Suzanne Roberts is a 54-year-old travel writer, memoirist, educator, and lifelong ski bum. (suzanneroberts.net)
Ever since quitting her full-time job at 47, Suzanne Roberts has written books, published poetry, traveled the world, and skied every winter while living off a modest income with her semi-retired husband.
We discuss Suzanne’s decision to not have kids, growing up with a family tradition of guilt, and her firm belief that education is the path to freedom. She talks about leaving her first marriage after realizing that her partner didn’t share her passion for long-term travel and backcountry skiing, how she built a life around friendship, and the appeal of quirky mountain towns (like South Lake Tahoe, California, where both she and I have lived) for those taking unconventional life paths.
Suzanne openly discusses her recent brain tumor diagnosis, how it factors into her travel and outdoor pursuits, and why “safety is a superstition” that shouldn’t stop you from doing what you love. Finally, she names the many female travel and adventure writers who have inspired her own path.
Suzanne’s Substack is 52 Writing Prompts.
Shout-out to Lauren Lindley (@laurenlindleyphoto) for connecting us.
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/suzanne
Recorded in October 2024.
Photo: Lauren Lindley
AI Notes
This is an AI-generated summary and transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Summary
The article is a transcript of an interview with Suzanne Roberts, an author and adventurer. She discusses her experiences hiking and backpacking in her younger years, including a month-long hike on the John Muir Trail after college with friends. She talks about her love for skiing and being a ski bum, prioritizing an adventurous lifestyle over conventional societal expectations. Suzanne shares details about her previous marriage, her decision to leave it to pursue her passions, and her current relationship with her husband. She explains how they are able to fund their nomadic lifestyle by cobbling together various income sources like teaching, writing, and speaking engagements. Suzanne also opens up about her recent diagnosis of two benign brain tumors and how she navigates life with this condition while still pursuing her adventurous spirit. Throughout the interview, she emphasizes the importance of following one’s wishes, surrounding oneself with supportive friends, and not feeling bound by societal norms.
Chapters
00:00:12 Introduction and Early Life Adventures
Suzanne Roberts shares her experiences of having fun with minimal money right after college, when she hiked the John Muir Trail with two friends for a month in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Despite challenges like injuries and broken equipment, she found the accomplishment rewarding and it proved her mental strength. This early adventure sparked her passion for outdoor activities like skiing, which became a lifelong pursuit.
00:03:04 Balancing Work and Outdoor Pursuits
While teaching full-time at a community college and pursuing her PhD, Suzanne went through a period of intense stress and overwork, juggling multiple jobs. However, she eventually quit her full-time teaching job to pursue a more flexible lifestyle, piecing together income from remote teaching, writing, coaching, and speaking engagements, which allows her to prioritize outdoor adventures and travel.
00:04:03 Marriage, Divorce, and Finding Her Path
Suzanne divorced her first husband at age 31 after realizing their differing values and life goals. She wanted to travel and pursue adventures, while he preferred a more conventional lifestyle. This difficult decision allowed her to find her true path and live the life she desired, without regrets.
00:06:22 Current Lifestyle and Travels with Her Husband
Suzanne and her current husband have quit their full-time jobs and now travel extensively, funding their lifestyle through remote work and pensions. They prioritize experiences over material possessions and live frugally, often visiting less expensive destinations. Their shared love for outdoor activities and travel has brought them closer together.
00:33:36 Dealing with Health Challenges
Suzanne has been diagnosed with two benign brain tumors, which she monitors regularly. While they pose potential risks like seizures, she chooses not to let them limit her life or adventures. She maintains an optimistic outlook and continues to pursue her passions, embracing the unpredictability of life.
00:44:01 Finding Purpose Through Writing and Mentorship
Suzanne finds purpose and meaning in her writing, which allows her to connect with readers and explore difficult topics. She also values her role as a mentor to students, considering them a source of enrichment in her life despite not having children of her own. Her father’s advice to “let the wish find its way” has guided her in pursuing her passions without regrets.
Transcript
Blake Boles 00:00
Suzanne Roberts, welcome to Dirtbag Rich.
Suzanne Roberts 00:03
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Blake Boles 00:06
Tell me about a time in your life when you had the least money and the most fun.
Suzanne Roberts 00:12
Well, the first experience that comes to mind is right when I got out of college, I didn’t have any money. And two girlfriends and I hiked the John Muir Trail. And we didn’t know what we were doing, but we wanted a post-college plan. And so we spent a month in the Sierra hiking and we didn’t spend much money at all. And we had a lot of fun. And in fact, I ended up writing a book about it.
Blake Boles 00:40
What made it so fun spending a month in the Sierras with your friends? I know that seems kind of obvious, but what were some of the moments that still stand out to you today?
Suzanne Roberts 00:49
Well, let’s be clear, it was not type one fun, it was the type two fun where you have to work hard and sometimes it doesn’t feel like fun when you’re having it. But afterward, it feels like fun because of the accomplishments. I mean, there were so many moments that were not fun. I hurt my knee, we had broken equipment, we got into arguments, but we completed the trail together, something that I didn’t think I would be able to do in the middle of it. I wasn’t as emotionally or mentally strong as I am now, I’ve hiked the John Muir Trail a number of times since then, but that first hike, that first backpacking trip for me proved to me that I could do a difficult thing. And so that’s why it was fun. And we also, by the end, we really connected with each other and what started out as sort of like, Mean Girl competition became more connection and that’s why it was fun.
Blake Boles 01:46
You’ve also spent a lot of time as a ski bum, right?
Suzanne Roberts 01:50
Yes, currently as well
Blake Boles 01:53
like long -term ski bum did you did you have any moments in life where that was your number one priority just skiing as much as possible
Suzanne Roberts 02:03
It is my number one priority every winter. So yeah, I mean, my requirement for where I live in the winter is near a ski resort, like within five minutes or 10 minutes. So it has always driven me. It’s just, it’s an obsession, I guess you would call it a passion. When I was in my twenties, I taught skiing in Vail for the winters and so it became a career for a while. But I’ve always made sure that I could ski all winter.
Blake Boles 02:36
How about a time when you were maybe not having very much fun? You were grinding really hard and you were doing what needed to be done. Like you were doing something now for the future, not living for the present. What stands out?
Suzanne Roberts 02:49
Well, I taught full -time at a community college for a really long time. And not that that wasn’t fun and I loved the students, but it was a lot of hard work. And at one point I was working on my PhD at UNR, University of Nevada, Reno. I was teaching full -time at Lake Tahoe Community College. And then I was approached by a colleague who needed a one -year temporary position field at Sierra Nevada College. And so I worked two full -time jobs and was working on my PhD. And I think it’s the closest I’ve ever come to having a mental breakdown because of stress and busyness. And it was during the school year, so I didn’t get to ski as much as I wanted to. And that was, I saved a lot of money that year, but it was a lot of work.
Blake Boles 03:38
And what do you do for money now?
Suzanne Roberts 03:40
Well, I pieced together, cobbled together a living. So I quit my full -time teaching job in 2018 and I’m still teaching remotely for a low residency MFA program. And so I do that, I teach, I’m there January and August to meet with the students and also work with them remotely. I also have a writing, coaching and editing business. So I have clients that I work with one -on -one and I read their work and do manuscript evaluation. I sell my writing, travel writing and other things. So I’ll do some like travel service, for money. And then I do make some royalties off my books. I make some money off speaking gigs. So it’s like cobbling together, enough money just to sort of squeak by.
Blake Boles 04:35
And can you just take a brief moment to brag about your writing? Because if anyone goes onto your personal website, it’s right there. Can you just give me the highlights, please?
Suzanne Roberts 04:45
brag about my writing. Well, I work really hard. That’s how I’m in a brag is that I think that if you’re a writer, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve published. I think what matters is that you sit in the chair and you write. And I’m here in Sucre, Bolivia. My husband is in language school and I wish I were in language school. My Spanish is better than his, but it’s still not great. And I wish I were out, you know, studying Spanish, but I’m not because I’m working on another book. So, um, I have published four books of poetry, a memoir about hiking the John Muir trail, um, a memoir and essays about international travel called bad tourists, uh, which of course, I’m the bad tourist and it’s about cultural blind spots. And then a book of essays called animal bodies. That’s about grief and loss and love and desire and death and, um, all the messy human emotions. And I’m working on a craft book called 52 writing prompts. And it’s based on a sub stack that I send out, um, every couple of weeks. Well, twice, about twice a month, uh, 20 minute writing prompts.
Blake Boles 05:55
What are you and your husband doing in Bolivia?
Suzanne Roberts 05:59
Well, we are here. He’s studying Spanish and I’m writing a book. We initially came up with this plan about a year ago. We were in Spain and we both wanted to practice Spanish. And it’s a lot less expensive to learn Spanish and practice Spanish in South America than it is in Spain. So we hatched this plan. And so we first went to Peru and we both studied Spanish and Adikipa. And then we had like kind of a week of like the kind of travel you think of right when South America like move. Like if it’s, you know, if it’s Wednesday, it’s Copacabana, which I don’t really love. Like I like it for a couple of days. And then I’m like, OK, just give me an apartment for two weeks in the same city or the same mountainscape or whatever.
Suzanne Roberts 06:48
So now we’re here in Bolivia. We’re spending one month in Bolivia before we sort of do another little jaunt. We’re going to the Salar de Uyuni that you recommended. I talked to my husband into it. And and then we’re heading to Buenos Aires and we’re going to spend some time in Argentina, Uruguay, and then maybe the last week in Colombia. And we’ll be home sometime in December.
Blake Boles 07:18
Do you have a home?
Suzanne Roberts 07:20
I do, I do, I have a home in Lake Tahoe.
Blake Boles 07:23
And what’s happening with it right now, while you guys are on your 20 -something, yet not 20 -something backpacking trip across South America?
Suzanne Roberts 07:33
We are just letting friends use it. We have monetized it in the past. We lived in our van and our van is not like a fancy van. It’s a down by the river 1999 Ford Econoline van. So we lived in our van for three months and we did rent our house out to friends of friends. And so we have done that. We can only do that if we do it long -term because of the rules in our towns. So we can rent it out at a month at a time but we can’t rent it out short -term like on Airbnb which we used to do before those rules came into place.
Blake Boles 08:13
Tell me a bit more about your husband, what he does, and what kind of a team you two are together.
Suzanne Roberts 08:21
Well, I will tell you that I would probably never make it on time to an airplane if I wasn’t married to him. No, that’s not true, because I’ve traveled alone a lot. But he’s the like three hour before the plane guy. And I’m the like, can we can we just get there and walk straight to the gate? Yeah. And so every time we have to take a flight, we argue about what time to leave. Like the last time I actually took a poll on Facebook because I was like, this is ridiculous. We’re not leaving at seven seven a .m. for one p .m. flight. We ended up leaving at like eight p .m. I mean, he’s crazy. So but but he’s very logical and he’s very practical and he’s good with money and numbers. And I’m terrible at all of those things. So we make a great a great team and we worry about completely opposite things. You know, like his big worry when we got to La Paz is like, you know, will we be like, you know, those express kidnappings where they take you to the ATM?
Suzanne Roberts 09:14
And I was like, I’m not worried about that at all. But I’m worried about, you know, the airplane on the rickety plane to look like. So we worry about completely different things. And he is he also quit his full time job in 20. It’s like 2021 or 2022. He worked through covid and then he quit his full time job. He was a college administrator. And and now he does consulting with other college administrators. And so we both are doing our sort of remote careers from the road.
Blake Boles 09:50
And how much do each of you work?
Suzanne Roberts 09:53
I work more than he does, and well, he makes more money than I do, but so, you know, go figure. But he, you know, sometimes he works a lot, depending on if he has to give a workshop or something to a board of trustees or, you know, leadership.
Suzanne Roberts 10:08
He’s got different leadership things he does. So sometimes he works really hard. And when he works really hard, he’s working, you know, 24 seven. But, you know, right now, he’s doing a little bit consulting here and there. And it’s always, you know, it pops up like we were on this island in the middle of Lake Titicaca, and like he had to take a work call for like an hour while we were like on this, you know, group thing. And everybody’s like, Oh, this sounds really serious, right? Because everybody else is just traveling and he’s trying to work on the phone. So these things come up, but you know, he doesn’t work a ton.
Blake Boles 10:44
And you, maybe how many hours a week or a month do you work?
Suzanne Roberts 10:48
It varies. I mean, the thing is, is my work is also the thing I love, you know, so I could work 40 or 50 hours a week. But when I’m writing, you know, or working with a student or having a meeting with a student, like, it doesn’t feel like work the way you think about that. You know, I mean, obviously, if I have, you know, some travel writing deadline, and it’s some service piece that I’m not really passionate about, it feels like work. But some weeks I work a few hours a week, some weeks I work 40 hours, it just depends on what I’m working on and where I am.
Blake Boles 11:26
So both you and your husband came from more conventional, secure jobs in higher education. You both quit sometime in recent years. And now you are essentially traveling the world together part of the time, but also going back home to Lake Tahoe to ski in the winters, other parts of the year. Is this an accurate representation of your lives?
Suzanne Roberts 11:52
Yes.
Blake Boles 11:54
It sounds dreamy.
Suzanne Roberts 11:56
I know it is pretty dreamy. When you say it makes me feel kind of guilty, but yeah, no, that’s it. And I will say that I worked so hard in my 20s and 30s and part of my 40s. I quit my job, my full -time job when I was 47.
Suzanne Roberts 12:12
And luckily we have state pensions because of our jobs and education waiting for us. We can’t take them yet because we’re not old enough and we’re not gonna take them. We’re gonna hold off as long as possible.
Suzanne Roberts 12:24
But it does feel like a real safety net. And I figured that it was better to spend time now traveling while we still can. And then later on take the state pensions, maybe when I don’t wanna work as much, when I wanna only work on my own books. So, so far it’s working out, but we have quite a number of years before we’re gonna take our pensions.
Blake Boles 12:49
Did you two completely financially support yourselves through this journey? Did you have any help from the outside or any magical windfalls?
Suzanne Roberts 12:59
No. You mean like the lottery? No, no, uh no.
Blake Boles 13:05
Lottery, rich parents, inheritance, something like that.
Suzanne Roberts 13:10
No, no, I might, so my parents, my mother never graduated from high school. My father never graduated from college. My dad was a writer and he, you know, he, he wasn’t, he didn’t make money. You know, my mother worked in retail and she worked her ass off and she taught me how to work hard. And she also helped me through college, which I think is an inheritance, right? Because it’s privilege, right? My mom helped me. I worked as well. And my husband worked as well through college. And we both knew, we both knew that the path to freedom was education. So I just kept going, you know, with a master’s and a PhD, because I wouldn’t have been able to get the job with a pension without those degrees. And I probably wouldn’t get coaching clients without those degrees. So for me, I worked really hard to buy myself freedom.
Blake Boles 14:03
You spent a lot of time in higher education, and I assume your husband did too. Um, what, what convinced you that, um, that this is the ticket to freedom aside from the message that you got when you were young from your parents, what made you think that you couldn’t find this level of success or this level of freedom elsewhere?
Suzanne Roberts 14:23
I didn’t have any role models for that. Like you said, with my childhood, I didn’t have any path for that. And my mother was extremely, extremely intelligent. And she never got to, you know, she never got to like, use that she worked in retail her whole life. And she pushed me toward college. And so a lot of it, even though she didn’t know how to do the applications, I never went on college tours, you know, I, nobody sort of knew how higher education worked in my family. But but she pushed me and she thought that education would be a path to freedom. And so that’s what I thought, too.
Blake Boles 15:02
Earlier, when I encapsulated your lifestyle, you said it made you feel a little bit guilty. Where does that come from?
Suzanne Roberts 15:09
Oh my God, my family, probably my mother too. I mean, guilt has been sort of my family tradition in a lot of respects, unfortunately. And when I would say to my mother, oh, I feel guilty, she’d say, well, that’s good. And I’d say, what are you talking about? And she’d say, well, that’s good because then it’ll make you do the right thing. So I think that again, that’s something that I need to shed and need to get rid of. But I also, like you, I mean, right now I’m traveling in the poorest country in South America. And even though I don’t make a lot of money, I am so rich compared to everybody else. I mean, all of us who are really from the United States are rich compared to most of the people who live in other countries. And so, there is this sort of like, I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I was born with all this privilege. And so I just always wanna make sure that I’m doing good in the world with the privilege, the unearned privilege that I’ve been bestowed.
Blake Boles 16:20
Can you tell me about how much money you and your husband have been living off of in recent years when you’ve had this lifestyle and, and maybe also tell me if you’re still paying off the house.
Suzanne Roberts 16:30
Yes, okay. So I have to admit that I am not the money person in our relationship and it’s really embarrassing. I mean, I have actually a number of disability. It’s called dyscalculia. And so I don’t do the money. And in fact, when my husband and I got together, the way that I would do money was I would be like, oh, I’m running out of money in my checking account. I’ll spend less. Like I didn’t balance the, I mean, I’m terrible.
Suzanne Roberts 16:56
So to ask me those kinds of number questions is really difficult, but I think we make together, we make like around like 40 or $50 ,000 a year. And that’s plenty. We bought our house a long time ago when it wasn’t as expensive and like Tahoe as it is now. And so we don’t have much of that mortgage. We have a mortgage, but it’s not like what it would be today. Our cars are like all like 20 to 25 years old. Like I’m not kidding you. Like we have old cars, we live super frugally. We often visit places that are not that expensive to travel in. So we make it work. You don’t need, I mean, you just don’t need as much money as you think you do.
Blake Boles 17:46
You told me in an earlier conversation that the only way you can pull this off is that you don’t have kids. Can you tell me about that and also tell me why you hate the term DINK: dual income, no kids?
Suzanne Roberts 17:58
Yes, yes, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, from what I’ve read, and from what I’ve seen with my friends, each kid before college is like a million bucks. Okay, so let’s just say we had two kids, that’s like two, we’d be $2 million in the hole.
Suzanne Roberts 18:14
And there’s no way we would be able to quit our jobs. We also are dependent on Covered California, the Affordable Care Act, which I mean, I mean, like everyone else in the United States, I’m very, very anxious about what’s going to happen next week in the election.
Suzanne Roberts 18:29
Because if our insurance coverage goes away, then that’s a huge expense that we’re going to have to deal with. I mean, because of our low income, we’re able to get our insurance subsidized. And I’ll go into it later, but I’ve been having some pretty significant health challenges.
Suzanne Roberts 18:46
So, with children, we would have, we’d have to cover them with insurance, we’d have to, and then we’d probably want to send them to some kind of college. I mean, we would be working full time in our jobs until we were probably 70 if we had children.
Suzanne Roberts 19:03
And so, we don’t have children, and I like children. I’m glad I don’t have any living in my house. I mean, that’s sort of how I feel about kids. I like other people’s children, but I never wanted them.
Suzanne Roberts 19:17
I’m not a baby person. I love puppies. I mean, it sounds kind of mean, but I actually prefer puppies over babies. And the one thing I feel like I’m really missing in my life right now is a dog because of our travels.
Suzanne Roberts 19:31
And as soon as I figure out, a girlfriend and I are talking about sharing a dog. My husband’s against it. But I miss having a dog, but I don’t miss having children.
Blake Boles 19:43
Where do you and your husband find purpose in your lives? And maybe differentiate between the things you do for money and the things you do for not money.
Suzanne Roberts 19:53
That’s such a good question. And I think it’s something that I constantly struggle with, right? Because I know a lot of people get purpose from raising their children, you know, and their families and stuff like that.
Suzanne Roberts 20:03
And we don’t we don’t have that. I get my purpose through my writing life. To me, if I write something that resonates with just one reader, then I’ve made a connection with somebody. And I write about really difficult things.
Suzanne Roberts 20:17
I write about death and grief and and things that, you know, unsayable things, right? Things that are considered taboo. And I think it gives other people freedom to to feel less shame about their own lives.
Suzanne Roberts 20:31
And for me, that gives me an incredible sense of of purpose. For my husband, you know, he his whole life was work. He really is really, really good at what he did. He was a college administrator. He was well loved.
Suzanne Roberts 20:46
He he he loved working with people who worked with students. He worked with students as a counselor before that. So when he quit his job, I think it was hard for him to find his purpose. And he’s been finding his way through a lot of self enrichment.
Suzanne Roberts 21:01
You know, he’s taking Spanish right now. He’s become a certified welder. He like he can fix anything. He’s learning how to, you know, put the van engine, the diesel engine back together. And so for him, he’s really finding his purpose in sort of self enrichment.
Suzanne Roberts 21:18
And we also have a wide circle of friends that we, you know, find our purpose and meaning in as well.
Blake Boles 21:27
Yeah, you and I were connected by a mutual friend, Lauren, in South Lake Tahoe, and shout out to Lauren. Lauren is super good with maintaining friendships and really prioritizes that. How did you first meet Lauren?
Suzanne Roberts 21:42
Oh, my God, I think everybody in South Lake Tahoe knows Lauren. She’s like the most fun person in our town, probably in the world. I met her through a mutual group of girlfriends. And we met every for a while when I was actually in my in my working life, when I was working full time, we met every Thursday night for cocktails.
Suzanne Roberts 22:01
And so we called ourselves the Girls Drinking Club. And and they sort of joked that it was like a book club, but, you know, without the books. And and so we met, you know, pretty consistently. And she travels a lot.
Suzanne Roberts 22:15
I travel a lot. So we would miss each other. But we’ve sort of been part of this core group of women. And women friends are super important to me and super important in my life.
Blake Boles 22:27
I have a number of friends from South Lake Tahoe and a number of friends generally from outdoorsy places and mountain towns that have chosen not to have children in order to have more time and more resources to focus on doing cool stuff in the outdoors and also on their romantic partnerships and build their friend circles.
Blake Boles 22:47
And in your experience being part of this same kind of group, is there a moment where people who decided that they want to invest in friendships and doing stuff in the outdoors where they start to second -guess things, maybe when their body starts to fail them a bit, if friends start to move away as they do in Lake Tahoe?
Blake Boles 23:13
Or yes, other people come in and take attention and sap energy away from something like a friend circle like you described. How have you seen people navigate this and how have you and your husband navigated this, I think, very common situation?
Suzanne Roberts 23:32
Yeah. Well, you know, it’s interesting because I’ve got like, I’ve got like, I’ve described that friend group. I’ve got another really big friend group of women and we all ski together. And and I would say in both groups, like 50 percent have children, 50 percent don’t.
Suzanne Roberts 23:49
And so if I’m thinking about the 50 percent who don’t have children, I can honestly say I don’t know one of my friends. I mean, they’re probably people in the world. But I would I would honestly say there’s not one of my friends who regret not having children, who regret not not having that kind of family situation.
Suzanne Roberts 24:09
And maybe it’s because I live in Lake Tahoe and we have so many people like minded to hang out with, to go skiing, with to go hiking, with mountain biking, with and so forth. So I don’t know anybody who regrets that decision.
Suzanne Roberts 24:23
And I never do. And I never have. And so there are people who move away. One of my very best friends moved to Hawaii after our Caldor fire. But we maintain a really close connection. You know, she comes back to Tahoe. We just went to Burning Man together. So friends are really important to me. And they always have been since I was a tiny girl. You know, I was the little girl who would go up to you and be like, OK, we’re friends now. So, you know, and you have no choice in the matter. I’m still like that.
Blake Boles 24:55
Often men will be accused of Peter Pan syndrome, never wanting to grow up. Have you ever been accused of something similar to that?
Suzanne Roberts 25:04
I haven’t. I think the only person who’s accused me of that is me.
Blake Boles 25:09
Is that your guilty voice, your inner judgmental parent?
Suzanne Roberts 25:14
No, I mean, you know, I’ve worked really hard to let go of a lot of shame around things that people, society would think I should be ashamed about. I cheated on my first husband in order to get out of that marriage.
Suzanne Roberts 25:30
And I’ve written extensively about that. My book, Bad Tourist, is about that, right? Like, I was a bad tourist in my own life, you know? And I didn’t want the traditional thing. You know, I didn’t want to be in this marriage and have this mortgage and have these children or whatever it was.
Suzanne Roberts 25:48
I wanted to go travel the world and he didn’t. We had, we had different worldviews. And so I got myself out of the marriage in a way that people would judge me, but I don’t judge that version of myself because that version of myself got me to where I am. She did things that allowed me to have the life I live.
Blake Boles 26:10
How old were you when you exited that marriage?
Suzanne Roberts 26:14
I was 31, I think, 31 or 32.
Blake Boles 26:19
And it was a pretty quick marriage, if I remember correctly.
Suzanne Roberts 26:22
It was, it was. We were together for five years. We got together when I was twenty five. And then we got married because all my friends were getting married. And it was the thing we do when we were 30.
Suzanne Roberts 26:33
Right. And we’re women or men, but mostly women want to get married around 30. I think maybe that’s changing. And we lasted nine months before the marriage book broke up.
Blake Boles 26:47
Can you tell me a little bit more about that and especially your realization of your differing values and what you want to get out of life?
Suzanne Roberts 26:54
Yeah. So I wanted, I wanted to travel like I’m doing now, you know, and he, he was more of the kind of like, yeah, let’s go spend a week in Hawaii, right? And that will be traveling. And, and like you asked the questions about like purpose and meaning and I was constantly asking those questions, especially in my 30s.
Suzanne Roberts 27:18
And he didn’t seem to be he seemed to be sort of comfortable. There were things that we, we really did well together. We liked our friends, we like to have dinner parties. He loved to dance, which I love to dance.
Suzanne Roberts 27:31
My current husband hates to dance. But you know, there were bigger things, right, that, that were not working. And I realized, I think one of the moments and I wrote about this, that I realized that I didn’t want to be with him, is when I realized that I didn’t enjoy backcountry skiing with him.
Suzanne Roberts 27:52
And backcountry skiing is like one of my favorite things to do in the whole world. And so if I wasn’t enjoying something that I knew I loved, because I was with him, I knew that I couldn’t enjoy my life with him.
Blake Boles 28:05
I had a rule for myself in my twenties, which is if I was going to get married to someone, I would want to spend five years in a relationship with them before I would take that leap and never ended up in a relationship that long.
Blake Boles 28:17
But I was very convinced that five years was some magical number. Like that’s when you have knowledge of this other person and you can make the real commitment. What about, how did that work for you?
Blake Boles 28:30
It, you went from five years and then nine months being married. And then all of a sudden it’s like, we don’t back, backcountry ski together. Like we got different paths. How did it turn so quickly?
Suzanne Roberts 28:42
I don’t think it turned quickly. I think it was a long time coming. And honestly, we had planned to get married and I called the wedding off the first time. So I knew, something in me knew, but I kept trying to convince myself I wasn’t trying hard enough.
Suzanne Roberts 28:57
And so we ended up moving to Tahoe together and I loved my life once we got to Tahoe. We were living on the Central Coast where we both went to college and I had been taking every winter and living in Vail and skiing and then living the rest of the year on the Central Coast.
Suzanne Roberts 29:17
And when he and I got together, it’s when I got my full -time job and we moved to Tahoe and I convinced myself that he made me happy, but really Tahoe made me happy. And so I said, okay, yeah, this is great.
Suzanne Roberts 29:31
Let’s get married because I was so happy. I thought it was him. And then I realized marriage didn’t make it better. I thought marriage would make it better for some reason, but it made it worse.
Blake Boles 29:46
Do you think that a place like Lake Tahoe or Vail or one of these other hotspots, Boulder, Colorado, for example, is a kind of place where you can go. If you don’t want to deal with the conventional expectations of society, of normal jobs, normal marriages, you can find your sort of dirtbag clan of fellow enthusiasts and make that your chosen family.
Suzanne Roberts 30:14
Yes, absolutely. And as you’re talking, I’m thinking about, I have friends from college who live in Marin County, for example, like I am a total weirdo when I go visit them. Like their friends all, I mean, not a hundred percent, but I would say 90%.
Suzanne Roberts 30:30
They all are like moms and they go to Pilates together and they go, they like to shop. Like, I don’t, I mean, I don’t shop for clothes. I have clothing exchange parties and I get my friends old clothes, you know? So it’s, or when I had my last book tour, I rented the clothes from Rent the Runway. Thanks to Lauren, that was her idea. But I think that I feel really normal. I feel like I’m a really normal life because of where I live. I think if I lived somewhere else, I would feel, I wouldn’t feel normal. This is actually-
Blake Boles 31:04
This is one of my favorite questions, which is what aspects of modern society do you feel like you are unable to conform to or adapt to? Yeah, tell me more about how you are weird and how when you go back into these other bigger bubbles of society, you feel like you’re not made for this world.
Suzanne Roberts 31:22
Well, I don’t really, I mean, like you asked about money and I’m just not even like, I’m not even sure about, about that stuff because I don’t do it. Like I, I don’t deal with the money situation. I mean, luckily my husband’s got a really good brain for, you know, money and numbers and, you know, and all of that.
Suzanne Roberts 31:39
Um, but I don’t like things that are really expensive. Like, like friends will spend, I’m not kidding you, thousands of dollars on a purse, but that’s not normal either. You know, I don’t, I just don’t, I don’t understand like that. Like, you know, I’m fine with like a $20 knockoff North Face bag that I got in Vietnam and like, you know, and, and one of my very best friends has a purse that’s like thousands of dollars and she’s named it princess. So we’ve named my purse, butch, you know, and so it’s like, who’s the normal one? I think I am, but, but among her friend group, that’s like a normal thing to want to do is like go shopping and spend all that money.
Suzanne Roberts 32:21
That doesn’t make any sense to me. You know, I mean, I don’t like, you know, I don’t get Botox. I don’t, I mean, I, you know, I, I get my hair dyed, which I did last week in Bolivia and now it’s falling out, but you know, I just, those things are just not important to me.
Blake Boles 32:37
So it sounds like not purchasing things is pretty easy for you, but do you feel like you have had to trade or sacrifice something in order to live the life that you’ve been living? You’ve like given something up and it was kind of painful.
Suzanne Roberts 32:51
No.
Blake Boles 32:53
Nothing, nothing at all.
Suzanne Roberts 32:55
just not having a dog with the traveling. That’s it. No, I don’t. I mean, I can say, you know, this trip, we’ve been on the road for five or six weeks and I miss my girlfriends, you know? I love my husband, we get along great, but it’s just not the same.
Suzanne Roberts 33:11
Like he wants to talk about something once and then he’s like, where do you talked about that? Whereas my girlfriends are willing to like hash it out and talk about it more and like, oh, let’s talk about that again and look at that angle. So I miss them. And I miss my girlfriends when I’m not in Tahoe, but I don’t feel like I’ve made, no, I don’t feel like I’ve made any sacrifices at all.
Blake Boles 33:33
Tell me about your brain tumors.
Suzanne Roberts 33:36
I love that question. Tell me about your brain tumors. So about a year and a half ago, I was on airplane coming back. My husband and I hiked the Camino in Spain and we were on our way back and I was working on my computer and I hate airplanes and I’m afraid of flying but on long airplane rides, I like that I get a lot of work done.
Suzanne Roberts 33:58
Like I can work for like eight or nine hours straight. I can’t sleep on a plane. I feel like I’m wasting my time if I watch a movie. So I’ve been working. Working, working, working, working in. All of a sudden, everything doubled on my screen and I thought something was wrong with my computer.
Suzanne Roberts 34:13
So I hit my husband and I was like, look at that. He’s like, what? I’m like, everything’s doubled. He said, no, it isn’t. And then I looked at him and he had two heads and I looked out the plane and there were two wings and I was like, I’m having a stroke.
Suzanne Roberts 34:25
So I’m like this, like, okay, I’m just waiting to die because we’re in the middle of the ocean. And I had had like some other weird neurological things. Like I had had some vertigo. I’d had a migraine, which I’d never had.
Suzanne Roberts 34:37
And so I went to the doctor and she’s like, oh yeah, okay. This is a red flag. We’ve got these neurological symptoms. So I had an MRI and they found a tiny brain tumor called a parafalcine meningioma. It’s like right in the middle. So it’s not in a very good place to operate if it comes to that. But it didn’t seem like that was causing my symptoms. So we just kept down this rabbit hole. I had all this testing done. And finally I had another MRI and they found a pituitary adenoma, which is a small tumor on my pituitary gland. And that can cause some of the issues. It’s right in the orbital lobe. So it might be when it gets kind of inflamed, it might be causing the double vision, might be causing the migraines. And luckily right now, those tumors are dangerous because they can cause all kinds of problems with your hormones. And by hormones, I don’t just mean like sex hormones. There’s like 12 different hormones that that little gland controls. Human growth hormone and cortisol and all kinds of things. So I’ve tested for all those hormones and they’re all normal. So right now I have two small brain tumors and they’re monitoring them every six months to make sure they don’t grow. And if they grow, then I’ll have to deal with it. And dealing with it isn’t great. But I feel really lucky because they’re benign, most likely. And I’m living my life, but I will say that they are something that come up.
Suzanne Roberts 36:23
Like for example, I was hiking in the Colca Canyon and I asked my neurologist, I was like, so what will be my first symptom if this meningioma grows? She said, oh, you’ll have a seizure. I was like, well, what if I have a seizure? Like when I’m skiing, you know, through a shoot or I’m mountain biking on the side of a cliff or I’m hiking in a canyon. And she’s just like, you know what? You’re more likely to like have an accident doing those things without your seizure. And what does she call them? Helmet sports or something, I don’t know. Anyway, so I’ve been trying really hard not to worry about it, but a couple of weeks ago in the Colca Canyon, we were on this super sheer cliff and it was really high up.
Suzanne Roberts 37:07
You know, the altitude makes Tahoe look like nothing. And I just felt a little dizzy. And I thought, oh great, this is the moment I’m gonna have the seizure and I’m gonna fall off the cliff. And of course I didn’t, but it does enter my mind and I try really hard to push it away.
Blake Boles 37:26
It seems very courageous that you’re traveling and not traveling in like a nice part of Europe or something, but you’re traveling in remote parts of South America while you have these two brain tumors that while benign could lead to a seizure. Do you feel like this is an act of courage that you are perpetuating?
Suzanne Roberts 37:45
No, I feel like I’m living my life. I mean, we were out walking yesterday and like a car came like with, you know how it is, the traffic in South America. Like you take your life into your hands every time you cross the road. A car came within like an inch of hitting me. That’s more dangerous than, you know, having a seizure in the Colca Canyon. I don’t know. I guess what I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that like safety is a superstition, you know?
Suzanne Roberts 38:14
I mean, I fell in my bathroom like six months ago and got a concussion. I mean, I had a little bit of vertigo and fell in my bathroom, but I, you know what I mean? Like you can hurt yourself in your bathroom.
Blake Boles 38:31
At least Coca Canyon seizure would be a really cool story.
Suzanne Roberts 38:36
for everyone else.
Suzanne Roberts 38:37
Yeah. Sorry.
Blake Boles 38:38
Excuse me, yes, what were some of your early influences, Suzanne, because you’re just, you’re exhibiting this kind of like optimism, this desire to live your life and not kind of take any excuses and kind of walk on the edge a bit in the same way that you’re still about country skiing, I bet, up to your edge.
Blake Boles 38:58
And it sounds like your family was not exactly the shining star that was telling you, pushing you that you can do all this stuff. Was it books, was it friends, was it something else?
Suzanne Roberts 39:15
Yeah, I think it was books and I think it was friends. And I’ve always been drawn to writers who are writing about adventurers and especially in the outdoor world. And I, you know, when I was in college, this is a long time ago, we were mostly reading adventure stories by men.
Suzanne Roberts 39:34
And so I had a really hard time trying to figure out how I could have those same adventures because I didn’t feel, I did feel fear. And I did feel apprehension, you know, even though I still do it. And so when I found a bunch of women writing about adventures and one huge influence in my writing life was Pam Houston.
Suzanne Roberts 39:58
So when I was in college, do you know Pam Houston? She’s- No. Right, her early work was Cowboys Are My Weakness. And I was writing these stories about skiing and my dogs and I thought, am I allowed to write this stuff, you know?
Suzanne Roberts 40:14
And my teacher, who I’m still in touch with, he’s in his nineties now, or maybe he’s 87. But anyway, he gave me her book when I was in college and he said, here, read this. It had just come out. It was like 1993.
Suzanne Roberts 40:27
And I was like, oh my gosh, this woman is writing about her adventures, her misadventures with men, her dogs. And it really gave me permission. And so I went and I sought out other women writers, early women writers, Isabella Bird, who wrote early about the Sierra and women who wrote about nature from the backyards, like Annie Dillard.
Suzanne Roberts 40:51
And so, yeah, I think women writers have been a huge inspiration for me.
Blake Boles 40:58
One of my favorite books in that department is What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, I believe by Kristen Newman. Have you read that one?
Suzanne Roberts 41:06
I did. And you know what, I didn’t connect to that book the way I hoped I would. Yeah.
Blake Boles 41:12
Are there some modern books, females traveling, solo female travel, that you often recommend?
Suzanne Roberts 41:19
Yeah, I love, there’s, well, I really love humor work as well. I love Susan Jane Gilman’s Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven. And it’s about traveling with a girlfriend in China, like, you know, way back when.
Suzanne Roberts 41:39
And it’s really, it’s really funny and really good. I also love Ellen Malloy. She wrote about the desert in really beautiful ways. She’s contemporary, but she died young, unfortunately. I love anthropology of water.
Suzanne Roberts 41:55
I really love also, I love books that are travel books, but they’re sort of non -conventional travel books where people are not just sort of out to have a good time, but they’re actually they’re doing something.
Suzanne Roberts 42:07
And then it, you know, and then it becomes a story. And one of, I think the greatest travel memoirs of the last 10 years is Carolyn Forchez, What You Have Heard Is True. It’s phenomenal. She went to El Salvador on the dawn of the Civil War in the 1970s.
Suzanne Roberts 42:27
It’s a very, very young woman. And, and obviously was working in human rights and volunteering. And she was on a Guggenheim, I think, a fellowship at the time. And that book is scary. And it’s interesting.
Suzanne Roberts 42:43
And it’s about opening your eyes to what’s happening in the world. And I also love, I mean, I love women who are writing about traveling with families, too. I think Camille Dungy’s guidebook to relative strangers about traveling as a black woman with a little girl in the, you know, through the United States is phenomenal.
Suzanne Roberts 43:04
I mean, I could go on for two hours. I’ll stop.
Blake Boles 43:08
You do teach writing. How about one more book that I remembered that I loved that’s relatively recent is Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris about two women cycling together on the Silk Road, I believe for a year and a half.
Suzanne Roberts 43:24
I have not read that, but now it’s on my list.
Blake Boles 43:26
at it. It’s so good. Let’s talk a little bit more about your life as an educator. And I want to come back to this question of purpose and meaning. So as someone who has decided not to have kids, but surround yourself with really supportive friends, you also have this kind of band of quasi surrogate young adult children who are your students.
Blake Boles 43:49
Can you talk about your relationship to them? And maybe what would your life be like if you didn’t have students to play an important role in their lives?
Suzanne Roberts 44:01
Yeah, it’s funny, as you said that I thought my life would feel really empty, you know, and even though I’m not teaching full time anymore, all of the so many of those students I’m still in contact with, I’ve become friends with my graduate students, you know, I talked to on a weekly basis, some of them, my former graduate students.
Suzanne Roberts 44:22
I really connected with them. And I would feel like my life was didn’t didn’t have the purpose and was empty if I didn’t have if I didn’t have students in my life. And so I do think even though, you know, I’m not a mother, right.
Suzanne Roberts 44:35
And I hate I hate that word. I guess, for me, mothering, you know, the connotation of it is is sometimes, you know, either smothering or it’s like nurturing and in some kind of way that doesn’t feel accurate to me.
Suzanne Roberts 44:56
So I like the word mentoring better than mothering. But I do feel like, you know, as you talked about, like, children, and they’re not children, they’re adults, but I do feel like my life is richer through these mentorships.
Suzanne Roberts 45:09
And I think what I want to say is something that my dad said to me about writing. He wrote me a letter when I didn’t get into graduate school. So my undergrad was in biology. And I applied for a degree in creative writing, and nobody let me in because I had this biology degree and I had bad grades because I had to take math, and I did terrible math.
Suzanne Roberts 45:32
And I didn’t get in. And my dad wrote me this letter. And in the letter, he said, the wish will find its way. And what he meant was if I wanted to be a writer, I didn’t have to go get a traditional MFA and go on a traditional path because I did not.
Suzanne Roberts 45:48
I don’t I still don’t have an MFA. I have a PhD in literature, but I don’t have an MFA. And I teach in an MFA program now. And I’ve taught a number of them. But I found a way. And so I think if you know what the wish is, you will work consciously and subconsciously to find a way to make the wish come true.
Suzanne Roberts 46:08
And that the things that you consider sacrifices like not having kids or going into debt, you know, because of schooling or moving somewhere cheaper for a while or whatever it is, won’t feel like sacrifices because the most important thing will be that the wish, the wish is finding its way.
Suzanne Roberts 46:26
And so I want anybody who’s thinking about wanting to pursue a life of travel or a life of adventure or a life that doesn’t feel status quo to know that if you follow the wish, none of the sacrifices will feel like sacrifices.
Blake Boles 46:42
And I’d love this, Suzanne, and I want to just dig in a little bit here. How do you know what the wish is? And were there moments in your life where it felt ambiguous and opaque?
Suzanne Roberts 46:56
That’s the problem. That’s the problem right there is not knowing, right? The problem isn’t getting what you want. The problem is knowing what you want. And I think, you know, I think it’s a matter of really trusting yourself, you know, and not listening maybe even to those who are closest to you.
Suzanne Roberts 47:14
And luckily my parents, you know, for all their faults, they were really supportive of what I wanted. My mother, when I like became a ski instructor was like bragging to her friends that I was a ski instructor.
Suzanne Roberts 47:27
You know, my dad wanted me to be a writer. Like I know a lot of parents who are like, you’re going to be a poet, you’re going to be a writer or what you’re being going to be a ski instructor. My parents, as long as it was what I wanted, they were all in, they were super proud.
Suzanne Roberts 47:40
So I’m lucky that way. But a lot of people have parents who were like, no, go to business school, become a lawyer, you know, you’ll make money, you’ll be more secure. But like nothing is securing life.
Suzanne Roberts 47:51
I mean, a lot of people are walking around with two brain tumors and don’t know it because they haven’t had a scan, right? I know it, but I could easily not know it. So like, you just don’t know, this life is short.
Suzanne Roberts 48:04
It is, that sounds so cliche, but it is. So you have to really pay attention to your inner voice and your inner self and what feels right to you.
Blake Boles 48:14
Amazing how can people find you online Suzanne and find your books and anything else you’re putting out in the world?
Suzanne Roberts 48:23
Well, I have a website like everybody else. It’s just Suzanne Roberts, my name .net. And if any writers out there are people who want to sort of exercise their creativity, I sent out a substack called 52 Writing Prompts.
Suzanne Roberts 48:38
And most of the content is free. And so you can just use your email address and it doesn’t go anywhere except for to me and I don’t use it for anything. And then paid members get all the writing prompts, all the backlog, and then I do give a few free, well, included writing workshops on Zoom.
Suzanne Roberts 48:59
So it’s 52 Writing Prompts. If you Google that in my name, it’ll come right up.
Blake Boles 49:04
Yeah, and I’ll throw a link up on the show notes too. Suzanne, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Suzanne Roberts 49:10
Well, thank you. It was great talking to you.