I Finally Did It

Reading – and Writing – the Stories that Shape Us

“If you didn’t have your bike, we could squeeze you in,” the United Airlines agent gave me a concerned look as my lip quivered. “Could you leave it with someone? Did someone drop you off?”

I stammered out a quiet, “No… I’m doing a charity ride. I drove myself here.” I felt like a patient who drove herself to the hospital for a “routine procedure” that has suddenly become complicated. Don’t you have anyone who loves you? Is what I practically heard her say. I can see from your flight history that you often fly alone. Of course, she didn’t say that, she click-clacked as I folded myself in half to keep a panic attack in check.

“OK, I found a couple options, but they’re for tomorrow,” she said and I unfolded to showcase a face now sopping wet from tears and more snot than I cared for. “You were so close, I’m really sorry,” she added, genuinely concerned. I explained I’d come from Missoula because our airport is closed, and that my phone led me to the wrong airport across town. I didn’t mention the big fight I’d gotten into with a family member just before, how unmoored I felt, how these tears are just a symptom of the times these days.

Taking my bike ("Therapy Equipment") on the BART to make it to the CCC launch point.

She rebooked me for the same flight the next day and I made my way back across the airport to the one open bathroom, tucked my bike and two bags and myself into the large stall, and cried while texting Alex back home, and Julie who booked the flights for me. Both were sympathetic.

“I’m happy to see you if you come home, but understand if you don’t,” Alex said when I said in exasperation that I might just camp out here. Kalispell is 2.25 hours away, so not a long drive, but enough that it makes at least some sense to just make the most of things out there. I drove a few miles and parked in a gravel lot off the main road to think. Think and cry.

I sat in my van and listened to the final few chapters of Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. I admit I avoided this book for years. It seemed too close to me, to close to what I’ve done and what I write about. I was worried I would hate it, and even more worried I’d love it.

I started this book because Cheryl Strayed has come up in conversation multiple times over the course of a week, not just Wild but other books and projects, she as a person and as a writer. I hear she is generally and genuinely wonderful. More than that, I’ve been thinking about rewriting my memoir I put away, Split, and thought I should take so many people’s advice and “read” this book I’ve heard so much about.

A problem I had with my manuscript was how to start. Four minutes into the drive, I got it: I ran away when I was five years old, feeling neglected and disrespected by my family while on vacation. I found a new family who did want to make sand castles with me, and felt doubly betrayed when the cops they called scooped me up and took me to the station to be reunited with my parents, who had been searching for possibly hours for their (not at all neglected) baby. This could have been foreshadowing.

About an hour into the drive, I reached clarity with a major issue I was feeling with my manuscript: I kept receiving feedback to add more backstory, more trauma, more tension. So I begrudgingly wrote it in. I didn’t want to dive into it because, ugh, such old news and really, who cares, so I splashed around it. Strayed’s book doesn’t go into gruesome detail and she still does a good job of showing, not telling, the flashbacks and connective stories that don’t take place on the trail. It’s OK to just say the damn thing.

And finally, parked in this gravel lot catching my breath, something else came into focus. Strayed did this impressive hike when she was 26, recovering from the death of her mother and of her marriage. I did a similar ride when I was 20, recovering from a series of assaults and a broken heart, headed south down the Pacific Coast.

In fact, I was on my way to the coast yesterday when I missed my flight to San Francisco. This time, riding for the Arthritis Foundation’s California Coast Classic. As I finish this post, I’m back on the plane, today also not without its stresses but none so strong as to shift my trajectory.

Aaron riding ahead of me along the Pacific Coast, probably in Oregon

I talk about that first trip sometimes, being so young and foolish and headstrong. I mainly talk about how I didn’t have any gear, though, and burritoed myself into a picnic blanket on the nights I couldn’t find a stranger to take me in. I don’t talk about the reasons why, the people I met, the dead animals, shaving my head before I left, learning to cook couscous with sunlight. Or even sweet Aaron, the mathematician who accompanied me and saved my life.

I think, more than the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which was also epic and changed me in ways I would be learning for the next nine years and beyond, this paved route is what deserves some chapters. The story isn’t about one ride down a mountain range, but the series of hands I’ve unclasped since I was five, and paths I’ve stumbled down unsure quite where they led.

I reached out to Aaron after I boarded my plane and sent him a photo of himself I snagged somewhere in Oregon. I couldn’t believe he had the same number and wanted to badly to hug him and listen to his life updates for hours, but he had a family to hang out with and I had a plane to soar away on back to California. Soon, though. Soon.

Would you want to read that? And how about you, what books have you read that have completely shifted your approach to something? Do you have an epic journey of your own you finally feel may be ready to come out?

Maybe I can help!

Click to learn more about coaching