Wish I'd Said That

I have always loved to read because of the sense of discovery—new people, new worlds, new times, new ideas. I also love to read because of the sense of escape. For a little while, I can leave my old familiar world and live in a new, exciting, and very different one—even different ones on different days. But one of the greatest pleasures of reading comes when discovery becomes recognition, when I encounter a passage that so beautifully expresses something I’ve thought or felt, and something deep inside me says, “Yes! That’s it exactly!”

Here’s one such passage from Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith:

“A folksy bluegrass trio began playing, the mandolin offering the quavering melody, then two guitars joined in, and then three voices singing. We turned slowly to look at the musicians. A woman got up from her table and began to dance on the lawn between us and the stage, all by herself, and I thought to myself, I wish I were the kind of person who could dance in public, not caring what everyone thought. And I wanted to be this way so badly that after a minute I just got up, moved closer to the music, toward the one woman dancing, and slowly and very shyly and without enormous visible grace, began to move in time with the music. I figured that once I stepped forward into that spotlight, another would appear somewhere near my feet, and if it didn’t, at least I’d have had the chance to dance.

So I did, dancing with my eyes closed so as not to be distracted. Nietzsche said that he could only believe in a God who would dance, and I feel the same way . . .”

Boy, I wish I’d said that.