The path at the foot of my street. Olympic Range beyond.
One More Mountain
‘Writer’ still topped the list of ‘Desired Results’ I had taped above my desk. The result I most wanted to move toward.
I had not planned my career or the life I’d led. Nor had I stumbled into it. At first, all I wanted was freedom from the hypocrisy of double-faced institutions. My path wandered through alternatives and experiments. Family Court. Sub teaching. Selling skis. The CYC, working and living with hippy kids. Grad school twice. Teaching the ‘dumb kids’ English course at Springbank High. My criteria for new jobs had been 1) it differed from what I’d been doing; 2) it was available; 3) it paid at least enough to live on if I was frugal.
Not until my nine months in the ‘evening shadow of the Rockies’ and my introduction to Camp did I imagine choosing a job — and a path — because it provided freedom to do work that mattered to me and, hopefully, the world. Apprenticing to Ken, Steve, and later, Robert enabled me to develop the skills and structure I needed to craft results I most wanted. It gave me the philosophical breadth to envision and create the life and career I longed for. Over the decades, I became a competent, sought after educator and facilitator. When I added coaching to my practice, I experienced a surge in confidence. I was happy, proud, and, for the most part, fulfilled. But one more mountain beckoned from the ‘heights. The one that taunted me from the top row of the ‘Desired Results’ list taped above my desk.
*
Despite writing and publishing Simplicity and Success, receiving good to excellent reviews, and having several essays published in national magazines, I didn’t yet feel like or identify as “a writer.” No doubt some of that was due to the Writer’s Guild rejection.
On Saltspring, I had started a bi-weekly, self-help newsletter titled “Simply Success.” In Victoria, I continued to send short essays with titles such as “On Commitment,” “Change Your Stories; Change Your Life” and “Vision As A Success Tool” to a mailing list of 2300 subscribers. But almost all my was self-help. I wanted something more challenging. Something that would show me and others I was a “real writer.”
I tried short stories. But struggled to master the genre. My instructor in a nine-month distance writing course referred to one of my pieces as a “rat’s nest of a story.” At a 10-day session of the Port Townsend Writer’s Conference, my workshop leader thought my story lacked plot and described what had happened to me. He suggested I try creative non-fiction.
*
After I returned from that first writer’s conference, I subscribed to Creative Non-Fiction magazine and read it cover to cover each month. I bought books by the armload. Mostly memoirs and primers on the art and craft of life writing. I shifted the focus of my morning bath and daytime reading from self-help and business development to stories of people’s lives. I usually started my day by devouring a chapter or two in the tub with my morning coffee and muffin.
So, for the next Port Townsend writer’s conference, I signed up for the non-fiction stream. I had to submit a piece to be read and critiqued by the 14 other workshop participants. I sent an early vision of The Weeping Wall.
On the first day of the workshop, I realized most participants had attended many workshops. Some had brought their published books and manuscripts. One comely redheaded stacked three glossy-covered books about travel in Russia beside her laptop. I chewed knuckles, fidgeted, and hunched into myself.
Bill Kittredge, an award-winning Montana author and Creative Writing prof at the University of Montana, led the workshop. He opened by saying something about starting a piece by “gettin’ all the players out on the stage, dancin.’ Let readers know who’s who.”
My stomach dropped. I swallowed rapidly. The piece I had submitted began with me — just me — hanging from a rope on the side of a Rockies icefall. Panicked, I stopped listening. I scrambled to imagine ways to escape the situation. I almost passed out when Bill asked, “Who wrote that ice climbing piece?”
I hesitated, then raised my hand shoulder high.
“Would you mind reading the first three pages?” Bill said.
Feeling numb, I mumbled through my account of John’s death, my decision to take the Complete Ice course, and my fall on the Weeping Wall. I feared I might throw up.
“Folks,” Bill said, standing up and nodding his head, “if you’re gonna break the rules, that’s the way to do it. Well done, Bruce. Damned good stuff!”
Sitting, listening while workshop participants critiqued and praised my essay, without being allowed to respond, was difficult but instructive. Participants gave me excellent suggestions, taught me things about writing that I hadn’t even heard of, and encouraged me to make John a more visible, engaging character. When we went for lunch, the pretty redhead writer sat beside me.
*
Back in Victoria, and on trips to Marrowstone Island, I wrote a much improved draft of The Weeping Wall. Gripped magazine published it. Then, on the 20th anniversary of John Lauchlan’s death, the Banff Mountain Book and Film Fest featured the essay in its program magazine.
After I sent a photocopy of the Gripped piece to Bill Kitteridge, he called to congratulate me and suggested I build on it.
“Another essay?” I said.
“Linked essays,” Bill said. “Or a memoir.”
My heart did a double back-flit, “Yes!”
My gut countered, “No. You need to eat. You need to write to attract clients.”
To rise above the structural conflict that arose from those competing desires, I crafted a clear, compelling description of an ‘Excellent Memoir’ about life as a maverick, seeking a path with heart my vision. Then ‘A Need to Eat’ became part of that vision’s current reality. Using creative tension generated by arranging vision and reality in the creating framework, I set aside the first hour every morning to work on the memoir, jotting notes, searching my memory for interesting tales, filling index cards with anecdotes.
In the rest of my non-coaching time, I wrote e-books I hoped would attract new clients and support current ones.
My first e-book Staying Up In Down Times: How To Embrace Life's Messiness and Create What Truly Matters went nowhere. When I searched my online stats, I was shocked to find that most of my traffic seemed to come from Russian porn sites a I called my internet provider for an explanation.
A pleasant customer experience rep I spoke with chuckled.
“Why laugh?” I asked the woman, feeling my shoulders stiffen.
“Well, “Staying Up” sounds a bit like Viagra ad copy. Don’t you think?”
I almost spit coffee on my computer screen.
“Damn! Yes. How can I fix that?”
Over the next month, I stripped my website of any mention of ‘staying up.’ I rewrote the ebook and titled it, Thrive! Create What Matters Most In Challenging Times and Beyond. It provided a simple overview of and introduction to my results-creating approach — and became a helpful business generator. I even made a little money by listing it on the Smashwords (now Draft2Digital) e-pub platform.
Next, I wrote a 30-page booklet — Depression Proof Yourself and Your Kids — for The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation. The short tome provided parents and teachers with a guide to building resilience in themselves and their kids. The Foundation, formed after Kelty’s tragic death, printed 500 copies twice and distributed them free of charge to schools and youth groups.
Finally, I wrote the ABCs of Emotional Mastery to help clients recognize and change irrational thinking and judgments and bring into being results they truly cared about.
*
Combining my creating approach with the ABCs proved a powerful recipe for helping clients embrace adversity and create success with whatever they had to work with.
For example, a U.S. client who owned a profitable fitness spa and gym business and a ranch-style log home in the countryside told me though she felt confident in all aspects of her business, she struggled with personal finances.
“I spend way too much money on things clothes, dinners out, and tropical vacations,” she said, during a coaching session. “But I can’t get it together to make large purchases for myself. Like buying a new car.” I heard a sharp intake of breath and imagined her near tears. “I can afford whatever I want. But I’m stymied by which to buy; an Audi Quattro or Volvo Cross-Country. So, every day, I risk disaster, pushing my battered 1980 Honda and praying it doesn’t fall apart on our rough mountain roads.”
“How long have you struggled with this?” I asked her.
“Two years.”
Huh! I sensed confusion and embarrassment in this otherwise competent, confident woman. I suggested she use the ABC exercises to help clarify current reality relative to her vision of a ‘Sporty, solid and reliable car.’ We did a few practice ABCs over the phone, clarifying and reframing minor irritations and quandaries. Between sessions, she stretched to focus on her car dilemma.
When she called the next week, she sounded upbeat. “I loved that exercise! The very first irrational ABC belief I found was, ‘If I buy the wrong car, I’ll die!’”
“Wow!” I said.
“Yeah! Talk about irrational — ‘I’ll die!’ — no wonder I was so stuck.”
I congratulated her and was about to suggest more ABCs work, when she surprised me.
“I changed my ‘I’ll die…’ belief to ‘If I buy the wrong car, I can just trade it in on the other one. If I lose a bit of money, it’s no big deal. Almost instantly, my fear dissolved. Then, yesterday, I put a down payment on the Volvo. I take possession next Friday.’”
Later that year, my client used her ABCs and creating skills to purchase a refurbished brick townhouse in a tree-lined area of her town.
“I’m so proud of myself,” she said. “And my friend whose sewing room I’ve been camping in is pleased as punch.”
I chuckled, gratified I could help.
*
After eight years in Victoria, I wound down my coaching practice. I sold my Saab, gave away my TV, took my suits and business clothes to a thrift store. I walked, cycled or took the bus wherever I wanted to go. Quit air travel. Started “meatless Mondays.” Refused to buy an expensive smartphone and data plan.
Content to live simply supported by savings and small pensions, I managed on the same monthly income I had made at Yamnuska Mountain School when I’d first promised to keep my salary and eco-footprint low. I rarely bought anything new and didn’t get out to paid events such as movies or concerts or pricey dinners. But I had the freedom to walk in wonder beside the ocean almost daily. I read more literary novels. Watched more Netflix documentaries.
I dedicated my mornings to writing this memoir. Afternoons, I coached a few favourite long-term clients. I relished the creative simplicity I was bringing into being. Working towards the other side of complexity.
But I had much to learn. About writing and life.
*
I loved reading memoirs, but writing one was much harder than I had imagined.
I reread Bill Kitteridge’s memoir Hole In The Sky. And his book of autobiographical essays Owning It All. I reread May Karr’s memoirs, Liar’s Club and Cherry and her tutorial The Art of Memoir. Ann Lamott’s Bird By Bird inspired me and showed me how to pace myself. And to be grateful for progress and forgive my failings.
William Zinsser, author of — the book I had used as a guide when I started writing the winter I’d first lived on Saltspring — had published a compendium of advice by nine memoir authors. It gave me a sense that the craft was wide open; many paths led to creative success.
Finally, Lisa Dale Norton’s Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir helped me get past the ‘reading about’ stage and to create a mental and a visual structure to contain my thoughts, stories, and questions. Norton’s ‘Mountain Top’ exercises and ‘Memory Maps’ helped me sort the key (hopefully interesting) events in my life and work, then arrange them in flowing flip-chart paths.
For a long time, though, I just made notes and roughed out anecdotes based on my “shimmering images.” I had yet to write an integral chapter.
In my coaching work, I had stressed the ‘learning curve’ was based on the 80–20 Rule. Roughly, the first 80% of one’s effort yields 20% of their results. But the last 20% of effort generates 80% of results.
When clients (and, sometimes, friends) complained their learning curve was steep, I (teacherly) pointed out they were describing the flat part of the curve.
“It feels steep,” I’d tell them, “because, at first, much effort is required to produce minimal results. The flat, slowly rising first section of the curve is the bog you have to slog through to get on the upward sweep of the curve. When it steepens, results flow out of proportion to effort.”
To remind myself to practice what I preached, I drew a large diagram of the learning curve and tacked it above my desk.
I also pulled out my ABC workbook forms and worked on changing limiting beliefs such as “I’ll never learn to do this;” “I’m not really a writer.” “This piece sucks!”
Slowly, ever so slowly, I shaped my story.
*
Writing a memoir required serious self-reflection. And time to myself, away from my usual environment. I was lucky to find a wonderful place to do so in.
I had visited the Ecologic Place on Marrowstone Island so many times I had become friends with the owners. They invited me to babysit the resort when they took vacations or had to be away from it for more than a few days. In return, I got an excellent place in which to think and write. Free!
Cabin 5 - Marrowstone Island
No more Cabin 11. They put me up in Cabin 5, the closest to the beach. Its wide wooden deck was just 25 feet from the high tide mark. Its king-size bed boasted a Tempur-Medic mattress and thick goose down quilt. I had access to the owner’s private hot tub.
In return, I usually split reclaimed cedar shingles into three or four wheelbarrows full of kindling. I answered the phone and took tentative reservations. Sometimes, if the last day of guests’ visits overlapped with mine, I cleaned their cabin(s) and made up the beds.
So, as well as my frugal Cabin 11 visits, I spent a week or two alone at the resort. I read, wrote, and walked the beach and trails and took time to think about my past, jot notes in my journal, and enjoy long uninterrupted hours of thinking and writing time.
Late afternoons, I’d savour a Heineken or glass of chilled white wine on the deck and revel in the grandeur of sea and peak and the rose coloured afterglow as the sun slowly slid behind the back side of the Olympics.
The memoir took shape.
As I published these chapters on Substack, I asked myself, So, am I a “writer” now. Can I scratch that off my list of desired results?
I chuckled, thinking of Doc Klein, whom I’d met on the Camp Chief Hector PIT river trip. He liked to tell stories, and was good at it. One was about a fellow North Carolina rock climber he’d known. They stood at the bottom of a new climb, assessing its difficulty relative to their skill.
“So,” Doc said, “Do you think you can lead that?”
“Well…,” his friend drawled, hillbilly style. “In ma mental mind, I’m already up there. But in ma fidical mind, I’m stuck down here.”
In my mental mind, I was a writer. But in my fidical mind, I knew I had more to do. But I figured I was writer enough to put a big check mark beside the top item on my list.