Now that I am receiving positive feedback on my memoir, I find what Greg Mckeown wrote in Effortless, to be true. On page 2020, he writes, “Read to Absorb (Rather Than to Check a Box). There are books I have technically read but I can’t tell you
anything about them. On the other hand, there are books I may not have read cover to cover, but I have returned
to certain chapters or passages so often that they have become a part of me. Reading a book to earn the right of
displaying it on your shelf misses the real point of the exercise. But absorbing yourself fully in a book changes
who you are, just as if you had lived the experience yourself.” My hope is that my memoir will change the lives of those who read it, just as reading Extreme Landscape many years ago changed the trajectory of my life, and eventually my approach to life. Already my friend Clarabelle has told me that she is now ready to travel solo to Scotland, a trip she had thought about doing for years, but put off because she didn’t want to go alone!