I wasn't in a position that some other memoirists are, dealing with families who fed them meth, or kidnapped them, or did something that would make the writer not want to see that family again. I wanted to see my family. I wanted to celebrate them. I was proud of who we were, in the wilderness, floating down rapids or hiking over glaciers, and everywhere else.

I didn't write the memoir with any sort of intention of feeling better. I wrote the memoir because I had a weird need to write a good story. But once I was done, I did feel better about myself. Not better, just calmer. Because a tremendous onus had been lifted off my day-to-day.

If you need somebody to dig up rocks eight hours a day underwater, call me.

I wasn't in a position that some other memoirists are, dealing with families who fed them meth, or kidnapped them, or did something that would make the writer not want to see that family again. I wanted to see my family. I wanted to celebrate them. I was proud of who we were, in the wilderness, floating down rapids or hiking over glaciers, and everywhere else.

I've managed to create intimacy with people I know, and people that I don't know. The longer things stay inside of us, the more we think they are black or tainted, but they're really not.

Often, I think that my brothers were the reason I didn't do something really stupid in my teenage years; I didn't want to disappoint them. Even though was I was pretty committed to disappointing everybody else.

I don't think many kids question their surroundings. Everything seems so permanent and inevitable growing up, even chaos.