Anne + Sam Lamott

My favorite moment, which I still think of all the time, was when you were eight or nine and we were rushing to get to a radio interview out at the Cowell Theater [in San Francisco], so I was racewalking along the piers at Fort Mason, and you were dreamily watching the seagulls and pelicans and scanning the water for seals. I was begging you to hurry it up, but at the same time I remember dropping a book, and my papers were all disorganized, and I was trying to shove stuff back into my Fibber McGee purse, and you stopped. You said to me sternly, “Mom, you’re moving too fast, and you’re carrying too much.” I still think, to this day, that that explains what’s going on whenever I start to get crazy.
-Anne Lamott

The fact that you and Jax skip a generation makes it so wonderful. Parents are so fixated and so tunnel visioned, so worried about their kids’ health and whether they’ll turn out to be incredible. That’s probably what is most damaging. But there’s a balance in nature with grandparents and grandchildren, because the little kid is revving up for life and the grandparent is revving down, and they fit together like two gears. The grandparents know how to preserve their energy for things that matter, because they have to. They’ve been around long enough to know what is of value and what is just a waste of time.
-Sam Lamott
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