You’re the third person this week who has uplifted me so high that I have a hard time keeping my tears controlled. I am writing a story today about a first date of mine that turned into a gang rape back in 1976, and I can tell you that this kind of truth can really rip a heart open. However if we do not speak our truth, we do not give others permission to tell theirs, live theirs and in every way, heal what needs healing, and in your case, Maria, climb what needs climbing.

The “privilege” this man speaks of references a deeply patriarchal attitude that I run into all the time. How dare I go do what I do in all parts of the world when my job is to mix your martinis on the deck of a cruise line? How dare a woman carve lines where most men will never ski? How dare women send lines where most men come off the rock at speed?

How dare you try to stop me from being all I was ever meant to me? The good ones clap the loudest when we climb, pick us up when we take headers, and laugh with us when we come home battered and bruised. AND we return the favor. With heart, soul and gusto. Because this: it is indeed a privilege to hang out with a banshee woman. Damn right. If she has to sell her wild heart to have company in her life, the price is too fucking high.

When my last BF told me that “I needed to stop doing this,” this being my adventure life, that was the beginning of the end. Thass okay, my man, I am off to the Northern Canadian Rockies this summer.

You effing made my day. Thank you so very much. You’ve no idea.