Dr. Mimi Zieman pictured above
By Jacey LaComb
Mimi Zieman is a OB-GYN doctor, adventurer, and now author. In her debut memoir, Tap Dancing On Everest, Zieman writes a tale of perseverance, inspiration and adventure. She details her life from New York City to Nepal, including a harrowing Everest expedition, as well as her adventures (and misadventures) in between. Zieman shows what is possible with enough strength and spark.
In a story that’s equal parts travelog and coming of age story, Zieman describes her girlhood in New York City, her awkward moments as a young medical student, and her amazing moments from the top of the world. I had the pleasure of speaking with Zieman over Zoom about Everest, and her inspiration for writing. The interview has been edited for grammar and clarity.
Jacey LaComb: Your expedition to Everest is the focal point of this memoir, but I think the meat of the memoir is all the changes and adventures that you had to take before you got there. Half the journey is getting there. How did you come to the idea of telling all these stories together?
Mimi Zieman: Great question. So when I got back from the expedition at age 25, I wanted to write. Oh my gosh, what happened? I wanted to write the expedition story because it felt very thrilling. But I was never able to get around to it, you know, with the medical school and medical training. So when I came back to the story now. At my age I found it interesting to look at how and why I got to the mountain at age 25 from being raised as a city girl. To parents that weren't hikers or outdoors people. So I wanted to really tell both stories. The how and why I ended up there and then the adventure once we were there
JL: As for Everest itself, your expedition is equal parts inspirational and harrowing. Still, with all the frightening moments you experienced, you have a great appreciation for the experience. You still found the beauty of being on top of the world like that. In a couple words, how would you put it?
MZ: I would say that the beauty is the whole reason I was there. So I think that's why I appreciate it. I wasn't there as a climber to climb the highest mountain. And going there took a lot of risk on my part in terms of stretching outside of my comfort zone to provide medical care and also leaving medical school. And what was really driving me was how good I felt in the mountains and how much I appreciated the splendor and the majesty.
JL: Another moment I found really powerful was when you describe mountains as a sort of home for you, somewhere you return to, comparing it to the places your family return to: Germany, Israel, Latvia. I really like how your place is something less concrete than a country, it’s more about the thrill and awe you get going to the mountains. You mention you’ve never returned to Everest, but do you still return to the mountains, in some way?
MZ: 100% my dream is still to live in the mountains someday. I haven't gotten to do that yet; I live in Atlanta. My family is still in New York City, so I go there a lot. But I try to hike and be in the mountains as much as possible, because when I go to the mountains, it's like a switch turns on and I'm instantly happier. It just feels like I'm in my place in the world. I guess some people feel that at the beach and with the ocean. It's a spiritual feeling.
JL: Back to your story, the mountains are where there’s a big turning point in the story, when you’re at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) and you have to help an injured hiking partner. It’s here where you start thinking again about becoming a doctor. You connect it to the first time you’d considered a medical career, after a horrible OBGYN experience. You wrote “So many physicians trace their interest in medicine to interacting with a kind doctor or an experience with illness or a sense of altruism. My spark was ignited by indignation. Five years later, my experience with John made me consider medicine again.” And I really think it’s astounding how just one or two little experiences can be what changes or makes our lives. Do you think you are still carried by that spark of indignation that started this all, or have all your other experiences created more meaning and inspiration for you?
MZ: Indignation still motivates me in today's world where women aren't getting the access to health care that they deserve.
JL: Absolutely.
MZ: So I spend a lot of my time on reproductive rights advocacy and that's all spurned on by indignation. But when I'm in the clinic, seeing patients, what I'm feeling is compassion and feeling really grateful that I can be useful helping someone. So all of those more altruistic things you associate with it. I would say both are true.
JL: That's cool. They've sort of built up together.
MZ: You know, I was motivated by feminism from a really young age because of my mother and grandmother and being single mothers, both of them being divorced, you know, supporting themselves and their kids. I was always drawn to wanna help women. So OBGYN fulfilled that too.
JL: Speaking of sparks and getting things started, how did this memoir come to be? You mention in it that you’d always wanted to write about your experience on Everest, but life made it too busy. Once you finally found the time to write, was it difficult to get going on it, or did you have to take some time to sort of gather yourself and remember some of the harder memories?
MZ: It really was a process that happened intermittently over time. I was not thinking about writing this book for most of my life. I've kind of tucked it neatly away, went on, had my career, raised 3 children. And then a few things happened that eventually made me return to writing. The first was I read the book Wild by Cheryl Strade, which is a hiking book that's actually about grief and her transforming as a person and when I read it for some reason I had the thought maybe it's not too late to tell my story. I think because she had a hiking memoir, it sort of made me think that. But I still didn't do anything. A couple of years later I had a lull in work and I took out my Everest journal and I transcribed it into a computer file. But then I put it away and didn't do anything with it for many, many more years. Then I was in a pretty intense job for a couple years, that I just left. One day, things just came to a head. I resigned one day in January 2019. The next morning, I went to my home office and I just started typing. And the book started coming out of me. And I just devoted everything to writing, to learning the craft of writing, to taking courses, to reading books on it.
JL: That’s wonderful. I’d like to talk a bit about the book. You alternate writing about your experiences during your college years and young adulthood with stories from when you were growing up, rather than going through a perfect chronological order. I think that really emphasizes how our pasts give us reflections for the present. Was this something you had intended for this memoir?
MZ: Yeah, so first of all that day I started writing all this stuff about my family came out. I would never plan to write that. And then I had to figure out how to tell these two stories together. My family, about as we talked, the how and why I got to the mountain and then the mountain adventure. And some of those early track chapters I tried to be more thematic than chronological. There's this fear when you're telling family history or backstory that you know “am I boring the reader?” and stuff so I tried to figure out a way to make it relevant.
JL: Yeah, I think you did a really good job about that. It's a very thematic book.
MZ: Thank you.
JL: You mention in your memoir about how you were always inspired by heroines in the books you read, including Harriet from Harriet the Spy. I also found Harriet the Spy inspirational when I was young. I find it very interesting how you even found literary inspiration that carried into your inspiration to go to the Himalayas. Who do you currently consider to be an inspirational character?
MZ: Well, I still consider those people inspirational. I mean, I think I feel inspired by most books I read. So I do think literature is a way to learn about other people. It could be fictional or nonfictional. But a lot of people are drawn to true stories, and I think we are drawn to learn about other people and want to relate to their experiences and see how it relates to us.
JL: And one last question about Everest. You touch on it a bit in the memoir, but Everest climbing and its history have become quite contentious over the years, especially now with more and more climbers visiting. People have a lot more questions about colonialism’s effect on the region and specifically the disrespect some climbers have shown towards Everest, which is such an important mountain to Tibetians because it is a holy place.. You, however, are always so respectful of the cultures you visit. What do you think is the key to being a respectful traveler and enjoying other cultures without causing harm?
MZ: I think it's really tricky and I mentioned that a little bit in the book. It was tricky for us. So I think it's a really delicate balance. At the end of the day, you'd have to respect the people living there and try to be respectful. Sometimes there are, you know, cultural -what's the word I'm looking for?- Not clash, but when things don't line up. I mean, sometimes our goals aren't gonna line up exactly and you know, they rely on tourism, so they want visitors and we want to go to those places. So I think it's an ongoing process to try to do the best by them.
JL: I like that. Do the best by them.
Bio: Jacey LaComb is a student at SUNY Oswego, studying for a bachelors in journalism and an associates in creative writing. She lives with her family in her hometown of Carthage, New York.