Surrender

I picked this up in London as a travel memoir about the American West, where I live but not exactly (it focuses on Missoula, Montana - a different sort of West than California, but wrapped up in many of the same relations to water, manifest destiny, native genocide, etc).

what I got was a story of a woman, an older mother who carries that title with a relatable and interesting to me ambivalence, leading her own way through new experiences, curiosity, and relations. I really loved it, with the exception of her heading to a gathering of "ecosexuals", which was actually physically painful for me to read.

the best parts are her experience of Montana—the trappers, the space, the hoopers and rewilders, the people seeking right relation, the contradictions, her open curiosity about it all—and the relatable feeling of never quite knowing where to be. and, unfortunately, her brief assessment of San Francisco is accurate, as much as I hate to admit it

here is an obituary she wrote of one of the people featured in her experience and the book, Finisia Medrano: dark-mountain.net/finisia-medrano-and-the-return/. I think it gives a sense for the writing as a whole