theme of spiritual and emotional
Shelter and this idea of inner shelter also provided by faith and love and community
Take me a little bit more into your thoughts around this
Oh
I grew up
Thinking or being taught that everything was just out there and that if you did well enough in school and you just
Burnish the surface so that everybody wanted to be around you and would offer you things because they enjoyed your company or your
prowess so much that you would be provided with this or that or
the degree or the
Money typically money came with that and with money you could get a better
House or apartment or whatever and
It was just the great palace lie that it was out there and it could be achieved or bought or leased or or married
and little by little and especially after I got sober. I just realized it was an inside job
and that this respect I'd been longing for my whole life was an out there by the time I got sober
I'd published I think I published four books novels and
And there were a lot of hits you know of a
overcaffeination of getting a good review or getting the right interview or getting the right
Review because that there used to be a lot more places that reviewed you when I was coming up
But it would wear off it might give you a really great day and a half and then you would need more it's like any drug
You know, it's great and then it wears off and you need more and you need it sooner and
um the respect that I had longed for fought for
Dedicated my life to
Wasn't out there it was going to have to be me feeling that way about myself
because I work hard and
I try to be really loving and generous person. I try to share what I have been so freely given and
God it took a long time because
In her critic that Neil writes about would say overpeat say that's ridiculous. That's naval gazing or that's just
New age that's like carrying around teddy bears or something and sometimes in the recently when I've written about stuff
That is about the inside work of respect and acceptance and love like oh my god
I got a review and it might have been for Destiny Dron and there should call go
Tribune so luckily 500,000 people got to read it that said the book was like being in the backyard with a
Kardashian, you know talking over the fence in the backyard, you know, and so it's kind of worrisome
But for me to accept that this is how I see the world. This is what matters to me
These are the stories that I over here or create or patch together
That come to me that I feel might be valuable to you because I believe almost anything
I have gone through or feel you will understand if I say it if I tell you it like off camera if I say oh have you ever
Lost hope lost the faith lost the reason that keeps you going and creating when I or have you ever you go
Oh, yeah, yeah me too. I know exactly, you know
And so I patched together those stories. It's like putting together quilts with every book and I
I am mass these stories and I see things I think of stuff. I talk to people. I interview people
I do these riffs with people and then I sew them together
So I had to accept that not all critics and all people were gonna like that or be even comfortable with that
Because it's way too real for a lot of people. It's way too heartful or exposed and
The thought and I'm sure you've been through this the thought that not everybody loves what you do is just
Existentially threatening right always
Right, I mean devastating as much as you try and talk yourself out of it
You're like hmm. Why not keep feeling this over and over and over and over
It just gets under your skin and it makes you doubt yourself
So I had to work on the shelter of that came from
Accepting myself. It's kind of like a funny little roof over me that I accept myself
This is who I'm going to be this side of eternity
You know, I'm going to have the same body and it's you know, it's it's aging and things systems are failing
But I'm going to have pretty much have this same body. I'm going to probably
Keep seeing the world pretty much kind of no matter what the way I do. I'm gonna have faith
I go to church. I'm a Sunday's cold teacher. I I'm in recovery
I spent a lot of time talking to people about spiritual stuff and that's my shelter
Truth is my shelter and the heart is my shelter and
accepting my beingness
Is my shelter and I'm going to be attacked and I just trust me when he gets some really bad reviews for this book
I always do and people are going to ask me questions at my gatherings and readings that are egg and it'd be completely stupid
But be that are going to really get to me in front of 800 people
You know that are going to not be understanding of what I'm up to and I have to just be able to
rely I have to go into my center and just release that person
They get to think whatever they think about me, but I don't think that
It's interesting as you're saying that I had this quick very short-term flashback not too long ago just a couple months back actually
David Sederis was making a pass through bolder. So we saw him
And you know as he often does he was reading a whole bunch of stuff that he was working on
He was kind of like workshopping it in front of an audience with about a thousand people
And they bring that up because I remember sitting in the audience laughing and crying and feeling absolutely ashamed at the fact that I was laughing
It's only that
That was just absolutely awful
And then the thought occurred to me you know like he's standing on stage
He walks out in this Kondigar son outfit with these
Super fancy shoes that he immediately described his clown shoes and he seemed
utterly without shame
Standing in front of a thousand people saying things that were just melting people's minds
And he seemed completely at peace with it
And I was just thinking to myself how does one get to that place
Because I am so far from that
It's why I think especially curious about this notion of shelter and being an inside job and just
Really knowing yourself and being honest with yourself at level where you just like
This is who I am and it's okay, and I'm okay with it and other people are gonna say and receive me in all different ways
Good for them
That is uh, it's quite a challenge
It is the hardest work we do that in forgiveness and I think earth is forgiveness school
And it's why we're here at all
But this thing of just being who you are and being out there and being in public or even not being in public
But just insisting on the right to be who you really are. It's the hardest work we do
But when he does it people are thrilled
It's thrilling to listen to David Sideris. It's thrilling and you laugh and as I've always said laughter is carbonated
Holiness so suddenly you're in church
You know and you're getting truth and you're getting joy. I mean
He's unique. I think in that way, but
He discovered 30 years ago that it's thrilling for people to join him
In that kind of truthfulness. Yeah, no indeed
Hi, this is Janice Torres from Yolkieto Dinedo from a local business to a global corporation
partnering with Bank of America gives your operation access to exclusive digital tools
award-winning insights and business solutions so powerful you'll make every move matter visit bank of america.com
Confslash banking for business to learn more. What would you like the power to do
Bank of America NA copyright 2024
This message comes from B.O.F sponsor ebay
You'll know real when you get it. It'll say ebay authenticity guarantee and you'll feel it
Maybe it's a head-turning handbag a watch that says it all
Jullery that makes you look like the gem or sneakers and streetwear so fresh every step feels fly
ebay gets it
So look for the blue check mark next to that thing you love and be confident that every inch stitch soul and logo is checked by experts
With ebay authenticity guarantee you can trust that feeling of real is always in reach
Ensure your next purchase is the real deal visit ebay.com for terms
Hey everyone Craig Robinson here. I want you to check out the ways to win podcast brought to you by Ford and the new
2024 Ford F-150 truck on ways to win coach cal and i will discuss leadership lessons. We've learned
We know all about the days spent perfecting your craft outside of the limelight and have knowledge to share about how strength
Inspiration encouragement and adaptability are the key ingredients to drive toward your dreams
And those same ingredients can be found in the new
2024 Ford F-150 truck so check out my podcast ways to win and also check out the new
2024 Ford F-150 truck learn more at ford.com built for it tough built for it proud
If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for it's being an amazing gift giver
I owe it all to celebrations passport from 1800 flowers dot com my one stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion
With celebrations passport I get free shipping on thousands of amazing gifts and the more gifts I give
The more perks and rewards I earn to learn more and take your gift giving to the next level
Visit 1 800 flowers dot com slash a cast. That's 1 800 flowers dot com slash a cast
You know one of the other things that you write about is the notion of um hinges and doors
sort of as a both literal and metaphor to explore the themes of transition and containment and
The passage between I guess different states of being is how I might describe it
Mm-hmm. Were you thinking about particular hinge or particular door in your life that really
became the foundation of the conversation around it?
That's funny because
There's no reason you particularly remember this but the very end of that chapter is about how the dogs have eaten the doors
And how Neil had to put up these metal plates and then I was saying what kind of person eats their own door
You know and then I understood people who want you to open it let them out or people who can't understand
What you close it and won't let them in and I thought that sort of says it all and as soon as I started thinking about doors and hinges
Well, you know the
My salvation like other people salvation might have begun with Jesus
But mine began with opening the hinges of a book and I was an early reader. So at about four years old
I could open a book a chapter book eventually and enter a world that someone had created for me
And I could get completely lost in the book and then that was the way I first got found
You know, it really is how I got found and
Stewart Little and Charles Webb and Beverly Cleary and
Whoever else and how my son and grandson got lost and found in Harry Potter
But so then I started to think about that kind of hinge
Then I remember I was a little girl like four years old in this house
Where my little brother was born so he didn't live there too long
But there was a door that had a screen door and it had this torn bit at the bottom that my dad was always trying to prepare
That all came loose and it always caught me by the pants or the legs and
It like it was grabbing for me
That was painful, but when you open that screen door you entered
Literally heaven you entered a great backyard that had a little tree house and a very primitive tree house
And it had tall grasses and it had an orange tree and our dog would always be back there
And so it was like the cost of heaven was getting opening the door and
And then all of a sudden you know what it's like all of a sudden you're often running and then you remember another door
I remember the door that I looked through and saw my son's father standing on the other side of it
And I thought we were just
Getting more and more together and he had come to say that we were not going to be together because he was so busy
But what he it was one of those doors they call them lights
It has like eight pains or something with the calm lights
And I could see him through it. I could see that he looked distressed and I had
I just no idea and so I said about trying to make him feel better about his life and I ended up pregnant
And then he was outside that door again not long after to tell me that I couldn't have the baby
And he was six foot four and it was very scary and of course I didn't I wanted to lock the door and push the ferner trip
Don't you know go away go away because I was going to have the baby and all of a sudden realize
What a central motif doors are
You know doors that have been slammed in anger the symbol of shutting you out
Or the symbol of the great Shalom of welcoming you and come in come on in we want you
We have what you have we have something that may
Interest you or help you come on in let me get you some water
And so then I couldn't shake all these doors it started coming back into my consciousness that I wanted to write about
I love that it's interesting as as I was reading
The vision or I guess a story or actually it was a movie at one point
The notion of sliding doors. Yeah, so came to me like you know
Like we think of doors as being these doors and hinges but the notion of sliding doors whereas you know
But for the fact that you showed up a heartbeat before or after you know like this thing came in front of you or not or opened and closed
You know this tiny little insignificant thing or seemingly insignificant in your life in that moment
Could lead to profound change in direction
This is kind of what you talk about also is like that you know part of this notion is that
It's a combination of barriers and gateways
Yeah, and that how and when you either choose to or don't choose to walk through and what's on the other side if it's now versus two seconds later
You know that that tiny little change can lead to such profound difference
As it starts to ripple out and magnifying amplifying to all the different ways in your life
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that. I mean, I love it metaphorically, and I also love it in terms of memory
You know and barriers I climbed over barriers other women pulled me over
You know where women reached for me and pulled me over and then where I went and reached over it to pull
Other women over you know to safety or to freedom or to new life
So yeah
One of the other topics that you you dive into is this notion and I've never heard this phrase before
I imagine this this is your language minus tide
I was interesting because I grew up on the water, you know
I grew up
Sitting on beaches on a shore just kind of sometimes for hours watching the tide come in go out and then seeing as it receded way out
And sometimes on those you know like pre-storm days where it would go out so much farther than you ever imagined it
And it would reveal
Things that you never knew were there that you were just like you know walking on top of swimming on top of so many times
Yeah, the concept of minus tide
Yeah, how would you describe the notion of minus tide?
Well, I wrote about minus tides because a very close friend who was younger than I am named Karen
Who had been a runner in an athlete all of a sudden got an idiopathic lung disease. It was gonna kill her
You know this terrific runner and
It didn't seem like there was going to be a solution, but for two years everybody including me tried to help her
Get well, and then finally it wasn't gonna happen and she was just so sick
And she couldn't walk even anywhere she couldn't take our walks in war and she couldn't do hardly anything that had to find her before
She'd been very busy very active. She had grandchildren. She had
career she had this
wild
hilarious
Life of friends and family and all of a sudden. She was just a very sick person couldn't breathe very well
And I started to remember my dad sickness and that that happened with him too that he had been so brilliant such a great speaker
Such a great rock on tour and friend and very involved in our family and our extended family and my aunts and uncles and cousins
And he really couldn't do much of anything and I started to see it as the minus tide and the when all of the beautiful surf
Has rolled back and all of the everything that makes you want to go stand at the ocean has rolled all the way back nearly to the horizon
What is revealed is kind of shocking at first, you know when your surface is rolled back and I saw Karen's surface rolled back
And you see see an enemy that are
10
20 30 40 years old. I mean everything that has been there forever
But you never get to see it till the surface rolls away
you see colonies of
Mollisks and algae and
Keyhole limpets and crabs and tiny little creatures that I can't even think of the name for it's everything is exposed
everything shows and when
Somebody that you love and can't live without gets that sick
You see that they're just exposed, you know the persona doesn't help them have a better day
The old lion's save you's a thousand times. Don't really help anymore
What helps is what is really there and it can be
Fascinating and fill you full of wonder and you learn the beauty and the holiness of what really is
Not what you wish it was
Not what it used to be
But what it is now and so when you have someone to keep your company in that and to
Gaze out at it or to walk amongst it or in her case she had a wheelchair that she could
Using the sand sometimes
It's like well you've seen the minusides. It's like being on Mars. It's a completely different
Landscape and water scape and and visionscape
But if you have somebody to be on that new land with you can just be blown away by its beauty and and a great mystery
Do you ever wonder what it would take or if it's even possible
For us to strip ourselves bare in front of those we love had a level where we reveal
That that level of sort of like bone deep truth about ourselves without having to be brought to our knees
Yeah, well, I think we do I'm sure you have with your beloved people with your most beloved people
People get forced to do it when they get a terminal diagnosis
Then you you really have to get pretty will and pretty present
And it does strip you down
Past year all the jackets that we wear to cover up who we really are because the intercritic and possibly the public
Might find fault with it or shame us about it, but
I'll tell you
This probably too much information, but
About a year into my romance with Nia. We both got stomach flu within the same hour in a small a house
And you just want to take care of the other person right, but you can't predict what's gonna happen next for you and it was so
Weird and it was kind of so lovely to have both of those things going on that I wanted to care for him
And I could and then I had to take care of me and then I had to I had to be alone
And then I had to sit with him and then he had to sit with me and we just had no
Effective mental defense against being who we were very sick right then
And then also what we were talking about earlier when you have a terrible disagreement with somebody
You're really revealed you know you say stuff or you
Stop in a way that just shows that you're not this highly evolved spiritual being
Who has the answers? You're just revealed to be is just another screwed up
Human being who doesn't really have a clue how things are gonna shake down, but it's miserably uncomfortable in the moment
And sometimes I've seen Neil there when we're having a disagreement and I've seen
That he is
Misurable and he's ashamed because he who he is a show a he is a self-admitted
Know-it-all and he has to be right those aren't what my things are minor different, but um, I need to be seen
And I kind of need I prefer to be right
Like the Buddhist will say do you want to be right or do you want to be happy and I want to be happy but at the same time
I prefer to be right
So I've seen Neil when he has felt that shame of having been exposed of having behaved like a jerk having really hurt me
and I have felt
Such incredible tenderness towards him and at the same time
I've had to take care of my own self because my little
Scared little kid is experiencing all this but I have been able to say you know, I so
Love you and I need to be alone. I need to get sorted out right now and I love you and then that releases him
From the terror of exile and it releases him too as we started out saying if you got a problem go look in the mirror
But you know, I think a lot of us when we were children especially children of unhappy parents
I had
Like knew why we should be exiled because we were imperfect and we made mistakes and we disappointed them and we acted out
When I am in a difficulty with Neil particularly but with my closest friends or son
I've become that child who knows exactly why she should be exiled. She's a huge baby
She's so needy. She's high-percentive. You can't get away with anything
Because then I cross my arms and I and I cry but I weaponize my style all that stuff and so Neil can see that in me
Those like being sick or beaten up and we've all been beaten up by COVID enough times
You know where you were just sick and the horrible thing was you couldn't save or fix or rescue yourself
I couldn't you can't get yourself well when you have a disease like that and you
Have a cough that you have a months later and you can't self-will yourself into getting over it
You have to surrender and you have to lay down your weapons and you have to let yourself be
Weak. Oh God. I mean everything I was taught as a child was don't let people
See how weak you are sometimes. Don't forgive them. That makes you soft
Don't do this. It makes you soft. It'll be used against you, right?
That's my best answer is that people that are terminal get forced to discover who they really are
People who are you know diagnosed with a really scary illness or forced to
COVID really forced a lot of us into discovering the
the strengths of how
surrendering and just
letting go and
You know, closing down the office, shutting down all the things that it made us feel good
About ourselves before all the things that we could do that made people be really impressed with us
I was certain I'm really sick. I have a cough that I at this point don't think I will ever get over
So letting a few people see you at minus tide is all it takes if they're like I bet it's the same for you
There are three people who I can let walk out onto that my minus tides with
Then you know
Who are never gonna leave me the hundred percent and it's not like you need a lot of those people one two three like it's
You're three right you have them there, you know
I think that we is really beautifully into there these other two parts of the book and it's song and cowbide
We're kind of talking about all of them really, you know, it's like song is around the notion of
How love emerges during these situations where things like everything is bleak everything is exposed and raw and somehow
Like this seeds compassion and love in ways to bring grace to the toughest moments and in cowboy you really dive into and
This is where a community often becomes such an important part of the conversation
And I feel like you know as we emerge from the last four years
We're really trying to re-figure out what is community in our lives right now like what does that look like?
How do we make it happen?
I feel like so many of us have realized how important it is in a way that we took for granted before is that your sense?
Yeah, definitely
I was hesitant to write about community and the love of community and
Blessing and nourishment of community because I'm really a loner, you know
And I'm kind of a lone wolf. I love to be alone
I spend a lot of my time alone and Neil Wonders in and out my center grants and wander in or out
But I really was saved by community, you know, I when I was still drinking I
I wandered into this little church and which I had no interest except for I loved the music
It was a black church with a lot of the old hymns of the
Southern churches then a lot of the people had come from the great migration and the music a lot of it
Overlapped with the civil rights movement which was very important to my parents and then to my brothers and I
And I just sat there. I didn't and I left for the Jesus part because it made me so nervous
But in that creamy little room that really ramshack a little room
They didn't hassle me
They didn't try to get me to join their community and understand what they understood and believe what they believe
They just could see I was really alone and hurting and scared and so they got me water
And I sat there for as long as I could every week and then I joined a year later
I am an alcoholic and I was really going down
I mean the elevator only goes in one direction and it had finally landed at a floor where I didn't think you know
I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I didn't think I was gonna live and so I found another community of sober
Women and that was when my life began. I was 32
It's almost 37 years ago. I mean it was 37 it's almost 38 years ago and so I
Can write about the miracle that somebody like me
Would let communities of people get to know me and let them love me and let them help me learn to endure the beams of love
You know you've read somehow more recently than I have so I can't quite remember
With the story and somehow
But I can remember I mean in song is but I know it had to do the Passover
Right at Baker Beach and had to be with it how happened to
It happened to involve the miracle of community the song
We sing when we gather together the song of love the song of
Please help us please please come by here. Please you know people now come by us like a way to attack Democrats like they're so
I'm new age or something, but it's a black gospel spiritual song of
Come by here God. We're crying people are crying come by here Lord people are dying come by here Lord
And then you sing the joy of songs the songs of praise and the songs that you can't harmonize with yourself
You know and so I really wanted to write about community and I really wanted to kind of
Nudge people into even considering that there might be a community out there that would be a great blessing for them
That resonates so strongly with me because I am very much an introvert
I am a creative spirit as well. I'm really good with solitude
I love just sort of holding up in my creative cave and writing or making art or working or thinking
And I'm really content with that and but it was interesting and it's helpful for me to hear sort of like your frame on this also
As we've moved from after living 30 years in New York City and then dropping into it like a new small town in the mountains about three and a half years ago
And then getting here at a time where it was pretty much, you know, we weren't building community then we were
We were just kind of on our own. We were our own little mini community
And then at some point we started to wonder if this was quote our place or not
And then we started to realize you know
The only way we're really going to know is if we pretend it is
And invest in actually being a part of this place
And see who else is out there outside of our house that might be friends and like mine did and you know
The chosen family and we became really intentional
About doing that in a way that wasn't supernatural to us
And it's a little uncomfortable, you know, like admittedly
But the blessing and return has just been astonishing. You know, it's like compound interest
Times a thousand and I was glad to see you right about actually. Good. Thank you. I you effectively
You nudged me to remember that I have to keep doing it so glad. Yeah, that was nice
Because it doesn't come naturally
I think to a lot of people also probably to a lot of people who are listening in
I think we tend to think about it more when times are tough
But you know when it's already there
I think it just it's so much easier to rely on it in that moment
You wrap up sort of a
combination of general instructions kind of bringing it all together
I honestly don't remember whether this is the place that you wrote this or whether it was early on the book that there's this line
The main instruction that I would leave my family and my swag bag of spiritual truth be goodness with skin on
That's at the very beginning, but I'll just tell the story
I always told my Sunday school kids about
This little girl who's really afraid of the dark and afraid to go to sleep and she keeps calling out for her mother
And her mother keeps coming in and going oh, don't be worried. Yeah, you know, God is right here with you
You're not alone and then the mother leaves and little girl still frightened and calls for the mother
And the mother comes back and just to make a long story short at some point when the mother says oh don't be afraid
God is right here. It's a little girl says I need someone with skin on
And I really believe that that's who we are called to be in the world is goodness and and attention and listening and
All goodness, but with skin on
Hmm. Yeah, I just love that imagery and I love the I love the fact that it from the mouths of kids
Yeah, yeah, it's like yep
That is exactly what we need
This feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well
So in this container of good life project if I offer up the phrase to live a good life what comes up
To live a good life
Is to decide to stop living unconsciously
And to make a decision
That you are going to
Wake up to all that is beautiful and holy and it still works
And to remember that if you want to have loving feelings which would be my definition of a good life
You need to do loving things and that might mean that you fill up a bag with food
And you take it over to the food pantry and the poorer part of the town or it might mean that you call somebody
Who you know is lonely and who can be annoying
But you take the action and the insight follows that you really feel tenderly towards this person
And you just keep doing these actions that are about awareness and that are about love
And that all both of them somehow are helped along by learning to breathe
You know left foot right foot left foot breathe
And when we breathe we're sort of spritzed into awareness
And when we breathe we're so deeply nourished and it creates an umbilical chord between the beauty of life
The awareness of life and the beauty of the people who against all odds just love us more and more with every passing year
For me, it's a good life means that you get outside every day that you somehow get outside and you look up
You look at the stars you look at the moon you look at the sun you look at the sun rise
And um
Those are the things that to me constitute the good life
Hmm, thank you. Thank you. Do you want to sing?
Hey before you leave if you love this episode safe bet you'll also love the conversation
We had with Anne a little while back
Go find a link to that episode in the show notes
This episode of Good Life project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me Jonathan Fields
Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez
Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Del for her research on this episode
And of course if you haven't already done so please go ahead and follow Good Life project in your favorite listening app
And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable and chances are you did since you're still listening here
Would you do me a personal favor a seven second favorite and share it maybe on social or by text or by email
Just with one person just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know those you love those you want to help navigate
This thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy
Tell them to listen then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become
Conversations and conversations become action. That's how we all come alive together
Until next time I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life project
You
