20 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY march 7-13, 2024 www.montereycountyweekly.com my 6,000 steps each day. I play pickleball. Do you keep a diary in addition to what you tell us about yourself in your books? I don’t. I just scribble down notes all over the place. It’s very disorganized [laughter]. When something happens that was interesting to me on a given day, I write it down. And then I keep it where I can see it. I’m oldschool; I always have pens and paper everywhere. It looks a little nutty, but the system has worked for me for 20 books now. My advice is: Just get it down. When you overhear something in line, scribble it down. You settled down and turned from a hippie into an adult relatively quickly. You dropped alcohol and found faith when you were in your early 30s. I had my son when I was 35. Then Sam became a teenager and that time was very, very hard. He ended up in rehab for drugs and alcohol. Thank God he’s many years sober now. That helped me to grow up quickly. The book I wrote with Sam—Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son [by Anne Lamott and Sam Lamott, 2012]—is really the book that I would take with me to a desert island. Because that was when I grew up. One time Sam called to tell me he will be a father. That was not my plan for him; my plan was college. Before we had this cozy, cuddly best friend relationship. We really had to go through a really wrenching time of separating out and then coming back together. His child turned out to be one of the biggest blessings of our lives. I understood that I don’t have power over someone’s life; that I don’t even have power over my life. Which is different from being helpless. Life is just going to happen. But in recovery, you learn to accept life on life’s terms. Eventually, everything came together. You wrote and spoke a couple of times about “flirting” with elderly people and with children. What do you mean? It’s mostly about flirting with elderly. I always teach my children to be kind to people that are invisible—old and homeless. I encourage my children to, when they are in line in a store and see an older person, to say a sweet kind of thing. “I love your hat.” “Can I pet your dog?” So I mean flirting in this generic way, paying sweet attention to. In one of your books, I found an expression “the beautiful Democratic Party.” Has anything changed in your attitude toward the Democratic Party? Is it the same party? Renaissance Women Women’s Week at Sunset Center celebrates women in the arts, past and present. Other events at the Sunset Cultural Center for Women’s Week celebrate women in music, kicking off with a celebration of women in country. The day after Anne Lamott’s appearance, the events culminate with the story of “the other Mozart.” That is Nannerl Mozart, a brilliant musician whose story has been relegated for centuries as a footnote to that of her more famous brother, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Other Mozart is based on facts, stories and lines pulled directly from the Mozart family’s humorous and heartbreaking letters. It is created, written and performed by Sylvia Milo. “The idea for a week of programming dedicated to women came to me as we were planning our 20th season,” Artistic Director Christine Sandin says. “Sunset Cultural Center has long been a champion of female artists and what better way to showcase and celebrate women actors, musicians and writers than International Women’s Day on March 8 of each year. “Our theme for the anniversary is The Platinum Experience,” Sandin continues. “This prompted me to reflect on who our most popular female guests have been, and Anne Lamott immediately came to mind as one of our most popular author presentations.” Sandin also recommends The Other Mozart on Saturday, March 9. “The sister of Amadeus was a prodigy in her own right and largely overlooked by history,” she says. Women’s Week offers an invitation to reclaim those overlooked creative stories of achievement and leadership. The full schedule of Women’s Week events at Sunset Cultural Center: 7:30pm Thursday, March 7 Trailblazing Women of Country: From Patsy to Loretta to Dolly. $40-$65. 7:30pm Friday, March 8 An Evening with Anne Lamott. $49-$85. 7:30pm Saturday, March 9 The Other Mozart. $35-$69. Additionally, the Marjorie Evans Gallery in Sunset Center presents the exhibit Woman by René Romero Schuler. On display until April 28. “It’s a miracle that a poet can capture a whole world or a whole secret moment in just a few words.” Executive Director of the Sunset Cultural Center Beth Bowman in front of the Carmel venue. She and the Artistic Director Christine Sandin made Women’s Week happen with multiple women-centered events in honor of International Women’s Day, which is Friday, March 8. Maria Anna Mozart, called “Marianne” and nicknamed Nannerl, was an accomplished musician and the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In The Other Mozart, she is portrayed by Sylvia Milo. Daniel Dreifuss courtesy of the Sunset Center
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