Hilary Young Ritter was 10 when she almost died while swimming with her friends in a creek in Keddie, a small mountain resort town in California with a one-room post office “run by a gossipy older woman” and a tiny general store, where she’d buy Marlboro red cigarettes for her mom as a kid.

After falling unexpectedly into one of the creek’s drop-offs, made by machines digging for gold over the years, one of her friends, a 14-year-old named Rami who was much taller and heavier than her, pulled her down and stood on her shoulders to push herself up and out of the water while Ritter’s lungs “filled with pain as water flooded them.”

“I saw myself floating face down in the creek, my blond hair floating like straw on the surface,” she writes in her memoir “Trusting Gus.”

“I felt so much peace. I could hear, no … feel, an almost musical hum surrounding me. Everything was brighter. … I could feel the intrinsic connection of each individual plant, rock and insect, not only to each other, but to me. It was magical. I was a part of it all. I knew all of it as if we had all been together for a very long time.

“Everything was just an extension of myself. Most of all, I could feel love. A calm, gentle, powerful caring that was a part of me now. It was perfect comfort. I was home. I was connected. I was free.”

For the Novato resident, whose childhood was marred by traumatic experiences — including navigating life with her father, who she feels would have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with schizophrenic tendencies today — she didn’t want this feeling to end.

Some of his erratic behavior included selling his car for $1 to a stranger so he could buy her ice cream, frequently leaving and coming back with no notice and pointing an antique gun at her and other family members.

But she felt a tug back into her body as CPR was performed.

“The place outside my body felt a lot safer. It was not my turn yet to be there; I knew that somehow, but I was so disappointed that I couldn’t stay in that magical, safe place,” she writes.

The family would later move to Marin, where her mom sold hot dogs at a swap meet in Sausalito and pretzels at local baseball games and later opened a women’s consignment store.

“The book is my own understanding of how things have unfolded in my life and really how much respect and admiration I ended up with for my mom,” she said.

“The reality is my mom is this fierce woman who was an amazing businessperson, who got through things most people never have to go through in life with dignity and grace, and found my stepdad, who is one of the kindest, funniest, most generous and most amazing people I’ve ever known. My mom is really one of my heroes.”

These are just some stories she shares in her new memoir, which also reflects upon her sobriety journey; finding herself and her way in the world; the “everyday miracles” she experiences; and her connection to what she calls “Gus,” the great universal spirit, throughout her life. It illustrates, she says, that faith and trust can be found in various forms.

Q Your high school English teacher helped you with this book. Was writing always something you wanted to do?

A I’ve always been a reader. It was just my escape from my childhood. A librarian showed me that they make books about magic powers and other worlds, and then it was off to the races. I read everything I could find. I’ve always loved to write creatively. In 2020, I wrote a book called “Taming the Anxiety Beast for Teens.” I created that book because I knew and saw so many kids teeming with anxiety. I understand anxiety because I had so much of it growing up that I really wanted to write a book that had practical tools for addressing anxiety.

I really published that one so that I would find the courage to write my memoir because doing so is terrifying. Telling the truth about your life makes you really vulnerable. People have a lot of judgment about what other people have been through, and I had so much fear because I was told growing up that basically it doesn’t matter what’s happening. You never tell anybody what it is because those are family secrets, and family secrets are meant to be kept. But I’ve had a lot of therapy, and I’ve been a hairdresser for 30 years now. One of the things I’ve discovered is that when I tell my truth, it gives other people permission to tell theirs. The feedback I’ve gotten has just been beautiful. People are writing me personal notes telling me how grateful they are and how similar our stories are. These things that I’ve been through may have been painful for me, but at least they’re doing someone else some good.

Q Is there another layer of this healing journey for you now that the book is out?

A Absolutely. I mentioned in the book that I’m sober, and one of the things you discover in AA is that so many people believe that they are the only one, that they are different, that nobody else has had their experience. And when you wind up in a group of other people who are similarly afflicted, no matter what it is that your struggle is, discovering that you’re not the only one is a really magical healing experience.

I’ve done 30 years of therapy and the 12 steps of AA, which were also very healing. But, ultimately, the thing that was really powerful for me was to write out the stories in my memoir. By the fourth round of edits, this amazing thing had happened where I had stopped being the main character in the story and had become the observer, where I could then see everybody’s participation in it from a more objective standpoint, and that healed me more than anything ever has.

That is where I found complete forgiveness for my father, for the choices that my mother made, for the choices my son has made, and most importantly, for the choices I’ve made in my own life.

It was like coming out of a chrysalis and becoming a butterfly because I had so much self-judgment that I stopped myself from doing so many things because I didn’t think I could, because I didn’t think I deserved it. I felt like I needed to apologize for just being here. And now I don’t feel like I have to apologize for myself.

Q Do you still feel Gus in your life?

A Yes. A beautiful thing that I got out of writing the book is looking back and really focusing on where Gus was active in my life. There’s so much magic the minute you start paying attention to how the divine really is supporting all of us in our lives. I think there’s a lot to be said for what we focus on we attract more of. If we’re focusing on the good that’s happening in our lives and the way that the universe is supporting us and the way things fall into place when we let them and get out of our own heads and out of our own fear, the more of it that shows up.

But the world is hard and scary, so it can be easy to be distracted by the wrong things, especially at this time in the world. If we can keep our focus on the positives instead of the negatives, then the universe just gives us more positive things to focus on. That’s why that book is called “Trust Gus,” because of the number of times I’ve realized that the solution is to trust Gus.

Q How did your near-death experience change your perspective on life?

A I have zero fear of death. Now to be clear, I hate the idea of suffering. But the connectedness, the pure unconditional love was the most magnificent thing I’ve ever experienced, and I actually look forward to doing it again.

The cool thing is when I’m at work, I’ll start talking about these stories. People who you would not expect to be spiritual people have their own story of an angel visiting them, or a person who’s crossed over to the other side opening a cupboard, or someone seeing their husband who’s passed away sitting at the edge of the bed.

People have these stories and don’t share them because they think people will think they’re crazy. And we are so connected to the other side, but also to each other if we just start talking about these things. It makes you feel safer and lighter to know that people have stories of real-life magic. That’s what it feels like to me, real-life magic.