In this book‑trailer monologue, Hope Edelman introduces herself as a writer, mother, and wife living in Topanga Canyon, California, alongside her husband and three‑year‑old daughter who believes in an imaginary friend. She describes her family’s eclectic, alternative lifestyle and her own skeptical worldview. When her daughter’s imaginary friend becomes overwhelming in the fall of 2000, Hope embarks on a desperate quest to help her child, traveling to the rainforests of western Belize. There she encounters Maya healing traditions where body, mind, and spirit are treated as one, and learns from bush doctors who use plant medicines and sacred waters. The experience forces Hope to confront her skepticism, leading to a profound personal transformation that reshapes her understanding of belief, motherhood, and the interconnectedness of health and spirit.
Chapters
This is the story of a little girl with a big imagination, a father with an open mind and a sense of adventure, and a mother whose mission is to keep everyone happy and safe. That's me. My name is Hope, and this is my family. We live in Topanga Canyon, California, the alternative living capital of LA, with neighbors who raise chickens and tortoises and celebrate the solstices. My husband believes in destiny, karma, and several other concepts that keep my eyebrows perpetually raised. My 3-year-old daughter believes in fairies and monsters and an imaginary friend who accompanies her wherever she goes. Me? I'm the family skeptic, a card-carrying member of the Church of the Senses. I have to see to believe. But if you catch me at a low point, like the fall of 2000, when my daughter's imaginary friend started getting dangerously out of hand, I can become capable of doing things I never would have dreamed possible. Because what mother wouldn't do anything to help her child, even if it means taking her deep into the rainforests of western Belize? Belize is the smallest and least populated country in Central America. It's a country of small farming villages and bustling towns, where a deep respect for the wonders of nature coexists with the rigors of modern society, and where the traditions from an ancient past continue to inform the present. Here in the land of the Maya, body, mind, and spirit are tightly intertwined. Those who are sick in body are believed to first be sick in spirit, and so Maya healers always treat both, even with a child, especially with a child. And so perhaps it is not surprising that it was here in Belize, where bush doctors comb the jungle in search of plants that cure body and spirit, And where the healing waters run clear and cool, that my family discovered an even larger truth than we had set out to find. My name is Hope. I am a writer, a mother, and a wife. And this is the story of one week in Central America that forever changed my life.
