In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage

I try to remind myself that not every challenge is one we’re totally prepared for. That that too is an important lesson, and even if we don’t make it, the girls will be galvanized by their own strength. That will be enough, I tell myself. But secretly I want more. I want us to make it. I want it all. We can do this—that’s the message I want to inject. We can do anything. Especially women like us—built on the bones of survival. That is what I really want them to know.

I’ve been asking myself if I’m strong enough to keep up, to make it to the top, but maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe I should be asking if I’m soft enough to listen. To yield. To trust something deep inside, something in my bloodline, my heritage, that undercuts logic and strength.

You'll have an awful day, if not many, on this mountain,' he said. 'You'll want to quit; you'll question why you're here. But when that happens, know that it's just an awful day and that everything will be different when you wake up the next morning. Everything changes when you just keep going.

Even thought I rarely believed it myself, whenever I spoke it aloud, the dream grew. No matter how absurd it sounded, how impossible it seemed, dreaming got me closer to executing.

Even while recuperating, we have to keep active. If you don't move at all, you're more likely to get sick. Continuous motion is the best way to manipulate our bodies into believing that we can fully operate with limited oxygen.

As I stood looking out at the view, the answer was so clear I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. Everest was not about me. I wasn't supposed to be doing it alone. I wasn't supposed to be scaling mountains and staking my flag at their peaks like some modern-day conquistadora. It was about what I had to offer, what I had to give to a community--to women, to girls, like me. I had to keep my promise to climb Everest, but I was supposed to bring others with me. Other women like me. Survivors. That had been the message all along.

For Sherpas here, the land is everything. Losing two of our most brute, bold men within the first week reminds me that Everest is a spirit to be honored, not a peak to conquer. I've been asking myself if I'm strong enough to keep up, to make it to the top, but maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe I should be asking if I'm soft enough to listen. To yield. To trust something deep inside, something in my bloodline, my heritage, that undercuts logic and strength.

The host always said: 'Nothing you do is small. Everything begins from there.

Pride was the opposite of shame.

Immigrants were also often Type T. You take a huge risk that alters the course of your life and the generations that come after. Whether you're running away or toward something, it takes cojones to leave your home and start from scratch.

I was bred to consider my own station in life, to blaze forward, to do the best, be the best, but the way Jimena and Lucy use the word build is communal. Building is talking and sharing experiences. It's gaining trust. Using the ideas and knowledge of others as building blocks to construct something that can be shared and serve all.

Getting up each day to do nothing but walk has been a special kind of prayer.

Being soft is dangerous, too dangerous for some of us. But the small stone room cradles us, and the girls sit at peace, eyes closed, in the dark. It’s only my mind, I realize, that’s trying to run, darting a million miles an hour, looking for a way out.

Awe is the gateway drug to healing trauma through nature.

the telling was just the beginning. Healing is circuitous. There are so many roadblocks, stops and starts.

I can only laugh at how arrogant I was that first time around. I didn’t know then how much pain there is in healing. How much shit and grime.