Where did I hear of Penelope Fitzgerald? I can’t remember, but I believe I read about her recently.

It’s a subtle feeling, one I can’t substantiate. I could, I suppose, spend hours paging through my precarious stacks of magazines. There’s also the finger-snapping quickness of the Internet—which informs me that some 30 New Yorker articles in the past couple decades have made mention of her. None of these, however, jog my memory.

Perhaps this is fitting, as Penelope Fitzgerald is a writer of subtlety, who has herself, as an author, tended to fly under the radar. But she’s far from an unknown: even, apparently, to me. So when I was recently browsing through a little bookshop, and noticed a little book called The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald—I snatched it up.

The Bookshop is about an unassuming woman who opens up a bookshop in a remote corner of England. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and rightly so. The following passage, which ends a chapter, is a good example of the subtlety of Fitzgerald’s writing:

“She herself was going to take the ferry across the Laze, as it was early-closing day, to deliver thirty Complete Wild Flower Recognition Handbooks to the Women’s Institute. Remembering this, she took the top book off the crisp pile and looked through the illustrations for the green marsh plant which Raven had shown to her. It was not mentioned.”

Ah! So delicate, this passage. But why was the green marsh plant—the one plant, of all the plants on earth, most meaningful to the protagonist, as it was shown to her by a true friend, of which she had very few—not mentioned in the “complete” guide?

Perhaps the green marsh plant was not scientifically classified as a wildflower. Or perhaps the plant’s omission from the book was an error. But this is beside the point. The point is more filamentary. It has to do with the overlooked, the missing, the forgotten phenomena of the world.

What, after all, is the value of minute remembrance? What is the value of the overlooked, all those who are ignored by the public at large? What, indeed, is the value of books and magazines, when they never seem to contain what you’re really looking for?

During a Meetup event, the inquisitive one was chatting with an acquaintance. The acquaintance mentioned an unfortunate need to take a trip to the local department of motor vehicles. As it happened, the inquisitive one had the same unfortunate need. The two decided to visit the DMV together.

Early one chilly morning, an hour before it opened, they met at the DMV. There was already a long line. They stood together, in the cold wind, for an hour. With frozen fingers, faces, toes, and bones, they finally entered the building. They each took a ticket. Then they sat for hours on hard plastic chairs that didn’t fit the curves of their butts. The high, flickering florescent lights were round and ugly. The floor was spectacularly dirty. Finally, the acquaintance’s number was called, and the acquaintance stood up.

“If I don’t see you on my way out, have a nice afternoon!” said the acquaintance.

“You, too,” said the inquisitive one. “This was fun!”

“It was!” said the acquaintance.

At the next Meetup event, the inquisitive one and the acquaintance fell into conversation again. The inquisitive one mentioned an unfortunate need to file taxes. As it happened, the acquaintance had the same unfortunate need. The two decided to meet at the inquisitive one’s house and work on their taxes: separately, but simultaneously in the same room.

The acquaintance arrived at the inquisitive one’s house with a laptop and a large stack of papers. For many hours, they separately muscled their way through various forms and schedules. They puzzled over whether their dividends were qualified, ordinary, extraordinary, or woefully incompetent. They tried to recall how the Washington hockey team had played during 2018, so they could claim their Capitals gains (or losses). They had both, fortunately, kept records on how many times they had passed sugar around their tables, so they easily filled in their respective lines next to “Lump sum distributions.”

Both the inquisitive one and the acquaintance had several setbacks and restarts, upon realizing they had made mistakes. The heads of both the inquisitive one and the acquaintance started to hurt very badly. The two of them toiled and toiled until, finally, the acquaintance announced completion.

“Congrats on finishing your taxes!” said the inquisitive one. “I’m almost done, too. Goodbye, and have a great evening!”

“Good luck, and see you later,” said the acquaintance. “This was fun!”

“It was!” said the inquisitive one.

At the next Meetup event, the two approached each other.

“Hi!” said the acquaintance. “One of my favorite musicians is performing at a local venue next month. Do you want to go with me?”

“Why on earth would we do that?!” the inquisitive one cried out.

“Oh!” the acquaintance cried out.

“Just kidding!” said the inquisitive one.

“Yay!” said the friend.

The urge to help others is very much a part of being human. There are so many ways to serve others. Maybe you help people as part of your job, in your family or social groups, or by volunteering time or donating money. Maybe you have reached out to someone who seemed down and out.

All of those acts are wonderful and beautiful and important. But, sadly, as Anne Lamott knows, there’s a real limit to how much help you can give. Here’s another piece of wisdom from her recent book Almost Everything:

“Not one single person in history has gotten an alcoholic sober. (Maybe you’ll be the first. But—and I say this with love—I doubt it.) If it is someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the solution.”

This idea is certainly very close to her heart, as she comes back to it later in the book, delving into it with more specificity—heartrending specificity. As it turns out, Lamott did know alcoholics whom she tried to help. She reached out, she cared, she kept trying, she didn’t lose hope. But she could only do so much. It did not matter how close she was to the person, by blood or spiritual kinship. It did not matter how much she cared. In the end, all love and friendship and suggestions and urgent recommendations cannot move a mountain, unless the mountain moves itself.

This does not mean we should stop trying to help others. But Lamott turns the idea upside down by noting that her need to help others is actually a personal issue that she struggles with. Helping others can make one feel important. It’s a form of perfectionism. It’s a way of proving your worth, to yourself and others. In that respect, it can be counterproductive; no one wants “help” from someone who’s self-righteous, pushy, or otherwise overbearing.

It’s difficult to know when to try to help someone and when to back off. It’s difficult to know which acts are truly helpful, and which just get in the way. But let’s not give up. Let’s keep trying to figure these things out. And remember: sometimes the smallest acts help the most.

Is there someone in your life who seems to need help?