Attention, Astonishment & Story: How To Live A Life

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been prone to bouts of reverence and wonder. The only way I can explain this phenomena is that I have moments when awe overwhelms me. Sometimes, it is music that moves me to tears. Other times, I get goosebumps reading a powerful story. I have “Eureka” moments when I see synchronous connections between mind-blowing ideas. Often, I am enraptured with nature. I lose all sense of myself and seem to vibrate at a higher frequency. Every stressor, negative emotion and struggle that I’ve stuffed down inside myself simply evaporates, and I sense a deep and expansive connection. I never knew why I had these experiences, but I figured I was just “sensitive.” Then I discovered Dacher Keltner.

I first encountered Dacher Keltner’s research on awe in an episode of the On Being podcast. He’s a neuroscientist whose research wandered into the realm of emotions. Somewhere along the line, his focus turned to awe and its importance to our emotional and physical well-being. After 20 years of research, he defines awe as “...the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.”

According to Keltner, brief moments of awe are as important to our bodies and minds as working out and eating healthfully. He describes awe experiences as the Eight Wonders of Life: Moral Beauty, Collective Effervescence, Wild Awe, Musical Awe, Sacred Geometries, The Fundamental It, Life and Death, and Epiphany. Until I read his book, Awe The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,  I hadn’t realized that my many experiences of wonder were felt by other people, too.  The further I delved into his book, the more I realized how much I have cultivated my practice of Wonder. At the time, I didn’t know that was what I was doing. To be honest, I was compelled, as if it were in my DNA.

One of my favorite quotations is from the adored poet, Mary Oliver. In her instructions for living a life, she says, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Recently, I experienced another kind of astonishment that snapped me to attention. Keltner refers to it as “Life and Death.” 

I saw the gofundme post on Facebook. That’s how I found out. Her daughter shared that Loretta had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. She hadn’t been feeling well, so her husband took her to a bigger hospital in a city across the state for advanced testing. I imagined her leaving for the tests thinking about upcoming Christmas plans and her Sunday zoom session with her grandchildren. Once at the appointment, she was advised to get her life in order, because time was limited. I watched the gofundme post take off across the world. 

Loretta had friends all over the globe. She grew up in Zimbabwe, the daughter of missionaries. But the response to the Facebook post had more to do with human connection than physical geography. Loretta loved people, and people loved Loretta. I was awed as I watched her global community donate and comment on her impact on their lives. That sense of awe? It was just the beginning.

I met Loretta when I was 13 years old. I remember my first piano lesson with her. I basked in her warmth as I sat on the piano bench. Her smile lit up her whole face. As I rubbed my sweaty hands on my jeans, she asked me to play something for her. I launched into a Clementi Sonatina and then hammered out part of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “That was beautiful! We’re going to have so much fun! Maybe you’d like to try some of these pieces next?” She whipped out some sheet music and played snippets of each for me, her hands resting on her very pregnant belly in between each music sampling. I chose Aram Khatchurian’s “Toccata in D Minor.” We worked together on the first page, and then I was off to practice on my own.

I didn’t see her for another month because less than a week later, she had her baby. But when I returned for my second piano lesson, I played the entire piece for her. Again, she clapped her hands together and celebrated my progress. I bloomed under Loretta’s tutelage. Throughout our seven years of piano lessons, she coached me, cajoled me, and held space for me when my teenage angst and depression seemed overwhelming. On weeks when I showed up without practicing, she practiced with me instead of shaming or scolding me. I was 20-years-old when I quit taking lessons. It was one of the hardest decisions of my young adult life. I knew I would miss her.

That December when she was diagnosed, I messaged her daughter, asking if I could bring them some homemade chicken soup while I was home for the holidays. I explained that I didn’t have to stay, and that I didn’t want to intrude. Covid 19 was still a concern, but was dying down. I showed up on their doorstep on a blustery winter day, the soup still hot in the massive Rubbermaid bowl I had purchased for the purpose. Her son answered the door and told me to come in, “She wants to see you. Watch out for the cat. Close the door!” 

He led me to her bedside where she was sitting up. I sat down in the chair next to her. She grabbed my hand as I hugged her. 

“How are you?” she asked. 

“I’m so happy to see you, Loretta,” I told her, “but I’m so sad that it’s because you’re sick.” She told me all about her diagnosis and showed me her hands and fingernails that were pooling with blood. With medical precision, she described what was happening and what would happen in the future. Then she smiled and teared up. 

“I’m so excited to finally go to heaven. I’m ready, but I’m scared about suffering.”

I swallowed hard, trying to hold back my despair. 

She continued, “But I have to trust that God will see me through it.” 

I lost the battle with my emotions. Tears coursed down my face. I hugged her again, at a loss for words. She squeezed my hand and then looked me straight in the eye and said:

“Tracy, you are a tremendous gift to everyone who knows you. You offer the world so much of yourself. You are intelligent and strong, and the world needs your light. Always remember that you are worthy.”  

I did not expect that. Here was one of my childhood role models coming to terms with the end of her own life, and she still could see into my wounded spirit and give of herself. 

I clutched her hand and sobbed. I was overwhelmed by her generosity and her capacity to love. 

I went home later that week. I thought about her daily. I prayed for her, in that limping sort of way one does when they’re on the outs with God. I checked my hometown obituaries online every week. Finally, at the end of March, I saw it. Three months and one day after I had sat with her in her living room, she had died. 

But she wasn’t done awing me yet. While she prepared for the end of her life, Loretta wrote. She wrote memoirs and essays about life, about her community, about her family and about her faith. Somewhere along the line, she arranged for her writing to be published posthumously in the small town newspaper. Her column is a weekly feature. And even in death, Loretta is still giving to us. Loretta is still loving. 

And I am astonished. 

Dacher Keltner asks the questions, “What is it that awe connects us to that is larger than the self? That is initially invisible, but in the experience of awe becomes visible? That resists description and formulation, but appeals like an image or holistic pattern…?” (Keltner, Awe, page 244). He answers that awe is a system. Whether we’re studying cells, analyzing art or music, exploring religion or the human brain, we turn to the idea of systems to make sense of the wonders of life. We see them and our relationship to them. We realize our interdependence, and that we are connected to the expansive and vast forces of life.

This spring marked the 2-year anniversary of Loretta’s death. I think of her often, and I remember the tremendous gifts she gave me. I still feel her impact today. And you do, too. You’re reading this today because she believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Now I do, and so I write.

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