Ep. 215 - Diane Les Becquets: Between Heaven and the Rest of My Life

0:01 Stories from Real Life is a production of Media Well Done, LLC. On today's episode of Stories from Real Life with Melvin E. Edwards... Our guest is one of America's finest literary voices writing about the intersection of wilderness and the human heart. Diane Leigh Beck is the national bestselling author of Breaking Wild, The Last Woman in the Forest, and her newest novel, Where the Water Meets the Sky. Her books have earned numerous literary honors, including the Colorado Book Award. But behind the novels is an extraordinary personal story. During the writing of her latest book, Diane learned she had five brain aneurysms.

0:43 Following surgery, she returned to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, retracing the landscapes that inspired her novel and discovering a renewed understanding of life, faith, and creativity. This is Stories from Real Life, and today's story is Diane Leigh Beck's Between Heaven and the Rest of My Life. You are listening to Stories from Real Life, a podcast by engaging storytellers for engaged story listeners. Here's your host, author and journalist, Melvin E. Edwards.

1:27 Hello again, and welcome to another episode of Stories from Real Life. I'm your host, Melvin E. Edwards. Thank you for joining us for the podcast where real stories are so much more interesting than fiction. In today's episode, national bestselling author Diane LeBeck joins Stories from Real Life to discuss surviving five brain aneurysms, the restorative power of wilderness, faith, and her remarkable new novel, Where the Water Meets the Sky. Diane, welcome to Stories from Real Thank you so much, Melvin. I'm really glad to be here. Glad to have you. So before we get started with finding out the scope of your life, let's talk about something basic.

2:07 Tell us the origin of your last name. It doesn't look, it doesn't sound like it looks. Can you tell us about that story? So the origin of my last name, my dad's family came from a small town in Quebec, Canada called Saint-Pierre-le-Becquet. When I was writing my first book and I was wanting to come up with a pen name, my uncle told me I should choose the name Lebec. He had sort of Americanized the Lebec and called it Lebec and it means the kiss. I thought that was really sweet. This was back in 2001. Sadly, I did go through a divorce about that same time.

2:50 And needed to change my name legally, was per my husband's request at that time. And my editor and my family said, why not take the name Lebec? And so that's been my legal name ever since 2001. And it's sort of become my identity in many ways. Wow, that's interesting. All right. So let's let's go right into it. You've worked as a medical journalist, archaeology assistant, wildlife researcher and a creative writing professor. What unexpected job taught you the most about writing? My gosh, probably the archaeology work that I did.

3:30 And I say that because I was working in a really intimate space in many ways with the people. And conversations would ensue around the archaeological sites that we were working on in field school, around the campfires at night, camping under the stars. There was so much storytelling. But then we were also working toward a greater purpose, right? We were trying to piece together the fragments of human existence and what happened to certain tribes that we were working with and with certain archaeological sites. That said, there were also spiritual sites we were working on and we could feel that spiritual energy.

4:13 So there was that. And I think there was also this piece of being in this great remote wilderness that felt so untouched by so much commercialism and just the everyday people. So there was something very pure and holy about being there. And that was a vastness. You have the intimacy of the people you're working with and this specific archaeological site, but then we would also have this incredible canvas of sky and wilderness and ravines and chasms and mountains. And it just stirred in me something really rich and deep that I knew I needed to access in a creative way.

4:56 Okay. Okay. So as I mentioned in the intro, you've had surgery for five brain aneurysm. So after surviving brain surgery, is there anything that no longer worries you that once may have consumed your attention? Well, I do think I've said before, I do feel like the surgery changed me. And I think it taught me a lesson. And that lesson then could translate into something I think I don't worry about anymore. So when I first got the diagnosis, I was diagnosed with five brain aneurysms, two of which were breaking down. So I knew my life was in imminent danger. And so, yes, I feared death.

5:37 I feared the death of a vision, losing all of the memories I still wanted to make with my children, with my grandchildren, with my husband, my family, my parents, my siblings. I feared not being able to accomplish the things I still wanted to accomplish in life, whether they were mountains and experiences or whether they were stories I still had to write. There was just so much angst around this surgery going into it, knowing this could be it. And I wasn't expecting this. And this is all too fast. I also had the risk of losing my vision. And I'm a person who, you know, who looking at the wilderness, looking at the outdoors, looking into people's faces, looking into the eyes of people.

6:23 That's my life. I mean, that's life's source to me. That's lifeblood. To lose that vision, that was a fear. And then I think also just losing my mental faculties to be able to think deeply about things and contemplate things and put words together. That's been a part of who I've been since for as long as I can remember. So I went into the surgery or prepared for the surgery with tremendous fear and tremendous pleading to God, I'm not ready. Help me. There was a lot of anxiety around all of this. But there was this moment I was lying on the gurney and the big glass doors were in front of me where I was getting ready to get wheeled into the operating room.

7:05 There were so many machines. There were so many doctors and nurses scrubbing in. It felt so otherworldly. I had just FaceTimed with my sons. My middle son had flown out. He'd quarantined and flown out. There was still an outbreak of COVID going on that fall. This was fall 2023. So he was the designated child to come out and sleep at the hospital overnight and help me and said goodbye to him. I was just lying there watching all these people and sort of this frantic movement getting ready for my surgery, my brain and my head. And it was like everything I'd held on to with my fists all my life, all those rocks and boulders that I had just clung to so tight and strived and strived.

7:57 Just it felt like they just fell off my hands, off my body and dropped. And I felt light and I felt free and I did not feel alone. I did feel God's presence with me. I did feel this peace and this freedom and liberty I just never experienced before. I think that was the first that I finally understood what surrender meant. It was letting go of everything I'd fought for and strive for and held on to so tight, wanting certain outcomes. I just stopped, like something in me just stopped and let go. And that was all taken.

8:39 And I went into the surgery and the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, he took my blood pressure and he said, wow, you seem like you're really calm. Are you calm? And I said, yeah, I am. And this beautiful nurse came over to me and she said, what is your favorite song? And I said, what a wonderful world. And all of a sudden I had these just really precious, sweet memories of fixing dinner for my three sons, them sitting at the kitchen counter. And we had a stereo under the counter and we'd play Louis Armstrong. We'd be singing and dancing. That song would be playing. And so when my oldest son had gotten married a few years before the surgery, He chose that song as the song we would dance to.

9:26 And so those memories came back and we were surrounded by the people who loved us and whom we loved. And that's how I drifted off into surgery. And it was this really beautiful moment. I think in life, these really hard trials can end up being the most beautiful moments of our lives. And yet I was surrounded with complete strangers, but I felt such an incredible connection with them. I could cry right now. I felt so much love for them and so much love in that room. Who would have thought, you know? And I remember I came to in the operating room because when you're having brain surgery, the sedation is actually really light because they're constantly hooked up to machines to make sure your brain is still functioning as they're working, right?

10:08 They were literally suspending my frontal lobe and working underneath it. There was only one surgeon in the world who could perform the surgery. But anyway, I came to the operating room and my surgeon walked in and I say, he looks like Einstein. And my husband's like, no, he has much better hair. He's actually a very nice looking man. He has his most beautiful, tender brown eyes. And he walked in and I said, I can see. But I think what I said, those words meant so much more than I can see. You know, I could see with my heart. It just, I was changed.

10:49 You know, I can't say that change has, I've lived it out perfectly since then, but it's truly a rubbing post, a guidepost for my life now. And I think that would be the lesson that I learned was the lesson of surrender. I still have three brain aneurysms and though they were treated as best they could be treated, there are really rare type of aneurysms that can't be definitively treated. They're too risky and fragile. So I'll be followed up the rest of my life. So I learned the thing that I stopped fearing then was I don't fear outcomes nearly as much.

11:33 I think the only time I start to really fear an outcome is when I lose my center or I've let too much come between me and God, too much of life's chaos and busyness, and I need to slow down and recenter. And then I feel that peace again, and I don't fear the outcomes like I used to. I don't fear these three aneurysms. And before my surgery, if someone had said, not five, but you have three aneurysms you have to live with the rest of your life, I would have been afraid with every sneeze or cough or mountain hike I took or bike ride or swim. I don't fear. I literally get up in the morning And when I have my quiet time with God, I just feel like Jesus is saying to me, get up and live.

12:20 I hear it every day. Get up and live. And that means so much more to me now. It's a very long winded question. I mean, answer to your question. But it's it's it's a big answer. You know, I can appreciate that. Thank you. If you're enjoying today's conversation, I'd like to invite you to visit MediaWellDoneLLC.com. That's where you'll find everything we do at Media Well Done, from this podcast to our growing library of books. You can also get a schedule of where our authors will be for their next book signing so that you can come out and meet us and get your book signed. Whether you're looking for a thought-provoking novel like Nuremberg, Mississippi, a family in history like the names they kept, or the forthcoming historical piece, Baker Battery Goes to War, you'll find them all in one place.

13:09 The best part, All right, let's talk about your writing for the next few questions. So what first drew you to writing stories rooted in wilderness? I would say every book I've written, there is a strong sense of place. My first novel took place in Alabama in a small fictitious town.

13:51 My second place book, Louisiana, these were young adult novels. My third book, Season of Ice, which was marketed as both young adult and adult, took place in northern Maine. I think it's who I am. I think from the time I was a child, and I'll say this in two ways. One, I feel like it's part of my DNA. My mom's family, a lot of them were rural people who farmed and were good country folk. My dad's family were commercial fishermen, some of them loggers, living in a small fishing town. So I think we inherit some of these things as part of our DNA, a certain affinity for For just a natural way of life, a physical way of life.

14:36 And then I also think just it's my personality, meaning the more I was exposed to the outdoors, whether it was playing outside as a child, pretending I was Tarzan, swinging on vines, playing in the creek, building forks in the woods, fishing, going off in a fishing boat from the time I was six years old and fishing on the dock since I was three or four. Learning how to fillet fish, just digging in the dirt, rock climbing in college, working archeology as an adult, just all of those things, more and more my life is grounded in creation. And in the trees and in the leaves and the sky and the waters and the birds, you know, I still believe God speaks to me through the appearance of animals.

15:23 They've just come to me off the beaten path right out of the blue. Why did that bear cross my meadow and stop and just look at me for the longest time out of the blue? And, you know, it'll be a season of seeing 15 bears in, you know, one month. And then I don't see bears at all for two more years. It's just things like that. You start to pay attention. Is my higher power? Is God speaking to me? And oftentimes I do believe He is. So I try to tap all of that into my writing. And when I get stuck with my writing, I just need to go out into the natural world and I always find inspiration. And then I feel like it's as much a character as my characters are.

16:06 And I want to say people are also an important part of my story, but I tend to write novels that take place in small towns and in natural settings. I will never write a novel that takes place in New York City or Boston or Atlanta. It's just, I wouldn't have the language for it. My language comes from the wind and the trees and the sky and birds. Okay. So what attracts you to emotionally wounded protagonists? Emotionally wounded protagonists? Yes. All of my protagonists have been emotionally wounded. I think when I was a child, there was this bird that flew into the window, crashed on the patio, and my mom and I went out and we scooped it up and we put it in a box and we researched how to feed it and take care of it to try to bring it to life.

16:58 And keep it. And we didn't succeed. The little bird died and we buried the shoebox in the yard. And I don't know, I think life's lessons like that remain with me symbolically. There's this little bird that's just wanting to fly. And that little bird crashes into something unforeseen like we do in our lives. And it's very wounded. And yes, some try to come and nurture it and bring it back to life. Sometimes we succeed in coming back to life. Sometimes we don't. When really we just want to fly. And I think that that taps into the experiences I had throughout my life.

17:43 You know, you're going long. Life is really good. And then you crash against a wall. Whether it's the divorce, whether it's a parent's divorce and your family becomes fractured, whether it's an assault that happens to you, whether it's a husband dying of glioblastoma, brain cancer in your arms, or a husband committing suicide, these are things I've experienced. It just never gets easier. And you just want to be that little bird. You just want to tap back into that pure childhood when everything is possible. And how do we hold on to that part of our lives where everything is still possible?

18:24 You know, because we don't want to just not get back up. You know, we want to get up every day and live. We want to be the bird that rises again and flies. And so I think that stays with me every time I sit down to write. I think about the wounds that so many of us are carrying. If we just stop and look in each other's eyes, we'll realize we have so much empathy for each other, not vitriol and conflict, because we'll realize this great thing, this wound binds us all together. We've all experienced heartache. We've all experienced loss and grief and love and joy.

19:06 We have these things no matter which divide we come from, and they are so much more powerful than the things that divide us. I agree 100%. So I'm a writer, you're a writer, so we can probably talk all day about writing. But I want to ask a couple more specific questions about writing before we move on to talk about your book more specifically. So how has your writing changed over the past 25 years? I think it's grown up to some extent as I've grown up. I mean, I think, like I said, that a writer's work doesn't change unless the writer changes. And so we are constantly changing.

19:46 We are constantly evolving. So there's definitely, I think, a maturity that comes to the writing as we evolve. I think my writing has even become more grounded in place because I think my own life has become more grounded in place. I see the wounds of the environment and I identify with the wounds of the environment as wounds to our own soul. And I think we need to be better stewards of our creation that God's given us, but I also think we need to be better stewards of each other. So I would say that has become a bigger part of my writing. And then I think a big change happened the past couple of years With the surgery and learning to change my writing process, and I think that changed the writing.

20:36 So instead of really striving, striving and pushing to make the writing something, to push my career, again, that piece of surrender came in where I can sit back. I would explain it this way. It's a sort of a writing craft I've passed on to some of those students I've worked with, but it's Before when I wrote, I was the character. And so if there's a fight going on, I'm the one throwing the punches. If there's a kiss, I'm the one being kissed. It was me. And even though I wasn't that character, I would write it by inhabiting that character and saying, what does this feel like, look like, see like, look like.

21:20 And so then I would pull back now and I say, no, just step back, surrender that scene, let go, let them breathe and be their own and watch. And what do you see? And it's like literally I can hear God saying to me, what do you see? Look, what do you see? And it stops me and I pause. I'm not push, rush, 500 words a day, 1,000 words a day, 2,000 words a day. No, just stop, pull back. Look, what do you see? Don't get caught up in produce, produce, produce. Just really capture what you see.

22:00 That's been the biggest change for me. Wow, that's really interesting. My first novel was released in May of this year. It's called Nuremberg, Mississippi. Congratulations. Thank you. I had two nonfiction books before that, but this is my first novel. And it has three main characters. And two of them are a married couple who are influenced heavily by my memories of my parents. So I knew how How they would respond in certain situations as I was writing the book. But the third character, I had no idea.

22:40 I've tried to explain this to people, and if they're not a writer, they don't really understand. Just let him guide me to where the story would go. Let him tell me what he would do. So I sort of developed his personality in my head. And let him guide the story. And it was kind of fascinating because, well, first of all, I had never really been a fan of fiction before, but I'm a big fan now because of writing this book, really realizing that there are limitless opportunities for creativity. And this character, when we got to the end, I was as surprised as I hope my readers will be or have been by reading this book.

23:23 And it was a lot of fun. It's like, you know, every day we don't know what surprises await us. And that's the same thing with the fiction writing when we write from that perspective. And I think that's also what we can then transfer into our own lives. Because how often do we look at someone's life and try to tell them what to do or how to do it, right? How to be, well, if you just do this, if you just do that, oh, you're having relationship problems, let me tell you. You know, especially if we have children. And you learn to just step back. And give them the freedom to be. And so how I write, I'm trying now to also be that way with the others I'm around.

24:03 Love them, encourage, listen, but don't live their lives for them. I agree. I agree again. So let's talk specifically about your book called Where the Water Meets the Sky. So why did you choose Michigan's Upper Peninsula? Yeah, this book, this has my heart and soul. This book is a love letter to a really special place for me, the Garden Peninsula of Michigan on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. So it's on the southern shores of the UP. It's a little peninsula about 22 miles long, probably a mile and a half, three miles wide at its widest part. I'm not exactly sure. And my dad's family, this is where they are all from.

24:47 And so for me, these are my happiest memories of my mom and dad, my nuclear family all still together, my two brothers whom I just adore. We would go up there as a family and my uncle's fish house was there, Uncle Billy's fish house. Uncle Dick was a couple of houses down from him. I had Uncle Billy, Aunt Dolly. I had all my cousins, Mo and Mike and Peter and Kitty right next door. Then I had my Aunt Barb and Uncle Dale and my four cousins there. They'd come rent one of Uncle Billy's cabins. We'd stay in Grandma's house. It was just this Was perfection. This was like love and fun and freedom and exploring and building rafts and fishing and making blueberry pies and listening to back porch chatter and sitting around grandma's kitchen table and just family, you know, just family and love.

25:44 And bickering and laughing and, you know, chilly nights and getting sweaters and building campfires. My brother played the guitar and sang. He's unbelievably talented. My oldest brother, both of them are musically. The whole family around singing songs, good old folk songs, country songs. One was kick your shoes off. We'd all be kicking our shoes off. And the lake is lapping and the windows are down at night and we're listening to the lake and we're feeling that cool air. It's magical. That will transport you. That place just will take you to somewhere wonderful the rest of your life and the smells that just permeate everything.

26:24 So always I knew I wanted to capture that. I think it was just too daunting because I never thought I would do it well. I wanted to honor my dad before he passed. He's 89 years old. I want to make sure I could write this book before it was too late so that he'd have a chance to read it and be here. The book's dedicated to him. And it's a tribute to all my family, you know, that have just given me so much. And I would say that that place shaped me and instilled in me that love for the natural world, going to Uncle Billy's hunting camp, riding in the pickup trucks, riding the three-wheelers and four-wheelers. And they trusted us with so much. My Uncle Billy would just say, here's the keys, take the three-wheeler.

27:07 And then eventually that machine evolved to a four-wheeler, right? So just all of that and listening to ball games. That just shaped who I am. And it was also that time with family that was so pure and unpolluted, you know, with technology and computers and cell phones and I don't know, busyness. It's a slower pace there. And that place still feels timeless. There's a purity there. It still feels timeless. I was just there. So all of those things, I wanted to write a love story to the place itself. I wanted to write a love story to my family. And I also wanted to acknowledge my own wounds, my own personal wounds, and identify those with the environment and the effects that those have had on me.

27:57 So I took a young protagonist, you know, 18 years old. She's very mature. She's independent. She graduated early. She's thoughtful. She also is wounded. And I wanted to go back to that time in our life when everything is possible. If we could address that time, I think that was when my first real life experience wounds began. So that's probably also why I tapped into that age. And then to watch this character and how she might navigate this and how she might take the steps to truly heal so that she can move her life forward. And I think it doesn't matter whether we're 18, 25, 42, 62, We still have those wounds.

28:40 And how do we go back to a place where we're stuck and heal those wounds so that we can continue to get up and live every day and move our lives forward and reach what is possible? So those were real driving forces with the book. All right. So readers often describe your novels as hopeful despite the difficult subject matter. Is that intentional? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, life's too gloom and doom. If we pay attention to the gloom and doom, it can really take over. And we need light. We need that invisible light even in the darkness. I know a friend just sent a picture of this beautiful sunrise in the midst of all the fires out west.

29:23 And there still is beauty even in the darkness. And we need to hold on to that because if we don't, what's the point of getting up every day, right? We need to be encouraging each other and inspiring each other and writing work that will uplift even if there are difficult things in the book that are real to life. How do we overcome? How do we just get up every day with that sense of purpose and that sense of joy? All right. All right. So let's talk about your faith a little bit. So your faith becomes much more visible in discussing this book. Why now different from earlier?

30:04 Yeah, my faith has always been a huge part of my life. And maybe, you know, to admit I was trying to be part of this world too much, not feeling like it was a safe space to really stand on the mountaintop and shout my faith. But, you know, when you do come close to knowing your life, And I hate to say that it took that to say, hey, what really matters in your life? When I stopped worrying, that surrender lesson is huge. When I stopped worrying about the outcomes of my life, I didn't have to worry anymore about people judging me or people not accepting me.

30:47 I was in the world of academia, very intellectual world, not as many people who are faith spoken. But I've really reconnected in a more meaningful way with my family. And I think the deepest connection we have is through our faith and love for each other. And now it's like, speak my truth. You know, we forget what is truth and this is my truth. And I can't imagine being without it. And I want to speak that truth the rest of my life. All right. So how do you distinguish ambition from a calling, for instance? Sure. Ambition is when we see an outcome and we want it.

31:30 You know, it becomes very self-driven, self-inspired. We see something, we want it. Maybe God gave us a vision of something, but we see the outcome of that vision. And so we strive toward, and that's ambitious. And sometimes we can't even see the forest for the trees. We can't even see what's around us because we're striving so hard to get to that point. That's a real danger zone because with that, what if you don't reach that outcome? What then? And how devastating. And I think a sense of purpose, I find my purpose each day by kind of, it's like getting up and reporting to duty.

32:13 You know, I think the more time I spend with God, not seeking, like, okay, so we'll hear this, oh, you know, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open. But I think people are interpreting that the wrong way personally. I think what we're supposed to seek is to be close to God. And if we seek to be close to God, we will get the instructions each day. We will get the things we should set out to do that day and find our purpose. And we'll feel moral inspiration. We'll feel inspired in general with our writing, with our work, with our interactions with others. I think if we're just seeking an outcome, we're not going to necessarily find.

32:55 And I think it's not just seek whatever and you'll find it. Seeking that relationship with God first and foremost, then everything else will become apparent. And we don't need to worry about the whole future. Just worry about today, each day, check back in and just say, what now? What now? And that gives me a sense of purpose. And then I will sometimes just feel this expansion in my heart and mind for this greater purpose. I don't have the nuts and bolts of it. I don't know exactly what it will look like. And it kind of gets... Reshapes over time and evolves too. But I do feel this great sense of purpose that I'm supposed to be writing.

33:38 I'm supposed to be connecting with people. How specifically that's going to work out, I don't have to worry about that. Just get up each day and feel that inspiration. And when I feel inspired and I feel that peace, I know I'm on the right path. So how is that type of advice relevant to some advice or that type of lesson relevant to the type of advice you might give a fellow writer who's looking for success? Yeah, I would say first, it depends on if that writer is faith based or not. And a lot of them aren't. And I've worked with those students as well.

34:19 They sometimes have some type of spiritual component, but I can still talk to them about my process and I can say, you know, Writing is going to be work. You have to work hard. But working hard and striving are two different things. Striving, we're striving for an outcome. We're full of anxiety. We're trying to prove ourselves. We're a sense of failure if we don't accomplish what we set out to do. But what if I tell them, and I've said this to some people I've worked with, what if We judge our work by a different kind of fruit, not necessarily a paycheck or the big contract with the big five or the sales numbers. What if we stop and say, does this writing bring you life?

35:00 Does it make your life more meaningful? Is it connecting you with others in a meaningful way? Are you feeling a sense of purpose and joy in the whole art of creating something beautiful? Are you working hard too? And what does that work look like? We do have to work hard. Life isn't just gonna fall in our laps. God wants me to get up and work. What does that look like? But work and striving are two different things. And so I talk to them about what does their work look like? What do they want that to look like? Are they reading other books? I'll say you have two ears and one mouth, you should listen twice as much as you talk. We need to spend a lot of time each day listening, studying craft, working at this skill, right, this craft, being tremendously humble, encouraging each other, encouraging others, learning from others, and being okay that others are better than we are and that others are more successful than we are.

35:59 Just embrace it all and learn and listen. So I hope that's answering your question. I think it's a really good question, a really valid one. All right. So what do you hope readers remember years after they finish reading Where the Water Meets the Sky? I hope they will remember something really beautiful and really peaceful that will inspire them. Even if they can't remember the details of the book or the plot of the book, they'll think about Where the Water Meets the Sky and it will just be that Just like, oh my gosh, I remember that just felt right. It felt peaceful. It gave me that hope and that inspiration.

36:41 It made me feel more alive or more in love with being alive and being around others and being in God's world. I hope it leaves them that. There's a mantra I try to live by, which is know what brings you peace and protect it at all costs. And I want to say to the readers, listen while you read. Slow down. Don't rush through this. Listen to the language. Listen to the birds. Feel the air. Listen to the water. Feel the love of these people and this family. Feel the protagonist's struggle. And embrace that for your own life. Take that into your own life. We can live differently. That's great advice. I think I'm going to... I'm going to take that advice for myself now.

37:23 All right, so as we start to wind down, I've got five rapid-fire questions. That's intended for the answers to be quick, but of course, like I mentioned before we started recording, this is your platform. You can answer however you want, so you don't have to give one or two or even one or two sentence answers, however you want answered. All right, favorite place in the Upper Peninsula? The Garden Peninsula. Okay. Coffee or tea while you're writing? Any particular type of coffee? I'm trying to, I can't handle a lot of caffeine, but I know I don't have a favorite roast. I'm not a coffee connoisseur. So probably one cup of coffee in the morning.

38:05 Then after that, I think I switched to ginger tea. Okay. One book everyone should read. Where the Water Meets the Sky. Thank you, Melvin. All right. What's your favorite bird? The great blue heron. Hmm. Are there any of those where you live? Yes. Yes. There's a lot of them. Even just a couple of years ago, I came upon a heron rookery and there were nine little baby herons in their nests. And yeah, it was really special. All right. Final question for the day. What brings you peace? I would say family and home.

38:47 Family and home. And that home... That's not a quick answer. Home is not a house. Home is sitting around a campfire with my children and grandchildren, watching my grandson yesterday holding a turtle while we hung out at a pond. Home is surrounded by the people I love, and place is an important part of that, but that's not necessarily a house. It's where I really feel God's presence is in that love. That is a great way of winding up this episode today. But my guest has been Diane Lebeck. Diane, thank you so much for being here today.

39:27 I really, really appreciate it. Yeah, it's been great talking to you, Melvin. It's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed it too. So I will make sure I include links to how to get your book. That was Stories from Real Life. Join us again next week for another great storytelling journey. See you next time.

40:29 Stories from Real Life is a production of Media Well Done, LLC.