JB: And how. Thanks for going over that for us. On another front, the novelist, Anne Lamott, wrote what has to be perhaps the best introduction that I have ever read. She sketched you so lovingly, quirks and all, that it was clear that you two are good friends. What were you imagining that she would write? Did she describe you as you see yourself?
GR: Annie is, yes, a good friend. She is a fabulously brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny writer--even in her personal emails, and I feel fortunate to know her. This isn't the first book of mine for which she wrote an introduction; she also prefaced When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair, published in 1998, and that too, was classically Annie: far-ranging and profound while also being self-effacing and very funny.
I can't really answer that last part of your question, as I don't think we ever really see another person, only our idea of who they are. Like Roshoman, the Buddhist parable, about various men touching an elephant and making different decisions about what it is based on what they can see or touch. Even my husband, whom I've known for thirty-four years, constantly surprises me when he interprets what I do or who he thinks I am through the filter of his mind--all of which is to say that I didn't have a preconceived idea of what Annie was going to write, but I was honored by what emerged. And, as in true Annie style, laughed uproariously at her play of language and descriptions.
JB: What a fun friend! When things are 'normal', I imagine you out and about, engaging in book tours, TV appearances, retreats and workshops. COVID has assured that none of that activity can take place in the traditional way. How are you managing that aspect of your life? And in general, how are you coping personally with this circumscribed life? Any tips for us?
GR: At the onset of the sheltering-in-place directive, I read a piece by Olga Tokarczuk in the New Yorker. She wrote, "Might it not be the case that we have returned to a normal rhythm of life? That it isn't that the virus is a disruption of the norm, but rather exactly the reverse--that the hectic world before the virus arrived was abnormal?"
As an introvert--someone whose energy is restored by solitude--the need to stay home, not run around, has been a relief, while at the same time, I feel the loss of a way of life, and sorrow for the tens of thousands of people whose livelihoods have been crushed, as well as grief for the people losses, the deaths, and the rippling effects on the families of those who died. One of our closest friends died from COVID, and two others were so very ill. The devastation that has been caused by the virus is wide-spread and I don't want to minimize that at all. On the personal side, my in-person events have been cancelled for the year, my husband's entire business has been slashed--and still. And yet. What I know is that this virus is teaching me, once again, that I have no control over what happens. That all my plans are always, not just now, question marks. That everything changes in an instant. And that what has come up for me during these last few months was always there, waiting to be noticed, met, and welcomed. Any feelings of anxiety or loneliness or devastation or frustration are mine to deal with; they might be triggered by an external event but the event itself doesn't cause it, can never cause it. And the sooner I am aware of what lurks in the wings of my psyche, my heart, my mind, the sooner I can meet it with clarity and gratitude for showing me what is still causing me (and by extension, those around me) pain. In that way, I've been taking this time as a kind of retreat. A pause to stop, look, allow what has always been there to speak and to relax.
After we lost our money, I learned that the sooner I can stop resisting what happened--stopped regretting it, fighting it, trying to go back in time and change it (if there ever was a totally useless activity, it is to imagine turning back the clock and not doing what I already did. To keep expecting myself to know what there was no way to know. It's taken me a lifetime, but I finally catch myself when I start down that road. It's like grabbing onto the diesel pipes at the back of the bus and letting myself be dragged down the road with the fumes spewing in my face. Oy.) So, I am acutely aware in the moment, not just of that useless activity, but of anything I resist, try to change, get rid of, after it's happened--which includes trying to change anyone at all. COVID has flushed out a crowd of thoughts and beliefs that kept me running in place, and for that, I am grateful. It has also allowed me to once again, notice, moment to moment, that although there has been tremendous loss, there is also abundance staring at me all day long: chair, walls, teacup, hands, mouth, food, laughter. The more I question my thoughts and opinions and grudges, the lighter I become. The more my heart opens. The less afraid of the future. The better able to make clear decisions about what and when and where to act. There is also the direct experience that we are all connected and that what is done to one really is done to us all--that we share the same fears, get the same illnesses, die the same deaths. I'd read that before. I even thought I knew that before, but now, I know that in a direct way. And that is only good.
Geneen, at pre-COVID retreat, clearly enjoys what she does
(Image by Judy Ross, photographer) Details DMCA
JB: Thanks so much for being so generous with your time, Geneen. I enjoyed this conversation immensely.
GR: You are very welcome, Joan.
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For more about Geneen and her work, visit her website
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