amedia

This was the book for the May meeting of the book club, and I would probably never have picked it up on my own, but I enjoyed it far more than I expected. Don't worry about spoilers if you click--it's not that kind of book.

Anne Lamott is better known, I think, for her book about writing, Bird by Bird. This book is a memoir that covers the first year of her first grandchild. Doesn't sound very interesting, does it? What I loved about it was her unflinching self-portrait as a neurotic but self-aware control freak, her network of friends and how they help her cope, and her eclectic and idiosyncratic spirituality. And now I must offer snippets, because I can't describe her writing any better way.

When I say "spirituality," you may think "ewww, rainbows and glurge" - heck, I probably would have said the same thing if I'd known that spirituality would be so integral to this book. Her attitude is, well, let me show you rather than tell you: "People chirp, 'Let go and let God,' and I think to myself, 'Oh, fuck you.'" I think reading that line is when I fell in love with the book.

This snippet literally made me laugh out loud. Her friend Tom is a brilliant Jesuit priest who is "cherished, hilarious, and difficult," which describes a dear friend of mine (who is also a Jesuit priest, as well as Metherion's godfather) to a T, so for me all of the Tom anecdotes had an extra resonance:

She also has a couple of really interesting descriptions/insights into mental health and the things our minds can do to us. I love how, at the end of the first paragraph, she describes the pattern of her thoughts and their descent from pleasant woolgathering into catastrophe:

Another mental health insight that ties into her eclectic spirituality as well: after my disastrous experience with Strattera, I have an idea of what she means about "Theater A" and "Theater B." I shared the metaphor with TODS, who found it very realistic and helpful.