Terri Tate - A Crooked Smile

For Eric, Justin & Georgie You give me reason to live.

From You Can Leave Your Hat On, by Randy Newman

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

Carl G. Jung

Contents

foreword

T he woman you are about to meet is a funny mix of corn-fed Midwest and California, tall and solid in a feather boa, a smart cookie, exuberant, ironic, and very game. Shes the real thingtough and sparkly as life, a lover, a fabulous complainer, an intellect, and an amazing writer. Her book is going to change your life.

I met Terri Tate twenty years ago in one of my writing workshops, and I grokked her immediatelyshes that rare bird, a storyteller and healer, someone who has paid through the nose to stay alive, who now transmits layers of wisdom and truth, and yet exudes a great lightness and humor.

I wish you could meet her in person, but instead Ill try to describe her: Shes big and tall, a billboard of coming through, with a wingspan so wide that she may just fly away. She moves with grace and ease and eagerness. Her long hands are pure power because she tells her stories with them, raised her sons with them, writes with them, touches you gently with them, smoothes her own soul and mind as if she is her own mother. She has very big green eyes like headlights and thick, fancy rich-peoples hair. Her fine cheekbones dont quite match, but if you dont insist on looking straight on, it doesnt matter. Her mouth has taken the brunt of the surgeries, but the stuff that comes out is so brilliant, loving, and hilarious. She has the greatest, most contagious laugh.

Shes somewhat unusual looking because of all the surgeries, and quite beautiful. Symmetry is usually so important in the beauty canon, and this culture thinks appearance is everything, but she prevailed through it all with charm, skill, deep spiritual wisdom, and joie de vivre. And thus she sneakily found her own way to beauty, permanently damaged after so many surgeries, and even deformed. So she could no longer use an external mirror to assure herself that everything was okaybecause it often wasnt. She found a truer one, the little powder compact in her heart.

She had to let go. And when you fall and all the guardians catch you, you find out that you are okay.

You will find in these pages that she has a huge appetite for life and living and food, and also a mouth that was rearranged by multiple surgeries for oral cancer. But because Terri writes like a dream, she describes dark material in a way that is totally honest yet also jaunty and visceral, and she makes it easy to read about. I laughed out loud while reading this book, over and over, and marked it up like a student.

Shes a big solid clotheshorse of a woman with the longest legs and an open, questing self. She calls it like it ishow terrible she might feel sometimes, how hilariously annoying other people are, how embarrassing all of life can besuch dreck. And then she rises from it all, in sequins.

In this book we encounter a woman who is so well nourished on the inside that you would never know she was loved back to life after a diagnosis and recurrence that left her with only a slim chance of survival. It took her by the lapels and shook her like a rag doll. Miraculously, parts of her truest self rose up, two females youll read about herethe Vile Bitch Upstairs and the Girl in the Closet. The Bitch said, You are not paying attention, and thats going to kill us both. So she started paying attention. The Girl waited in terror for Terri to become safe, available, and brave. So Terri did. She got serious about healing and showing up for her life. She got real.

This brought her from hopelessness to vigor, which is the greatest story of all.

Its a true spiritual memoir. She learned to live in what cant always be seen, to give away love in order to fill up; she discovered that service is the path of fulfillment, and in practicing the radical self-love necessary to survive and thrive, she found the meaning of life.

All the things Terri thought were armatures of lifehomes, a husband, fine conversationsturned out not to be, of course. So she set out to learn what was: love, the now, the truth of her spiritual identity.

This book is the story of her journey, the amazing people she met along the way, the quirky peace she has found. Its thrilling in its insight and first-rate storytelling. Shes come through a mess, and like all great people youd love to know better, shes a bit of a mess. So you want Terri to come sit next to you at the table and tell you her storythat the world did not scroll out the way it was supposed to. This book is a chance to sit with her for a while. What she found was what we all seek, the richest gift that life has to offer, and the reason we are here. She found and fell in love with her wild, divine, gorgeous, screwed-up, and deeply human self.

You can tell that I love her and love love love this book. They contain treasures. Come on in.

Anne Lamott

April 2016

may 2007

O uch!

The make-up artist, a friend of mine, yanked another hair from my brow.

This shaping is going to make you look so much better, Kathleena assured me. Eyebrows make the face.

The pain was a welcome distraction from my anxiety. In fifteen minutes I was going to walk onto the stage of the most upscale venue Id ever played to perform my solo show, Shopping as a Spiritual Path, for hundreds of people in San Franciscos Jewish Community Center. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, morewho knew?would then watch the DVD in the privacy of their own homes.

You know you want to look your best on TV, Kathleena added.

I couldnt argue the point, so I let her pluck away. My best was not what it used to be before cancer surgery rearranged my face, so I avoided the mirror as she worked. Moving on from my eyebrows, Kathleena applied bordello-worthy quantities of makeup, all the while assuring me that everyone needs this level of camouflage for video.

Except while awaiting biopsy results, I had never been this nervous. I tried to run my lines in my head and drew a complete blank. When I glanced at my script, the words swam on the page. None of them looked even remotely familiar.

Kathleena pronounced me done and passed me off to my friend Jo Anne, who was working wardrobe. Jo helped me slip into tapered black pants and a satiny bronze shirt over a sparkly, slinky bronze tank top. She said I looked great. As we left the green room, I allowed myself a glance at the full-length mirror. From a distance and without my glasses, I still looked pretty good: big green eyes sparkling between heavily blackened lashes; tall, thin-ish, and as my mother used to say, a body made for clothes.

Jo ushered me down the hall, her hand on my elbow so I couldnt bolt out a side door. We walked between thick ropes onto the stage. She positioned me behind the dense, maroon velvet curtain; gave me a quick, encouraging squeeze; and abandoned me. I could hear the expectant buzz of the crowdone of my all-time favorite sounds. What was I so nervous about? I should be proud. I hadnt been expected to live, much less become a low-voltage star.

I reminded myself that this wasnt a life-or-death matter and did my best to replace my shallow panting with the deep breathing actors are trained to do. I told the voice that lives in my headthe one I call the Vile Bitch Upstairsto shut up. I promised the inner child I call the Girl in the Closet that I wouldnt beat up on her no matter how it went. Then I whispered a prayer asking God to come with me and stepped out from between the curtains.

chapter 1

under my tongue

I am not in the habit of inspecting the underside of my tongue. But one blustery Michigan night in December 1990, I was brushing my teeth when a strange stinging sensation caused me to peek under there. Halfway back, on the left, I saw a raw spot about the size of a pencil eraser. I called my fianc over to take a look.