Melissa's Today - Blog Post
Writing, for me historically, has been a way to share my journey, an avenue to celebrate life's highs, a path to processing challenges, a tool to broadcast news favorable or unfavorable, and a way to exercise my brain and make a little money on extended climbing trips.
After beating the odds on April 2, 2017, by surviving approximately 20 seconds of 2000 volts coursing through my body and navigating the first year of extensive and excruciating hand reconstruction surgeries, I knew I would write my story. I felt compelled to share my journey with the hope of helping others. The format, the how, what, and when, unfolded slowly over the next seven years as I wrote here and there around life's demands. In the process, I realized that documenting and digging within to get the words out continued my healing.
When I left the hospital, the words I wrote about my accident were distant and cold. My priorities when I returned home after my first few surgeries and a month-and-a-half-long hospital stay were to learn how to function in life with my new hands, get Bird & Jim open, and await the subsequent surgeries. I focused on tasks like brushing my hair for the first time in two months, dressing myself, and using the bathroom independently.
The restaurant, paint colors, website, furniture, menus, and point-of-sale systems occupied my deliberations and distracted me from the mental anguish of my unknown future. As anyone opening a new business knows, the to-dos are countless. The future Bird & Jim distracted me yet added to my overall agonies--will my business be successful after this immense investment of finances and hands? The heavy and strange way the restaurant mirrored the unknown fate of what my hands would be like was an intense period.
Running a business year one while easing back into rock climbing truly took me over. Bird & Jim won out, of course--I had to make this restaurant succeed. I had some time on my hands on days off with Adam gone to our winter climbing oasis of Hueco Tanks. I recall being alone in the house one evening, writing about the electric current flowing through me; I started to sweat, my chest tightened, and I had a hard time breathing; before the panic took over, I clearly saw what was going on and backed off that chapter. Eventually, I got the words out. Each time I reworked that section, it became more manageable, and I realized that writing my story was something I needed to do to heal. Brief spurts of writing were typically interrupted by restaurant drama.
I understood more about my navigation process and coping mechanisms as I wrote. The deeper I explored within, the chapters expanded, and parallel threads wove my story together. I wanted to climb again, and in the first few years, I found that climbing would be part of my life again. I planned a climbing trip to South Africa--my first climbing trip post-accident, besides visiting Adam for a week here and there in Hueco in the winter. In South Africa, when I was not climbing, I dedicated time to writing, diving deeper into what I lived through and was still processing. When I returned, I was offered an opportunity by Adidas--they were sending me to their writer's clinic at Rock & Ice, taught by John Long, Alison Osius, Francis Sanzaro, and Duane Raleigh, with guest speaker Jeff Jackson.
I walked into the classroom setting in Carbondale, CO on July 18, 2019. When it was my turn to share my concept story, I explained that even though this symposium was about writing an article, I was writing a book. The instructors talked me off that ledge, reminding me that many books started as articles; I narrowed my focus and produced "Life and Limb," published in Rock & Ice's November 2019 edition. From here, I had the bones. I worked on expanding it into a book and went back to the beginning, who I am, and how I got here.
Then the COVID pandemic hit, and I pushed the writing aside. I knew I would get back to it one day, but my focus shifted to pulling Bird & Jim through the pandemic. Rules, regulations, tents in parking lots as dining rooms, a frightened staff, a terrified me ruled out any creative or introspective writing. In addition to COVID, two fires almost converged in Estes Park, causing a full evacuation of our town in October 2020, and then our partner and Chef Ethan quit in late November. My brother passed away in 2020, and my father and father-in-law both died in 2021. It was not until 2022 that I started writing again, but I had many distractions building and opening our next restaurant, the Bird's Nest, opening July 27, 2022.
In 2023, I was thrust back into my story when I worked on a Ted Talk-style speech called Scar Tissue for my first big speaking engagement. In June 2023, I flew to Seattle to be the inspirational speaker for the EVO work retreat. This interest in my story reignited my determination to finish and publish the book I titled Exit Wounds. Thanks to the help of friends and acquaintances, I received pointers on my book proposal and got connected with a literary agent. Don Pape of Pape Commoins took me on despite not accepting any new authors. Don found a home for my book with Falcon, and soon after, I signed a contract in October 2023. Most of 2024 people heard me say, "I have to write today," between restaurant work and climbing. Thanks to a great team at Bird & Jim and Bird's Nest, I narrowed my focus to the business aspect, dedicating time to opening the Bird's Nest and then writing. I submitted Exit Wounds in October 2024 after working with Bill Stieg, who edited it with me in September. I recently received two ISBNs for print and digital and will receive a Falcaon copy editor any day now. Fingers crossed, you all will like it--slated to hit the shelves in March 2026! 😅