The Art of Asking

I am 40 minutes away from finishing the audio version of The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, and I have to write about it.

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Until March of this year, the entirety of my knowledge regarding Amanda Palmer was that she a) was married to Neil Gaiman and b) did something with music. Then in March, she interviewed on one of
my favorite podcasts (Reading Glasses) and I was intrigued, extremely, by everything she said. I decided I needed to read her book, but couldn't get access to it until now.

As the title suggests, it's about learning to let yourself ask for and receive help; whether that is in the form of a couch to crash on for the night, funding for a new album, or a tampon in a public bathroom (all examples in the book). She talks about the need to disband the stigma that asking for help is shameful and/or a sign of weakness, and instead frame it with the view that it's a way to collaborate with the rests of the world. There is a gift, she says, in the act of one asking and another helping.

She shares examples of how this philosophy has worked for her time and time and time again. The years she spent busking as a Bride Statue in New York. The countless fans who offered up their couches and spare beds for her band The Dresden Dolls so they could afford to go touring. She's a big fan of Twitter and often tweets out pleas for help - for herself or others - and they are almost always answered. Many people - reporters, artists, musicians - ask her all the time how she's acquired such generous fans. Her response; - it is because in return for their help she has given herself to them completely, and not just with her songs. She's held dozens of free, impromptu concerts all around the world, sending out a tweet announcing the time and place and that all are welcome. She's sat in closets, bedrooms and out in fields listening to the secrets and heartaches of any person who wants to tell her. She's bared her whole body and offered up paintbrushes or markers, allowing her fans to draw whatever they want on her skin.

~*~

I encourage everyone to read this book and by read I mean listen because the audiobook is incredible. Amanda Palmer narrates it herself and I feel like the listener can more deeply understand the emotions and delivery of all the conversations she relays versus reading silent words on a page. Plus, interspersed through the words are songs sung by Amanda. I don't love them all but others are magnificent, I almost cried by the end of one of them. And I sensed the love she carries for each of her fans, her friends and her family. In away she sees them all as one in the same. Listening to her speak doesn't make me feel as though I'm merely taking in a book, but rather deep in conversation with a friend.

I've mostly listened while walking the footpaths in Bellingham, pausing at times to pick a few delicious, wild blackberries. About halfway through the book it occurred to me that perhaps it came into my life at the exact right moment. I am not good at asking for help. In fact I suck at it. I have stuck deep in my psyche the strong conviction that to ask for assistance of any kind, particularly on a large level, is to admit that I am weak, lazy, and not enough. It's one of of the reasons my eating disorder was so able to flourish so vibrantly. I came to Bellingham largely to prove to myself that I was strong enough to figure life out completely alone.

Perhaps I need to rethink that philosophy.

Not to the degree that I throw myself to the mercy of the world and expect people to provide for me. I fully understand that I am ultimately always responsible for landing on my feet. Maybe though, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to sometimes ask if anyone knows/has the best spot for my feet to touch the ground.

~*~

I don't see me completely changing. Learning to ask for help will likely be a lifelong process but here's a small beginning: If anyone has, or knows someone who does, a tiny place they'd be willing to rent fairly inexpensively to a quiet person and inquisitive (but well-behaved) cat in the Whatcom County area, I'd love to speak with them. If not no worries; I'll figure it out (or I won't and go home), and as I'm doing that I'll keep reading, writing and - now - listening to the music of Amanda Palmer.