It's my turn driving carpool and as I sit waiting outside the school in my car, I tune in to a saved copy of This American Life, episode 476, "What Doesn't Kill You." Ira Glass explains that the show will focus on people who have experienced serious brushes with death. And then I'm listening to Tig Natoro deliver a stand-up comedy routine about just having been diagnosed with cancer, about losing her mom tragically, breaking up--this whole insane list of horrors in a crazy short time. And I'm laughing. Out loud. She speaks of how tragedy plus time equals comedy. Even without time, she creates something deeply touching--and funny--and heartbreaking. When the junior high's final bell rings entirely too soon, I hope the kids will take their time getting to the car...
Home at last, I buy the mp3 of Natoro's whole set. I want to own it, to know how she has the courage, the mojo, to pull that off. It's a lesson I could use.
A few
years ago, I began writing in earnest after a dear friend of mine suffered this unspeakable tragedy in her life.
Even from the sidelines it was devastating, and I channeled some of
the feeling into a story that centered on ways people cope with tragedy,
with how they more and less successfully carry the pieces of life they wish they’d
never been handed. The words came so quickly it almost felt like actual channeling.
