“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
I was thinking about these Anne Lamott lines, which I love and think of often, the other day in yoga. I separated my left shoulder years ago, which healed up with lots of physical therapy, and in the last few months my right shoulder has been hurting. I went to see the orthopedic surgeon, who took x-rays and told me it looks like I have some early arthritis in the shoulder. Wow. That will make you feel old in a hurry.
But that morning in yoga, I moved cautiously, nervous about pain. It was my first time on the mat since my shoulder started hurting. I was slow, and deliberate, but I was there. And I thought about learning to dance with the limp. And then, of course, my brain hopscotched to all the other ways we’re learning to dance with the limp these days. I’m growing accustomed to the surge of sorrow that accompanies Dad’s voice in my head, or thoughts of him, which come at random, often, and sometimes with blinding pain.
There are so many limps I’m learning to dance with at once right now. Most of all, learning to live without Dad, and without John, both of whom were daily parts of my life (and the lives of my children and husband). Those are big accommodations to make, and I’ll never stop missing them, but I am learning to move forward. Slow going, one step forward, and one step back, but just like the way I adjust upward dog to not tweak my shoulder too much, I am learning.
What I love about Lamott’s quote is her assertion that we never seal our hearts back up. I never will, and I think that’s okay. It’s been 3 months to the day (yesterday) since my father died and I am grateful that I still hear his voice in my head. I hope I always do.
I have written about our scars before, and about how we all have them. We are all dancing with a variety of kinds of limps, there’s no question about that. What also seems unquestionable is that as we grow up we accumulate scars and limps, things are dancing with, darknesses of the spirit, hurts, wounds, losses.
And yet we dance on.
– I loved Kelly Corrigan’s newest book. I love everything she writes, and this book is no exception. There’s something about Kelly’s voice, which is at once matter-of-fact and overcome with wonder at the world, which I adore. This book brought me to tears several times. Highly recommend.
(Naomi Alderman), 
(Caitlin Macy), 
(Chloe Benjamin), 
(Meg Wolitzer), and 
(Jason Matthews). Have you read any of these? I look forward to thoughts!
here, because L’Engle’s book is not just my favorite childrens’ book but quite possibly my favorite book of all. I’ve written about this before, but at my 20th college reunion I was on a panel of alumni speaking about the Books That Changed My Life. I was enormously humbled to be on this panel, and I sat at the edge of the table, both literally and figuratively. My fellow panelists – each more impressive than the last – trotted out examples that intimidated me with their seriousness and intellectual content. My Book the Changed My Life was 
books, 
, and 
– no surprise, my most treasured volumes).
.
by Bruce Handy in one swift gulp. This is a quintessential book about books, and it’s full of detailed background and thoughtful analysis. I loved this entire book, though my favorite chapters were about Sendak,