Dear Sugar …
TweetCheryl Strayed, the long-anonymous advice columnist for The Rumpus has her first book out this week, Wild, about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail to mourn the loss of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage.
A couple of excerpts from her coloumn:
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“ The other thing that happened in that glimmer of time between leaving the road and landing wherever we’d land was that neither my ex-husband nor I braced ourselves. Instead, we simultaneously reached to clutch each other with both of our hands and, together, in the same instant, shouted I LOVE YOU!
And then, instantly, we went down. Nose first. There was a tremendous slow motion thud followed by a ferocious blur as we tumbled end over end over end over end until at last we came to a stop among the trees.
It was so silent then. I don’t know if there’s ever been a moment so silent in my life since. Me. My ex-husband. The road somewhere like a mute film of a far off dream. We looked at each other. It took me a while to understand that we were upside down, hanging by the seat belts that had saved us. We were covered in tiny blunt shards of glass and drenched with a red liquid that I later comprehended was wine—bottles we’d brought along for the evening’s festivities that had shattered in the tumult. But we were alive.
I was shaken by the accident, but not for the reasons it would seem I’d be shaken—not the frightful careening or the terrifying flight or the violent tumbling. I was shaken by the beauty of that moment when my ex-husband let go of the steering wheel and we both did and said the exact same thing without thinking about it or agreeing upon it or hesitating. In the end, we clutched each other and shouted our love. I didn’t want to die, but if I was going to, I was glad to be doing it with him. It’s one of the purest revelations of my life.
This, even though I was already aching to leave him. Even though a little more than two years later I did. Even though it’s been more than a decade since I’ve even spoken to him.”
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“The truth will come to you once you stop careening. Don’t brace yourself. Clutch onto whatever you love the most when the tires leave the road.”
