Finding a fit

the world record (sadly unrecognized by the Guinness World Records due to a lack of paperwork).

She also found herself. “During that time, the mountains both broke me and rebuilt me.” After the journey she moved to San Diego to be with her partner, whom she met along the way, and became a life coach.

Years later, Jagger has written her memoir of this trying time. The soul-searching story resonates with today’s audience — one with more remote and freelance work than ever before, and startups dotting the landscape. Many of us, myself included, have experienced a similar period when we’ve looked around at our careers and thought: “Why am spending my whole day waiting for it to end?” So, like Jagger, I went back to school and found another way. This is the pull of Jagger’s book — to see how someone else went about this path, and for some readers it may be the push they need to try it for themselves.

There are many stories within Jagger’s story, featuring the places she visited on her route. Each of these could have been a short story on its own. It’s easy to see them in the pages of magazines: the strong woman who beat all the odds. In their current format, however, much of this gets lost.

With many thought-provoking ideas and intelligent nuances, it is the in-betweens that this book could have done without. With more concise writing in sections that are instead stream-ofconsciousness, the lessons in the book — about life, loss and learning — could be much more powerful.

The countless pages about skiing are alienating for someone who has never stepped into skis (yes, this happens, even in Canada). Steph has a very specific upbringing — upper class; white, and although she acknowledges this from the get-go and admits her advantages, there could have been more acknowledgment of other experiences — even just by cooling it on the ski talk, about an expensive sport that may not be terribly important to many immigrants and their children. It was her path, but at times the details get in the way.

When Steph meets Chris — the love interest — I rolled my eyes. Of course it always has to be about a boy. But this premature judgment soon became a regret because Steph doesn’t make the story all about love at all. Meeting Chris through a friend at one of her ski spots, at first she doesn’t think anything of him — until she learns more about his past and the way he has made his own success. After continuing to talk to him throughout her trip, they meet up again and acknowledge that their connection has become more serious. This is the point where too many times, the heroine jumps ship for love; instead, Jagger acknowledges the importance of having a supportive partner, but continues the journey on her own.

Just past the book’s middle mark, Jagger has an insight regarding a childhood memory: “When I was growing up I spent a fair but of time fumbling around in my parents’ closet, digging through tissue paper, trying on hats. Looking back, I see a little girl desperately searching for something that fit.” It’s a beautiful analogy tied to her wanting to be more like her father in her later years.

It’s one of many beautiful pieces within the memoir, and some further editing to allow them to shine would have made them more powerful. But despite these storytelling flaws, no one can doubt that what Jagger did was wildly brave, and an example to us all.