My neighbour just came by to share a jacket her boy has grown out of and my boy might want to wear. By the time she left, I knew about friends with new babies who are suffering with the newness and hardness that comes with new babies, but with a bit of extra hard thrown in; and then about some other moms who are sick, sick, sick with scary cancers that will probably rob their children of a mother in the end - three of them! Or maybe it was four when we counted the mom we know from down the street who died this summer. Plus the dad of the boys up the street who's funeral we were at on Saturday...
I get to watch all this awful from a pretty safe distance. It's mostly like 3D TV, if I'm honest. These are people I know, people I share a street with or some history with. But they are not me. Their lives are not my life, they're just stories I watch with a bit of dread, a lot of sad and then a bucket-full of gratitude: Thank Fuck It's Not Me.
Anne Lamott has a new book coming out. I think it's called "Help Thanks Wow". It's about prayer. I don't know that I need to read more. Because after my neighbour left, I sat on my couch and ran the shows of these women through my mind while my heart just whispered Help. Thanks. Wow. Over and over and over.
There's nothing else. And when I end up with a bit more space to linger and write, I will write more about the great comfort of Help, Thanks, Wow. And about the Shit Show we call this life.
Coming Soon.
