Plan B by Anne Lamott

giving instruction on how this could happen for them, too, this militant self-acceptance. He lost the great big outward thing, the good-looking package, and the real parts endured. They shine through like crazy, the brilliant mind and humor, the depth of generosity, the intense blue eyes, those beautiful hands.
    The children, sitting in the front rows, get him right away. Maybe they don’t have so many overlays yet, of armor and prejudice, so Spirit can reach out and grab them faster. Maybe it’s partly that they’re sitting so close, but whatever the reason, they gaze up at him as if he were a rock star. “I look different to you now, right?” he asked the kids that first time I saw him, when he was almost finished, and they nodded, especially the teenagers. To be in adolescence is, for most of us, to be facially deformed. David makes you want to help him build a fort under the table with blankets, because it looks like such fun whenhe does it. He builds the fort, and then lets you lift the blankets and peek in, at him and at you. You laugh with recognition, with relief that your baggage and flaws are not vile, unmentionable. It’s like soul aerobics.
    â€œI’ve been forced to find my inner beauty,” he said in closing. “Doing that gave me a deep faith in myself. Eighty percent of the time. And that faith has been a window, so I can see the beauty in you, too. The light in your eyes. Your warmth. So thank you.”
    There was thunderous applause, and he bowed shyly, ducking his head and then looking up, beaming at us all. He held his palms up as if about to give a benediction. His hands caught the light like those of the youngest child there.

nine

heat

 
    I need to put in a quick disclaimer so that when I say what I’m about to say, you will know that the truest thing in the world is that I love my son more than life itself. I would rather be with him, talk to him, and watch him grow than do anything else on earth. Okay?
    So: I woke up one morning not long ago and lay in bed trying to remember whether, the night before, I had actually threatened to have his pets put to sleep, or whether I had only insinuated that I would no longer intercede to keep them alive when, because of his neglect, they began starving to death.
    I’m pretty sure I only threatened not to intercede. But there have been other nights when I’ve made worse threats, thrown toys off the deck into the street, and slammed the door to his room so hard that things fell off his bookshelf. I have screamed at him with such rage for ignoring me that you would have thought he’d tried to set my bed on fire.
    He is an unusually good boy at other people’s houses. He is the one the other mothers want to have over to play with their children. At other people’s homes, my child does not suck the energy and air out of the room. He does not do the same annoying thing over and over and over until his friends’ parents ask him through clenched teeth to stop doing it. But at our house— comment se dit? —he fucks with me. He can provoke me into a state similar to road rage.
    I have felt many times over the years that I was capable of hurting him. I have not done this yet. Or at any rate, I have only hurt him a little—I have spanked him a few times, yanked him, and grabbed him too hard. Through grace and great friends and sobriety, I have managed to stay on this side of the line, sometimes by the skin of my teeth, and, I should add, so far. But while I honestly grievefor injured children, I know all too well how otherwise loving parents have not been able to toe that line.
    It’s godawful to get so mad at your child. It’s miserable whenever it happens, but at least it makes more sense when they are babies and you are awake night after night. When Sam was a colicky baby, it was one thing to discuss my terrible Caliban feelings with friends because I was so exhausted and hormonal and