Climb Every Mountain (just don't fall on your butt)

Life's highs and lows, all at once

I am dictating this post, you'll find out why in a minute. So if anything seems weird or sounds weird or is weird that's why. It turns out I can't actually write this way, I can only write or think properly with a keyboard. I feel like I'm giving a speech with all the nerves and anxiety that that entails—so fun! My brain doesn't understand that I can go back and edit things and put in commas and take out commas and make things sound less weird. So I'm just sitting here deer in the headlights as I speak these words.

Me writing on a keyboard | Me using voice to text

Man, I don't even know where to start. Do I start with the good news or the bad news? Life is strange, highs and lows, peaks and valleys, all of it together like a real mountain range, like the Alps, where I just was, actually. My husband and I traveled all around Austria to celebrate our upcoming our 20th anniversary. He had a work trip in Vienna so we got to piggy-back on that. I have many thoughts on marriage and love and just how cool it is to stick with someone through the hard times and getting to a place where it seems effortless most of the time that i’ll save for another day. But it's just a sublime joy. And how humorous it is to age with someone, it makes it more fun somehow, you can laugh at each other's wrinkles and it doesn't seem quite so bad.

OK I'm gonna back up a little bit and tell you the good news first actually. very very good news. Dreams coming true good news. good news I've been working towards for years now and I'm so excited and also scared and also challenged and all the things.

I got a book deal!!!!

yes that's right I'm going to write a real book that will be published by a real publisher and that people will want to read, hopefully, unlike the last book I wrote, which was my PhD dissertation on gender and temperance in the 19th century. Which is actually a pretty fascinating topic, but the book is written in such a way that no one really would ever want to read it because it is an academic work and I was an academic and I was a young academic on top of that, and I thought you had to be boring and obtuse in order for people to be impressed with you. So I used words like hegemonic and discursive a lot, and it's just not readable and I don't recommend it.

But this book you will want to read, I hope. Several years ago, I decided just for my own processing that I was going to write a memoir, and it turned out actually really good, and it led me down some paths of discovery about my own life and what I thought about it and what I thought about the evangelical church and missions’ place in it and missions in general. It's s a pretty honest take on things. I decided I wanted to get it published, so I set off trying to find a literary agent, which was quite an ordeal and long story short, I finally found a literary agency and they loved my memoir, one of them in particular, and even though it was a really really really long shot because I am an unknown writer, they agreed to take me on, and they pitched it to publishers. And all the publishers said no we don't want to publish that book because nobody wants to read a memoir about someone that they don't know who only has 2,000 Twitter followers.

But, they said, the commentary on missions and missionary kids is actually pretty interesting. Maybe she can write that book. so my agents came back to me with that news, basically like, they don't like the book you have written, but they might be interested in you writing another book. I thought about it at first I was like no no no I don't have time for this. I don't want to do this but I thought about it and I thought you know I do want to do this, let's just start talking to missionary kids and see where it goes. Let's just start having conversations. Of course my whole life has been conversations with missionary kids but these would be more formal conversations with people I didn't already know, taking in the stories in a more objective, analytic way. so that's what I started doing.

Eventually, I had enough to pitch the book, so these saintly agents who had loved my memoir and took such a chance went out into the world again with this proposal and lo and behold, we got a book deal. Not only that, it worked out for me to take several months off my day job to focus on this. I was exhilarated at the prospect of an entire fall of just working on this project that I feel really passionately about. Hopefully it will open up more doors for me as a writer because I really am getting to the point where I'm ready to move on to the next thing in my life, and I want this to be my next act.

Oh my gosh, this thing has no concept of commas. I'm gonna have to just rearrange all the commas in this thing. that’s gonna be a lot of work so forgive me if I miss some.

So anyway, I got that great news just before we took off first on a family vacation and then just me and Kevin to Austria. Austria is absolutely beautiful, and we had perfect weather. I felt like the universe was smiling all the smiles on me.

The last day we went on this amazing hike in the Tyrol region of Austria. It was a hard hike, about 2 miles just straight up the mountain. Of course, the Austrians were going up it with their dogs, and even their toddlers no problem. The best part about the hike was at the top, there was this restaurant hut. actually all throughout the Alps there are these huts where you can stay overnight in these dorm style rooms and eat and everything.They have like beer, wine, meals, good meals, like good food an drink at the top of a freaking mountain. so you climb, climb, climb, and then you get to drink a beer at the top of an alp.

This is the way.

I asked them how do y'all get all the stuff up here and they said duh helicopter, we aren't that in shape. and then oh my gosh it was so cute they had these little chickens that lived up there. They use their eggs. also the had goats and rabbits. I don't think they eat those though, I think they are just there to make the kids happy. They had all kinds of kids toys up there y'all. Which means enough of these Austrians are seriously taking their little kids up freaking mountains to warrant toys and things at the top. It is crazy y'all meanwhile my kids, they break a sweat getting like their own water from the kitchen.

Proof that Austrian kids and pets are in better shape than American adult humans.

Anyway, we were hiking up there with all these Austrians, and most Austrians certainly over a certain age, as in our age, had these hiking sticks, which we did not have.

So we're coming back down and it's pretty steep, loose rock. We're being careful and every now and then we slide a little bit but we're getting it done. Then all of a sudden it happened, and let’s face it, it was bound to. I stepped on some rocks, rocks give way. feet go out from under me, I fall on my butt. Which would've been fine—it's fine to fall on your butt, that's why you have a lot of fat on your butt. But when you fall any time, it's your body's instinct to put your arms out to try to catch you. Your body doesn't understand when you are falling on your butt versus when you are plunging towards the ground head first. Instincts I guess are not that precise. Your arms don't understand that, when you're falling on your butt, just go down, man, no need to be a hero, just kind of go for the ride, butt has got this one with all its mounds of fat. Arms did not get that message. So, of course, as I am going down, out they go, right one being the overachiever takes the brunt.

I knew it was broken right away and it hurt like a mother. I was crying and the Austrians were just looking at me like dude my three year old got up and down just fine, and also you should get you some hiking sticks. They didn't exactly rush over with concern to try to help and you know what, fair. We're on the side of a mountain, there's only one way down and my feet did work so I mean what were they gonna do? What was Kevin going to do? Kevin is just like hey like sorry you fell and you probably broke your arm but we got to get off this mountain, so let’s get on it. I got up crying, I held my arm, and I just cried and continued walking down the mountain and got off the mountain and got in the car. But I was very dramatic about it.

Directed by the very kind people at our hotel, we made our way to a clinic. We got there just a few minutes before it closed. The staff was waiting around with nothing to do, because they were closing, so they saw me right away, and in about 20 or 30 minutes, I was x-rayed and the bone set and the cast applied boom boom boom. This was nothing like the Tanzanian adventure I had gone on with my friend Jen (see my previous few posts) but more like a very efficient Germanic situation like the autobahn. so they fixed me up, we flew home on schedule, and I'm fine. but I'll be in a cast for six weeks. And I honestly cannot write with this stupid dictation software. I don't understand it. I don't understand why it is so hard to gather my thoughts or have any thoughts at all without my fingers flying over a keyboard. nonetheless, that is the case. using this dictation software, I am a raging moron.

Before and after

So bottom line I'm not quite as excited about my autumn I was. It's gonna be a little more challenging now, not gonna lie, but I am going to do this thing, and I'm gonna be a writer and that's a dream come true whether it's typing or doing voice to text. and that's life for you. you know not everything is easy and well very few things are easy actually but you push through and you persevere and if you're lucky, maybe you get your shot. And that's the truth that none of the inspiration posters or religious people or self-help books will tell you, that success is really a lot of luck. You gotta work hard and have some talent, but then you gotta just get very lucky, and I am pinching myself that I have indeed gotten lucky, luckier than I ever thought I could be.

Growing up evangelical, I wasn't allowed to say something was lucky. You had to say “blessed.” I'm blessed, God has blessed me. Saying something or someone was lucky supposedly negated God. But the older I've gotten, the more I don't really understand why things happen to whom and how, there's so many variables in life, and so much of it seems very random, and if there is a God, he seems very arbitrary and cruel sometimes, if he is actually responsible for doling out rewards and punishments. And despite claims to the contrary, saying, God has blessed me, still makes it sound like you've done something to deserve it. And I haven't deserved a lot of it, most of it. Not the bad, not the good. I stumbled into this book deal like I tumbled down that mountain. None of it makes sense to me anymore. so I just say I am lucky.

This doesn't make much sense either and is in fact the worst writing I have done in a long time. I am jet-lagged and a little sick on top of the wrist, and I really really hate this voice to text situation, but I'm still very very lucky. You all are a big part of my luck. I don't know all of you, but damn I'm so thankful for you and I love all of you. Just the fact that there are people out there who appreciate any gift that I might have or what I can put out into the world —that's hugely hugely joyful and lucky. Thank you.

Needless to say, between my new disability and my endeavor to write a book, I'm not going to be able to write as much here. Fortunately, I have over 10 years of essays that I've migrated onto here so I will try to pull one out every now and clean it up and re-post it for your enjoyment, I hope.