Anne Lamott: ‘Where Your Feet Are Is Sacred Space’

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It’s time to stop the train, Anne Lamott was telling her — mostly female — audience. Time to stop gripping that pencil so hard.  Time to surrender and be at peace with yourself. Time to drop that rock.

Living in the Bay Area I have lots of chances to hear novelist and memoirist Anne Lamott speak. Whenever she’s got a new book out — “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith” and “Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son” are two of my favorites — she’ll show up in local bookstores and churches, and hundreds of people will be there to hear her, myself included.

We women have been raised “to save and rescue and fix and take up the slack,” Anne was telling the audience gathered at the Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California.

That Big, Old Rock

When we are in our 20s, 30s and 40s, we think we have this big old rock to lug around. We wake up in the morning, and there it is lying next to us in bed. We stumble into the kitchen for a morning espresso, the rock goes with us. We go to work, it’s on our desk. We go to bed, and there it is again lying between us and that other person. Or between us and the dog, depending.

What’s the rock? All that stuff we think we gotta do. The things we should have done. And, crap, the things we never should have done in the first place. It’s the mighty to-do list of things it’s up to us, and us alone, to fix.

There’s a lot to love about getting older, Anne told her audience, most of whom looked like they’d be open to hearing about the advantages of getting older.

We care about less than we used to, she said. At 40 you think you have to keep a bunch of things up in the air at one time. You have to squeeze in one more task before you get home – fill the gas tank or stop off at the convenience store.

At 40 you still want people see how good you are. You put off going to the optometrist because you’re pretty sure he’ll find out your eyes have gotten worse, in which case he’ll think less of you.

Why Your Butt Doesn’t Matter

When you’re older you actually care less about a lot of things. Your once-perky butt, for example. Where butts are concerned, Anne advised, the elevator is not going up. But now that you’re older, you’ve lost some people. Friends have died. This knocks you off your feet. Your butt doesn’t matter so much anymore.

One day it dawns on you that you might not have fifty more years to live. For all you know, you have just one more day. If you are Anne Lamott, on your last day you have some dessert, you kiss off your exercise routine and sprawl out on the couch with some candy corn and People magazine.

“Stop the train. Drop the rock,” Anne advised. (She loves to give advice. It’s her default mode when stressed — a life-long habit she’ll be giving up any minute now.) And remember, “Where your feet are is sacred space.”

Want to read more about Anne Lamott? Check out my piece on Anne’s bouquet of bons mots. More interested in rocks? Go to “Want to See Your Creator? Go Look at a Rock.”

A version of this post appeared originally on BarbaraFalconerNewhall.com, where Barbara writes about her rocky spiritual journey — and the view from the second half of life. Barbara is the author of “Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith”  from Patheos Press.