I Promise Not To Suffer: A Fool for Love Hikes the Pacific Crest Trail Paperback – March 14, 2013

As a retired college English professor who appreciates good writing, I was very pleased to discover Gail Storey’s I Promise Not to Suffer. It’s a literary gem that succeeds on multiple levels. At the physical level it gives the reader a vicarious experience of hiking 900 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail. It describes—in rich, precise prose—the beauty of changing landscapes and the effort required to hike, with a heavy pack, through extremes of climate and terrain. At the psychological and spiritual level, it details the narrator’s progress in mindfulness as she learns to surrender to the moment and accept the natural world as it is. Her opening line tells us she has not always been comfortable with things as they are: “I never much cared for Nature, or rather, thought it okay as long as it stayed outside.” At the beginning of her hike, she finds much to complain about because the natural world is not as she wants it to be. By the end of her hike she accepts the natural world as it is.In the chapter “What’s the Meaning of your Pilgrimage,” at a moment of exhaustion and clarity on the trail, she describes the before and after states this way: “I was still alive, but oddly more so than before. Mist rose from the lake and I saw through it as if through myself, through light, air, flowers, trees. Beetles and ants scurried in the dirt and joined us in our silence. It seemed so long ago I believed they were out to get me, that dirt would kill me, that heat, cold, water, and ice were problems to overcome. I’d come so far, these nearly nine hundred miles” (168). In this moment of acceptance and transcendence, she feels at one with Nature.Though she had to drop out of the hike shortly after this epiphany (her husband continued on), she returned to her Houston apartment as a person changed by the spirit of acceptance. She discovers the she has opened up to a new level of selfless love: “At a loss with myself, I felt soft with others. Everyday kindnesses came easily—helping a neighbor carry groceries from her car to her apartment, righting an overturned plant in the hallway, kneeling down to speak with a child. Like sun warming cold mountain air, fierce tenderness pervaded the air we breathed” (175). When she learned that her mother had taken a turn for the worse with lung cancer, the author finds she has finally shed the emotions that formerly made her relationship with her mother difficult: “I loved her as she was. I saw her quietude as softness now, instead of distance. She was as much a mystery to me as she had always been. But initiated into mystery—by my strange peace at not completing the trail, by the unfathomable love within and around us, I loved the mystery itself. It drew me close to Mother Earth, my mother, Nature, my own nature’” (178). This is as good a way as any to describe the mystery of achieving stillness and harmony with the universe at it is, the goal of mindfulness. After reading this book I found a clear statement of this theme in Suzuki Roshi’s book, A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation: “The purpose of studying Buddhism is to study ourselves and to forget ourselves. When we forget ourselves, we actually are the true activity of the big existence, or reality itself. When we realize this fact, there is no problem whatsoever in this world, and we can enjoy our life without feeling any difficulties. The purpose of our practice is to be aware of this fact.”In this book, Gail Storey makes hiking the PCT a literary symbol for overcoming obstacles and coming to terms with one’s self and one’s place in the universe, a very high-order literary challenge. She develops and employs this symbol with consummate skill. I Promise is a deep and powerful narrative, beautifully thought out and beautifully crafted. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the PCT or in mindfulness.

If you enjoyed Wild by Cheryl Strayed or Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, I've got another memoir to recommend: I Promise Not To Suffer: A Fool For Love Hikes The Pacific Crest Trail (Mountaineers Books, 2013) by Gail D. Storey. For many years the author was a customer at the West University Branch of Harris County Public Library where I worked. Gail, once a librarian herself, wrote two hilarious novels set in Houston featuring a fictional librarian: The Lord's Motel and God's Country Club, originally published in the 1990s, were both reissued in paperback by Persea in 2011.We always carried multiple copies of her novels at my library. I remember when Gail was the featured cover girl on an issue of Library Journal. Gail was known for showing up at her readings and other events wearing a wedding dress or other fun costumes. I often spotted Gail and her tall, handsome husband Porter Storey, MD riding around town on their tandem bicycle before they moved to Colorado. I was glad to learn she had a memoir coming out, and then that the book won the Barbara Savage Miles From Nowhere Memorial Award (for compelling accounts of personal journeys and outdoor adventures).Gail and her husband, who is at in impasse in his life as a hospice doc, decide to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Although Gail has survived two cross-country bicycle rides with Porter, she does not consider herself a hiker or even a nature lover. Gail adores her husband. They have been married seventeen years. Porter's son has left the nest. Porter becomes obsessed with buying or creating the best lightweight gear for their hike. Gail has many pangs about committing to the hike. Her mother's life is winding down and she knows they have unfinished business. But she can not imagine being separated from her husband/soulmate."Who am I?" is a question both she and Porter feel compelled to examine. As explained by Gail, "The older we grew, the deeper the question plunged." And so they take off. With the sure feet of a gifted writer, Gail moves expertly between her back story (including spiritual and philosophical segues) and life on the trail. As for her actual feet as well as the rest of her body, forget about it -- the hike is pure torture. Extreme temperatures, snakes, tumbles onto hard ground, drought are just some of the trials they will face. The hike is 2,543 miles long and they plan on covering 20 miles a day. A friend in Houston mails their food and medical supplies to their designated stops, often primitive campgrounds or makeshift trailers bustling with much younger hikers. Will they make it? I'm not going to tell you... Will they survive the hike? That I will tell you -- YES and YES, with much wisdom and kismet. You have to read it. This is such an intimate portrait of marriage, perhaps even more so than the story of a hike. Gail shares heart, soul, spirit and body. Thus, my heart, soul, spirit and body ached and danced alongside the rocky way.I also have to add, that like Gail, I just recently lost my mother. Insights into death and dying from both Gail and Porter's lives made this an especially timely read. Namaste, Gail -- thank you for forging this trail of words and wonder. (this review also posted on my blog, Speed of Light: Books, Art, Nature and Life's Sometimes Illuminative Moments, 7-04-2013)

From the title and the kindle sample I had expected another PCT journey book...with day by day descriptions and excitement (And love) , instead this book became a change of life love story full of (too much) flowery prose and the second half has very little to do with the PCT. Probably make a good film for romantics and win heaps of awards but not what I had hoped for...and expensive to boot.

Found it uninspiring and in the end became a chore to read. If you're after a tale of adventure on the trail, this isn't it.

Sehr gut, kurzweilig bis zum Schluss. Anders als die meisten sachlichen Männerbeschreibungen, lässt einem die Autorin auch tief in die Gefühlwelt blicken. Sehr selten, dass ein Paar den beschwerlichen Weg auf sich nimmt.

Great read if you're looking for a book about the PCT.