How Anne Lamott became the 'cranky Sunday school teacher' to the masses

This week, during a (fairly strange) event in the Oval Office, Donald Trump jokingly asked a child, “You think you could take me in a fight?” Research firm YouGov got right on that, with a poll that revealed a mere third of Republicans, but fully three-quarters of Democrats, believe they would prevail in a physical fight with the president. In fact, while only 46 percent of Republican men are confident of victory, 71 percent of Democratic women believe they would kick Trump’s butt.

Let’s concede that the quality of political discourse may have deteriorated a smidge. That stipulated, these results are hardly surprising, given Americans’ polarized views of the vigor of our 79-year-old leader and the raw fury of people at one of those poles. Depending on the bubble in which you find yourself, it can feel like everyone around you is becoming Evelyn Normielib, the nice Midwestern lady who thirsts for bloody vengeance.

What does the fictional Evelyn read when she is not in a position to stage her own presidential UFC match? I like to think she reads Anne Lamott. Lamott, who I want to emphasize is a pacific soul not inclined to fisticuffs, is the author of more than twenty novels and nonfiction books, including the memoir “Operating Instructions,” which pretty much anyone will tell you is required reading when you have a baby, and “Bird by Bird,” which is considered similarly essential for those trying to write. 

Even for people who don’t think they need inspiration, Lamott is a surprisingly uplifting writer – spiritual, funny, unexpected, unafraid to be hokey, and candid about her own struggles with writing, parenthood, and sobriety. Having met her, I can attest that she is as generous and unpretentious in person as she is on the page. But that presence on the page, and now on the internet, sends her steadying voice into lots of people’s lives. Right now, her work seems concentrated on keeping her flock going through a troubled time and steering them toward constructive action. “I say there’s a lot you can do if you want to feel hope,” she says.

Now 72, Lamott wrote a popular column on aging for the Washington Post Opinions section during my years there, and then later moved her byline to the Los Angeles Times. These days she is making a home for her regular writing primarily on Substack. She is also the author, with her husband Neal Allen, of the new book “Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences.”

She spoke to me from her home in Northern California, surrounded by Allen’s sublime gardens, about what it means to act as a kind of spiritual guide to the frustrated left, why she has taken to a newsletter platform, and what is making her optimistic. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Porch Party: In your newsletter in January you wrote: “We are not crazy. Things really are catastrophically bad. Jesus lies down daily with a cool compress on His head. My friends and I await the rain of frogs.” That's the mood for a lot of people. How would you describe what is bothering you?

Anne Lamott: Well, my grandson lives with us full-time, and he's 17. He'll be going off to college in a year plus. And I'm just grief-struck about what the condition of the world is and will be five years from now. I'm just grief-struck about how Trump has just trashed every single thing that has ever given me any hope, about the solutions to climate change and to the grinding poverty of so many Americans, let alone the world. Like when Trump, right after his inauguration, cancels USAID, and something like half a million children have died as a result of that cancellation. What we do to other people's children is what we do to our own, somehow. And Sam, my son, is coming up on 37, and it's the same thing. Maybe he's got 40 more good years left. And we under Trump are destroying the acceleration of the earth's destruction. 

The teenagers and the young adults are so bitter about the world that we're turning over to them. And I thought, yes, I understand that, but at any march for the environment or for peace or for No Kings, whatever, about a third of the marchers are old people, and we know all the protest songs, and we have most of the money. And that will help them. I feel like, yes, we've screwed up royally, and you should be nicer to us, because we march with you for everything, and we can teach you all the songs. What we got enacted in terms of justice and environmental protocols is taking Trump a little bit longer to tear down than I think he had hoped. 

But what I'm so terrified of is the condition of this country where the Constitution gets dismissed and rewritten according to what kind of mood he's in that day, and the people that he has surrounding him who say that he doesn't actually have to go by what's in the Constitution.

PP: So what do you see as your role? Are you a philosopher, a spiritual leader, a friend to the people reading you? 

AL: Well, I think I'm kind of a really cranky Sunday school teacher. I've taught Sunday school for 33 years—I'm not teaching right now. I see myself as somebody who has hope. Because I do things that give me hope. I go to every possible rally and protest. I take food over to the food pantry, and I pick up litter, and I do a lot of benefits for people that are doing great work. 

When I teach my writing workshops I always say, write what you would love to come upon. Like I love Rebecca Solnit, for instance. She's really made that her realm, and I'm so grateful for her. Or Heather Cox Richardson. People that are writing about the extreme cold and darkness that Trump 2.0 has thrown us into—they give me hope, but they also give me action steps I can take.

You know, when I first got sober in 1986, an old-timer said to me, you take the action and the insight follows. And when he said that, it kind of radicalized me. You take the action. The action is always kind and practical.

PP: I think there's a lot of people who would like to do more for their communities and have trouble figuring out where to begin. Do you have any recommendations?

AL: Well, that's what I want to disseminate. Like I posted about this New York Times editorial from February 1. There's so many things about the Times I hate, but they printed all of these ways that you can protect the coming election. Like, volunteer to work the polls on election day, and don't spread dubious information, and then they recommended three different organizations.

I mean, there's always the ACLU. People don't know what to do. “I don't have money. I can't donate to the ACLU.” Well, during the presidential election, my friend who lives on Social Security, she and three of her neighbors had a community garage sale, and they all had tons of stuff. Then because I have this gift you don't even know about, which is I can get people to give me money—I went through the neighborhood, and I got the people with fancy stuff to give me one thing to sell at our garage sale. And all three other houses did that. And of course, they arranged for all their friends who play guitar or have little funny bands to come by and to play all day. 

So it was a sacred day. It was like being at a great hippie cathedral of music and food. Like, “Oh, I don't have anything to donate.” Can you make us a plate of blondies? Can you cut up some cheese? It was probably everybody's favorite day of the year. 

PP: I was noticing that on Substack, you have this strong set of commenters—your readers seem to have entered into a community there. Is that new? What do you attribute that to?

AL: There's so much kindness. People feel so scared and stupid. So defeated. And that is what Trump wants, is for us to feel defeated and not to have any energy to do the next right thing. And that's all any of us can do. I know that Porch Party is not a religious gathering, but I love that. Mother Teresa said not all of us can do great things, but everyone can do small things with great love.

Another thing I live by is from this priest, Father Dowling, who helped Bill Wilson get Alcoholics Anonymous off the ground. Now, Bill Wilson was just the craziest, most neurotic person on Earth. And for him to have been one of the two men that somehow formed this organization to help drunks like me stay sober is something I'll go to my grave not understanding. But this priest said to him, Bill, sometimes I think that heaven is just a new pair of glasses.

So I wake up troubled and wishing I had a lot more say in everybody's life, let alone Trump's. And what you can do is you can put on a better pair of glasses, where you go look for things that are beautiful and transformative. Like right now, the daffodils. I'm looking outside… and we have daffodils, we have poppies, Neal’s roses are coming up. You think, well, how does that change anything? And it just does. To look at beauty, to go out changes you.

PP: We got to work together a little bit when I was at the Washington Post. I know then you were writing for the Los Angeles Times. Are you mostly publishing your regular pieces on Substack now? Why did you move from these big legacy media places to there?

AL: I got the boot from the Washington Post, because my pieces are always political, whether or not they mention Trump. We are in the most terrifying crisis that has ever faced America, and one way or another, everything I write somehow addresses that. And all of a sudden, this editor who I adored there couldn't run my pieces anymore because of the publisher and owner.

I also love the LA Times, and I have an editor there … I think the world of him. And anything that I write, he would publish. I just kind of pulled out of the public publishing realm, and I found this home for myself where I could write. You know, it always says on Substack, what's on your mind? And I feel like, oh, I'm glad you asked. It's just an alternative way of being a writer in the world.

PP: This new writing book that you did with Neal is in a very different, practical mode. What has it been like to have a book come out right now, and do you connect that project to this larger picture of what's going on?

AL: Well, Neal originally wrote this book, “Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences.” And I horned in on it. I said, bitterly, “Neal, I know something about writing too.” And so then I ended up writing meditations on his meditations. A lot of times I'd say, oh, you know, “Neal is overeducated, and I would just ignore this rule completely.” Sometimes I agree with him. But it was always just specifically a writing book.

But then we went out on tour. We would be kind of hired to come talk about our writing book, but then there's always a Q&A, right? And people could write their questions on index cards, and we'd always say, “Anything you want to talk about.” Maybe 10 percent were further questions on writing, and then every other question was about, How do we get through this? How do we go on? What do we do? How do we bear up? How do we not give up? Over and over and over again.

So I go back to your very first question. It's kind of my calling, because I don't give up hope, and because I have a sense of humor. The day after the election went for Trump 2.0, I thought, “What on earth can I do?” And it took me part of the day, but then I went, “Oh, I can write.”

PP: You mentioned you're looking ahead to the midterms. Does that feel like an opportunity to you to make a change?

AL: Yeah, I'm excited by the polls. The polls give me a lot of hope, and I think a lot of people have felt a fire lit underneath them to do whatever they can. And I will start writing those postcards. I love writing postcards for elections and getting people to make sure that they are properly registered. And I sit in front of the TV and I write my postcards, and then I decorate them with flowers and felt pens, and that makes me super happy. And then I'm also happy because I love the spring, and the spring is really springing here. I'm excited for my grandson, who's doing beautifully in school, and my son is doing really well. I'm just trying to put on that new pair of glasses where I notice all that hasn't been stolen away from us, that hasn't been ruined or besmirched. I try to encourage other people to notice what remains, and just how much magic remains in the world.

I don't know, I'm kind of naturally optimistic, although I can have a very bad attitude and I'm pretty what they used to call neurotic. I think I'm just naturally more anxious than the average bear. But then I have these tools in this battered old toolbox. I know to go outside. Neal has said that anything true and beautiful can be rediscovered on any 10-minute walk. So I go and I take a walk, and I wave to the neighbors, and I pick up litter, and I pay attention to the beauty and to the spring, and I flirt with everybody and with their dogs, and I pet all their dogs inappropriately, and that makes me happy. 

And then people say, boy, you seem happy today. Then I can pass along that I didn't wake up happy; I waked up in what we used to call a state. And I knew I could hit the reset button, and you get to start your new 24 hours whenever you remember that you do. So, you know, I do what's possible.

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