Traveling Mercies

A L S O_T O D A Y

Drama Queen
The strangest declarations of love

- - - - - - - - - -

E D I T O R ' S_N O T E

Look for excerpts from Anne Lamott's new book, "Traveling Mercies," on Fridays; Word by Word, Lamott's biweekly Thursday column, will return March 4.

- - - - - - - - - -

An appeal from the author Why you should become a Salon member. By Anne Lamott

- - - - - - - - - -

T A B L E_T A L K

Is Tinky Winky a subversive pawn of the militantgay agenda? Discuss the true nature of the Teletubbies in theMothers are of TableTalk

- - - - - - - - - -

R E C E N T L Y

A sardine's story
By Sallie Tisdale
A picture book that follows the life of a fish, all the way to her death and packaging in a can -- has some grown-ups squirming. Maybe kids need to help them face reality
(02/11/99)

The city of lost children
By Katherine Ellison
Is a Brazilian judge stealing babies for American families?
(02/10/99)

The feminist queen of the Middle East
By Geraldine Brooks
Queen Noor deserves much of the credit for Jordan's transformation from police state to cradle of political freedom
(02/09/99)

What is Victoria's secret?
By Coleen Hubbard
How do you explain to your little girl that we live in a world wherebreasts get graded, and some of us flunk?
(02/08/99)

Lichen
By Anne Lamott
My father believed that "nature bats last" -- and it did, unfolding my family's destiny
(02/05/99)

BROWSE THE WORD BY WORD ARCHIVES

- - - - - - - - - -

Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Salon Columnists

- - - - - - - - - -

TRAVELING MERCIES: SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH
BY ANNE LAMOTT | PANTHEON BOOKS | 272 PAGES

Editor's note: This is the fifth of six excerpts from Salon columnist Anne Lamott's new book, "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith."

[ GET PREVIOUS EXCERPT ]
- - - - - - - - -

From the hills of Tiburon, Belvedere Island looks like a great green turtle with all of its parts pulled in. It's covered with eucalyptus, cedars, rhododendrons, manicured lawns.

I had come back to live in Tiburon. It was 1982, I was twenty-eight, and I had just broken up with a man in a neighboring county. He was the love of my life, and I of his, but things were a mess. We were taking a lot of cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms, and drinking way too much. When I moved out, he moved back in with his wife and son. My dad had been dead for three years. My mother still practiced law in Hawaii, my oldest brother John had moved even farther away, and my younger brother had, in the most incongruous act of our family's history, joined the army.

When my boyfriend and I split up, I had called a divorced friend named Pat who'd lived in Tiburon for twenty years; I had baby-sat for her kids when I was young. She had loved me since I was eleven. I said I needed a place to regroup for a couple of weeks. Then I stayed for a year and a half. (Let this be a lesson.)

She worked in the city all day so I had the house to myself, I woke up quite late every morning, always hung over, the shades drawn, the air reeking of cigarettes and booze. The whole time I stayed at her house, I kept drinking from her one bottle of Dewars. Most nights I'd sip wine or beer while she and I hung out, eating diet dinners together. Then after she'd gone to bed nice and early every night, I'd pour myself the first of sixteen ounces of Scotch. I'd put music on the stereo -- Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty -- and dance. Sometimes I would dance around with a drink in my hand. Other times, I would toss down my drink and then sit on the couch in reveries -- of romance, of seeing my dad again, of being on TV talk shows, chatting with Johnny Carson, ducking my head down while the audience laughed at my wit, then reaching demurely for my glass of Scotch. My self-esteem soared, and when the talk show ended in my mind, I would dance.

I took a sleeping pill with the last glass of Scotch every night, woke up late, wrote for a couple of hours, and then walked to one of four local liquor stores to buy a pint of Dewars. Back at Pat's, I would pour the whiskey back into the big bottle, raising the level back to where it had been before I started the night before. Then I'd put the empty in a brown paper bag and take off for the bike path to dispose of it.

There were many benches along the way with beautiful views of Richardson Bay. Some of them had trash cans next to them, but others did not, and I'd be frantic to get rid of my empty bottles. Certainly someone might interpret them as a sign that I had developed some sort of drinking problem. But sometimes I'd be forced to leave the bag on a bench where there was no trash can, and I lived in terror of someone running up to me holding out the paper bag, calling, "Oh, Misssss, you forgot something." Then they'd drop it, and it would shatter inside the brown bag, and the jig would be up.

I was scared much of the time. There were wonderful aspects to my life -- I was writing, I loved my friends, I lived amidst all this beauty. I got to walk with Pammy several times a week, along the bike path or over in Mill Valley where she was living happily ever after with her husband. Every night I'd swear I wouldn't hit Pat's Scotch again, maybe instead just have a glass of wine or two. But then she'd go to bed, and without exactly meaning to, I'd find myself in the kitchen, quietly pouring a drink.

Life was utterly schizophrenic. I was loved and often seemed cheerful, but fear pulsed inside me. I was broke, clearly a drunk, and also bulimic. One night I went to bed so drunk and stuffed with food that I blacked out. When I awoke, feeling quite light, I got on the scale. Then I called Pat at work with my great news: "I lost five pounds last night!"

"And I found it," she said. It seemed she had cleaned up after me.

N E X T_ P A G E: Cracking up