10 quick questions for cheryl strayed | members only access

WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR SON OR DAUGHTER IF HE OR SHE WANTED TO HIKE THE PCT ALONE? I would want them to do it. I would be scared, but I would be thrilled for them to do it, because I know

what an enriching growth opportunity it would be, how good it is for all of us when we venture into the wilderness and see what we can find about ourselves. All of us, when we venture into

the world and do something hard physically, everything about it is good. Yes, I would want to put some kind of computer chip [in them] so I could track them. Yeah, I would worry. But of

course, we worry in a different way about the kids who are just scrolling around on their phones. I think we have this funny, strange idea about danger. I think the most dangerous thing is

_not _venturing into the wilderness. The most dangerous thing is _not_ addressing your addiction on social media or _not_ putting your phone down and seeing the world as it is just with your

own two eyes and wandering it on your own two feet. WOULD YOU GO ON ANOTHER ADVENTURE LIKE THAT AGAIN? Oh yeah. I’m a person who loves to travel. I’ve become really very much conscious — I

always felt this inside myself —  it’s really important to have rites of passage, journeys. And not just the sort I took in my 20s where I really think, in so many ways, I was trying to

figure out who I was and trying to become and live in the world without my mom and step into my real adulthood. I sense something like that coming again in my future. My kids are 17 and 18.

I’m 54. I’m like,_OK, whatever this next era of my life is … what's it going to be?_ Travel has always helped me see things more clearly and deeply. Especially the kind of travel where

you’re walking through the wilderness, but travel of all varieties has done that. I love to hit the road and travel a lot. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’LL GO NEXT? That’s always the problem,

right? There are so many things to see. One of the theories of travel that I come up against is:_ _Is it better to go to new places that you’ve never seen or return to the place that you

love?_ _I fell madly in love with New Zealand. In 2017, my husband and I and our two kids went to New Zealand and hiked the Routeburn Track and Milford Track. I could live in this country.

If it wasn’t so dang far away from the U.S., I would be there in a minute. So I’d love to return and explore it. But I’ve also never been to Finland. I grew up being told that I had a lot of

Swedish in my background, and then I did those DNA tests, and they were like, no, you are a little bit Swedish, but you are Finnish_. _… So I’d love to go explore Finland and Scandinavia.

I’m really drawn to that part of the world. I want to go hiking in Japan. I’ve been to Japan very briefly. But here’s the thing: You asked the question, “Where would I go?”_ Where wouldn’t I

want to go? _I have a hunger for the world, and I always have. WHAT’S ON YOUR READING LIST? “Tiny Beautiful Things” is a collection of essays compiled from Strayed's “Dear Sugar”

advice column, which she originally wrote anonymously. Vintage Books I just finished a book, a memoir by Laurel Braitman. It’s called _What Looks Like Bravery_, and it’s just a beautiful

memoir about a woman — the subtitle is _An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love_. She lost her father when she was a teenager. It’s really about her journey as an adult reckoning with that

loss, and then later when she was an adult, her mother dying. She’s just a very compassionate, honest, searching soul, and I was utterly absorbed in it. I highly recommend it. She’s a really

fascinating woman. YOU’VE JUST BECOME A TV WRITER, BUT ARE YOU A TV WATCHER? Oh my God, yes. As a teenager, I didn’t have electricity. In my 20s and well into my 30s, I didn’t have a TV. I

really missed a lot of TV. I usually binge. I cannot bear it anymore when I have to have the episodes doled out. The best thing I’ve watched recently is this show called _Slow Horses_ on

Apple TV+. It’s a thriller set in London, and Gary Oldman stars, and it was one of the shows where the first episode, I was like, _I don’t know? I’m not sure?_ Then I kept watching, and I

was all in. Of course, I was addicted to _Succession,_ as everyone else is. … _Bad Sisters_. Right now my husband and I, we’re doing _The Last of Us _on HBO. It’s really good. I also must

confess that through all the raising teenagers in the pandemic and online school, my husband and I’d get to the end of day, [and] we’d need gentle television — something that’s going to make

us feel peaceful. So we are huge _Masterpiece_ PBS show [watchers].