The Art of Holding On and Letting Go (35 page)

“No! I didn't mean it that way. I don't know, I think my parents' divorce kind of messed me up.”

“Do they still talk to each other?”

“Barely. My dad picks me up on Wednesdays and waits in the car for me to come out.”

“Wednesdays at the pupusaria?”

“He's working in South America for a whole month. No pupusas for a while.”

“You could take me instead.”

“All right, yeah, this Wednesday. It's a date. You have to speak español though.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Nah. Everyone else will though. It's a bunch of Latino guys eating at folding tables in this Salvadoran lady's garage.”

“The pupusaria is at someone's house?”

“So
delicioso
.” Tom rubbed his belly, then laughed.

“What?”

“Just picturing you there with all the dark-haired hombres. Kind of like you hanging out with the goth crowd at school. How did that even happen?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. Kaitlyn and I joked that it was destiny.”

“After Adam's accident, it was like the earth had tilted. Everything was just a little bit off. I didn't feel like the same person. But then, you know, time goes by, I was busy with school and basketball and everything. And then you showed up, and the earth tilted again.”

I had felt it flipped upside down.

“You looked so lost. Your shiny gold hair, and your deep, dark, sad eyes. Sitting at the goth table. You were like …” Tom paused and grinned. He continued in a dramatic, deep, slow voice, “The Angel of Darkness.”

“Angel of Darkness!” I squealed.

We cracked up, and I shoved him onto his back. I jumped on top of him, pinning his arms.

“I am the Angel of Darkness, and I will haunt you forever!”

“Have mercy,” Tom cried, struggling to free himself. “Damn, you're strong.”

He stopped struggling, and I relaxed my hold.

“I was worried you wouldn't come back from California,” he said. “Me too.”

“I'm so glad you decided to come home.”

“Me too.”

I brushed my fingertip over the scar on his lip, then leaned down and kissed him. A deep, lingering, blood-cell-bursting kiss. Our lips parted, and he whispered, “Have mercy.”

In one swift movement, he flipped me onto my back and pinned me. “Ha! Gotcha!”

His eyes locked with mine, and our lips met again, hungry and searching. The Earth tilted.

A mountain of gratitude to:

My editor, Jotham Burrello, for ushering my book out into the world. For sharing my vision and for having confidence in my writing and what I have to say.

This manuscript rode a wave of luck and landed in the inbox of a fellow rock climber, Amanda Hurley. Your enthusiastic embrace of Cara's story was so rewarding, as was that of the three judges of the Helen Sheehan YA Book Prize, Kelly Jensen, Anne Rouyer, and Meghan Dietsche Goel.

The rest of the team at Elephant Rock Books: Joe Giasullo, Anne McPeak, Jessica Powers, Christopher Morris and Grace Glander. Fisheye Graphic Services crew: Lee Nagan, Dan Prazer, and designer Amanda Schwarz. I couldn't have dreamed of a more perfect cover.

Carrie Pestritto, my energetic and exuberant literary agent whose emails are always filled with exclamation points!

The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the kidlit writing and blogging communities. Especially my longtime critique partners and mentors, Tracy Bilen, Lisa Chottiner, Laura Handy, and Nan Cappo, who have been there from the beginning. I couldn't have grown as a writer and persevered without your support year after year.

An extra shout out to Lisa for teaching me Yiddish. And Gladys Venegas for correcting my Spanish.

Edite Kroll: you were the first publishing professional to believe in this novel. In memory of Heather McManus: this manuscript benefited from her hours of careful reading alongside Edite.

My first teen reader, Elena. Sorry you had to read the super sad early draft.

Carolyn Coman at the Highlights Foundation Whole Novel Workshop, for rescuing me from the dead-parents canon of YA literature.

Tim Wynne-Jones for a year of cranky first-draft critiquing / missed deadlines on a different novel via Humber College. Lessons learned.

Bri Kinney at Planet Rock for answering my questions about the intricacies of teen competition climbing. Any mistakes are my own or a purposeful altering to better suit the story.

Kathy Gardner, my first rock climbing compadre.

Cherie and Gerry for sharing their Ecuador travel experience and enduring my picky questions. “So, the market was colorful, but what did you smell? What did you touch?”

My friends and family who continued to ask about my writing year after year, even when I had little progress to show beyond my own computer files. You are here in my neighborhood, spread across the country, and even overseas. You know who you are, and I'm sending each of you a super squeeze hug.

An extra hug for my Ecuadorian friend Martha for making sure I got it right.

Mom and Dad, for always being there and believing in me. For letting me read any book whenever and wherever I wanted.

My brother, Jason, for all things computer related. You awesome nerd.

My patient husband, Bob, who marvels that I somehow chose the two worst-paying careers—social work and writing. We have years of memories of camping, climbing, and traveling, and many more adventures ahead of us.

My daughter, Maya, most of all.

Elephant Rock's Amanda Hurley discusses the writing of
The Art of Holding On and Letting Go
with author Kristin Bartley Lenz. Learn more about Kristin at kristinbartleylenz.com.

Amanda Hurley:
How did
The Art of Holding On and Letting Go
come to be?

Kristin Bartley Lenz:
I moved from Michigan to Atlanta, Georgia, in my midtwenties and discovered a new world of outdoor enthusiasm in the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina: hiking, backpacking, white-water kayaking, climbing. My husband and I followed the careers of well-known mountaineers, and one by one, each of these climbers died attempting epic summits. These were men with wives and children at home. Around the same time, a famous female mountaineer, Alison Hargreaves, died on K2, and she—unlike her male counterparts—was criticized for leaving her children behind. I began to wonder what it would be like to be the child of a famous mountaineer. How would that child's upbringing be different? And what if both of her parents were extreme mountaineers, not just one? How would this shape her world?

AH:
So these essential questions are triggered by a tragedy you observed. Then how soon after did you realize Cara would be the young hero to sort it all out?

KBL:
I sat with these questions for several years and wrote a different novel based on my social work experience. That first novel hasn't been published, but it was the practice I needed to understand how to write Cara's story. An article in
Outside
magazine about families left behind by the deaths of mountaineers brought me back to those earlier questions, and Cara was born.

AH:
You have several different locales for this tale: the mountains of Ecuador, the suburbs of Detroit, the wilderness of California. Why did you choose these settings for Cara's story?

KBL:
My husband and I lived in California for four years, and the Angeles National Forest was our rock climbing playground for the first year. I could clearly picture Cara and her family living there. I would love to go to Ecuador one day, but for this story I had to rely on research. I wanted Cara's parents' expedition to be somewhere other than the Himalayas. Everest has become overrun by commercial operations, and many of the truly dedicated mountaineers are seeking other remote mountains. Chimborazo is unique in that it rivals Everest in height because of its location at the bulging equator—just like Cara's dad explains in the story. There really was a World Youth Championship near Quito several years ago, and around that same time I had friends who traveled to Ecuador. They took notes during their trip and shared photos and descriptions. And metro Detroit is my home. It's where I grew up and where I eventually returned to raise my daughter. Through Cara's story, I wanted to explore this idea of home and what it means to each of us.

AH:
To quote the dust jacket copy—“discovering that home can be far from where you started.” This is the major theme of the novel. It resonated with the Sheehan judges and subsequent readers. My previous question was about place, but Cara learns that the idea of home transcends a physical place.

KBL:
“Home is where the heart is” has become a cliché, but it only tells part of the story. Cara's heart is in California, but it's also in Michigan, and there's a piece left behind in Ecuador too. Home can be what you make it, wherever and whenever you need it to be.

AH:
Cara's is a soul divided. Between the mountains and the city. Between her old life and new. Why did you structure the novel this way? What is it about Cara's struggle that makes her story universal?

KBL:
I wrote Cara's story a few years after I moved from California back home to Michigan. I was struggling with this transition and the losses that came with it: I had left my job, friendships, and a beautiful climate with daily access to nature. I was a new mom, feeling isolated and uncertain in a new environment, trying to raise my daughter. My grandmother died suddenly. I think everyone can relate to this feeling of loss during times of transition. Children and teens especially experience so many transitions as a normal part of growing up: changing schools, changing friends, even their own changing bodies. Even if you haven't yet experienced the loss of a loved one, I think everyone can connect in some way to Cara's struggle.

AH:
Cara relies heavily on the wisdom of nature writers. What is your connection to these writers and works? How do you think these works shape or mimic Cara's journey?

KBL:
I'm not sure when I first discovered some of these nature writers. A friend gave me one of Rick Bass's books many years ago, and I've long been a fan of Barbara Kingsolver. But it was Annie Dillard's
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
that really made me want to incorporate these themes into a young adult novel. Dillard was influenced by Thoreau, and I stumbled upon an old copy of
Walden
at a used bookstore. When I refer to
Walden
in Cara's story, it's my own beat-up copy that I'm describing— the yellowed pages, the cover that's held on with tape. These writings have been a respite during stressful or lonely times, especially when I've been unable to be out in nature myself. Many of these books are about seeking—either the author or her characters are looking for something, something they've lost or something they need to find—in order to heal, to feel complete, content. They're a window into the peace and depth of wilderness. They're about discovery and asking big questions. In this way, they were perfect guides for Cara.