heroes

I met Anne Lamott again last night. The first time I had just returned from Indonesia and was wrought with the emotion of transitioning home and, well, I was just nervous. She was one of my heroes in writing and life, and I wanted to tell her how reading Traveling Mercies was a watershed moment for me. The Cowgirl and I were the last in line, and I anxiously waited to have my moment. Of course, she was kind and gracious and listened while I told her that her book made me realize that it was ok to be a Christian and have the past I have and how it really helped me move forward with my life and past all that guilt for being so terrible. She listened thoughtfully, signed my tattered copy with care, asked a few questions and told the Cowgirl how much she liked her coat (it was a great coat).

Last night, though, I was at ease and excited, and the Cowgirl wore different great coat. We decided that maybe we needed a secret handshake with Anne so she would remember us from reading to reading. She has a new book – it’s fiction. [We don’t like her fiction nearly as much as her non-fiction, but would never tell her that.] She talked a lot about how tough it is for teenagers today and the array of drugs at their fingertips – her new book is about a good teenage girl’s fall from grace. She talked about the struggles parents have when their kids are getting into trouble but that they need to step up and be a parent rather than a buddy. She talked about her son, as she always does, and it turns out she’s a grandmother now.

As always, her hard truths were wrapped in humor, steadiness and grace. Several times she used the phrase “hero story” and how we are all just trying to create our own hero stories with our lives, complete with struggles and triumphs. Perhaps, more than anything, that resonated with me (that and how a writer needs to write at the same time everyday). I’ve been working so hard trying to tell the story of my life the past ten days or so, that I haven’t stopped to think about the story I’m in the middle of – the craziness of driving halfway across the country to confront the struggles every writer faces everywhere, being here at the same time as Anne Lamott (of all people), getting to go with the Cowgirl to see her again, having my favorite writer close out my own “writer’s retreat” – now that’s the stuff of great Plot!

So, maybe a big part of writing stories simply involves paying attention to the daily twists and turns, learning from them, appreciating them, and in a way, reading the stories that our lives are already telling… And maybe hero stories are more about the slow, quiet development of character rather than action-packed tales of red-cape wearing villain-fighters. Maybe what I need to remember is that the moment I’m in now is as priceless as the ones I’ve been struggling to recapture.

Anne quoted another author last night who said, "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." And that’s what I will leave here tomorrow having embraced – that this book is only going to happen one page, one paragraph, one sentence at a time, and that if I just keeping going I will get there eventually … at just the right time in my story.