My Forthcoming Travel Memoir

This morning began with exciting news. I received an email from my publisher informing me that Unsolicited Press accepted my memoir—Fire and Ice: A Nepalese Travelogue—for publication. The release is currently set for 2028, although that could possibly change.

Thirty years ago, with little knowledge of the world, but a burning desire to see it all, I flew to Nepal. Most people, for their first solo trip, will head somewhere local, or perhaps to the Caribbean or somewhere in Europe. Not me. My dad always said I had to be different, and maybe he was right, because after spending a year teaching English in Korea, I decided to head over to Nepal to go trekking in the Himalayan Mountains. I knew nothing about Nepal. The first time I heard a colleague mention it, I had never even heard of the country. The name sent me searching for a world map and after a hunt that took entirely too long, I found the tiny country wedged between Tibet and India. My intrigue was born. I loved to hike, I wanted to travel, and the prospect of exploring the Himalayas—a mountain range shrouded in history and culture—was intoxicating. Without thinking about it—the best decisions in my life have often been spur of the moment occurrences—I booked a flight and bought a backpack (in that order). With no knowledge of international travel, survival skills, or what to even expect, I got on a plane.

It was only when I landed that I had an “Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into” moment. Panic swelled and nearly consumed me, but it was too late to change my mind and so I plunged into the mayhem of the airport, the chaos of Kathmandu, and the unfamiliarity of a world very different from my own. On my second day in the city, I was sitting on the steps of a temple in Durbar Square writing in my journal when a young Nepalese boy sat next to me and struck up a conversation. He was friendly and spoke English perfectly, and somehow, he managed to convince me to take him trekking. We spent the next three weeks navigating the Annapurna Circuit together. I learned more from him, and seeing life through his eyes—the eyes of a boy whose parents deserted him and left him to fend for himself in an unforgiving city—then I did in four years of college. 

When I was in graduate school at Fairleigh Dickinson, earning my MFA in creative writing, I decided to revisit my trip to Nepal. It was then that I first drafted my memoir—based on the meticulous journal entries I had written while traveling. In that initial draft, I wrote vaguely about Yasmin, a woman I knew in Korea. I touched upon memories of her, but I didn’t quite feel comfortable delving into the emotions of our relationship. During a conference with one of my professors, she flat out asked me why Yasmine was in the memoir. Despite several attempts, she couldn’t sort out my intention for including her. Yasmin didn’t at all relate to my time in Nepal, so why bother mentioning her. In a long and rather circuitous way, I explained that Yasmin was the first girl I kissed, and that when I landed in Nepal, I found myself exploring not only the country I was in, but the person I was. Having grown up in a Conservative Catholic society, I wasn’t supposed to be queer, but as I spent long days trekking with little to do but think, I realized my queerness was never in question, only my acceptance of it. By the time I finished my explanation, my professor was staring at me like I had lost my mind. “That,” she informed me, “is vital to the story that you are trying to tell. Don’t you realize that an external journey means little unless you simultaneously experience an internal one.” 

“I don’t know if I want to write about that.” I agued.  What if—”

But she cut me off, “If you want to be a writer, you must be willing to bleed on the page.” 

And so I did. What started out as a simple travel story about a confused and anxiety ridden white girl confronting her privilege while meandering through Nepal, became something deeper—a moment of self reflection and awakening. By the time I left Nepal, I accepted that I was a lesbian. I’d been a lesbian for years, I had just been in denial, and that denial had caused me far too much pain and self-sabatage. Freed—somewhat—of the self hatred I had been harboring, I was able to embrace my sexuality and better accept myself.

Fire and Ice: A Nepalese Travelogue will take you on a sensory tour of Nepal. It will carry you through the cultural heart of Kathmandu and introduce you to Ganesh, the Hindu god with the body of a man and the head of an elephant. It will bring you into the mountains to experience the monsoon season and the misery of a body shutting down due to altitude sickness. It will show you a society stricken with poverty, people so poor that children don’t go to school and are forced to get an education on the street. Finally, it will give you a glimpse of my life, the struggles I experienced being true to myself, and the freedom I felt when I finally let go of the expectations of others.