Traveling Mercies

I'm just about to finish a book by Anne Lamott called Traveling Mercies. Its been one of the best books i've read in a long time. the thing that gets me about this book is the sheer honesty of it all. she seems to hide nothing. i find that to be a trait that i respect in people but personally have a hard time doing. thats not to say i lie to people, but i suppose in a way i do. i would probably hide a lot of the things she so freely speaks of. i might share with one or two close people but publish it in a book? that takes balls. i think anne is very balls-y. the other thing i like is that wherever she seems to go, she creates a community for herself (or finds one) and immerses herself in it. she surrounds herself with people who care and whom she can care about, so when she's really freakin out she has people to rely on. i, on the other hand, have such a community of people but deliberately choose to keep my neatly constructed wall about me. i dont let people inside my walls much. i grew up this way. our family wore its happy face in public and only had a few people who were privvy to anything beyond the face. its pretty hard to break this. so when i'm really freakin out i know in my head that i have people i can rely on, but i'm afraid to let them past the walls. i probably should deconstruct the walls, because there is a lot about life right now that i find myself deconstructing. and all of it is strange and scary and freeing and burdening all at the same time. i should probably share some of the load with people. once i figure out how to do that i'm going to teach my girls how to do do that as well . so anyway...go get the book and read it. its damn good.