Suffering and Healing

Throughout Anything Is Possible, we see suffering as a universal human condition. In "Windmills," Patty sees the wind turbines as almost symbolic of this. Just as their large arms all move at the same speed, they rarely ever move together, so the moments when the wind turbines' arms are synchronized is a moment of wonder. Patty feels this same sort of wonder when she reads Lucy Barton's memoir and realizes that Lucy, too, has suffered in ways Patty had not expected but completely identifies with. "Now as Patty drove into her driveway and saw the lights she'd left on, she realized that Lucy Barton's book had understood her. That was it--the book had understood her...Lucy Barton had her own shame; oh boy did she have her own shame. And she had risen straight out of it" (57). Patty's recognition of Lucy's suffering and shame...