AMID LIFE with Catherine Palmer

AMID LIFE with Catherine Palmer

44 keys to writing a life story

Lessons from a quest for speed and perfection.

Mar 18, 2025
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For a high school graduation gift, I received a large navy blue Samsonite. Zipping the suitcase closed the night before I left for college felt like packing away my childhood. All those chances to dream, play, and wander, my audaciousness, smothered between argyle knee socks and rag wool sweaters. It was time to get serious and follow the newly blazed trail for girls. College, marriage, children, work. I could have it all.

Not that anyone asked if that is what I wanted.

No one had ever asked me what I wanted to be, and if they had, I wouldn’t have had an answer other than this—to marry Robert Redford. The Jerimiah Johnson meets Hubble Gardner version.

Robert Redford as Jerimiah Johnson
Robert Redford and I would live in the mountains.

My mother said, “Learn to type.”

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