Why is this so hard?

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

1. Good: I've gone through a lot of stuff, made several truckloads of stuff to the dump, given a lot of stuff away that I hope will be appreciated by others, and found some letters and mementos that made me smile.
2. Bad: While pulling everything out in the open to sort, we were pummeled by rain and hail storms the last few days. Some books and things I value and have carried and sheltered for years got wet. I haven't had the heart to find out to what extent. Also, I gave away some things that I regret; all my artist and architect materials. Gone.
3. Ugly: Encountering images of myself in boxes and piles of papers. Me in broken relationships. Me in faltering careers. Me in a lost and lonely universe. Is it resolution I lack? I have a tendency to avoid unpleasant things. I turn my head and look for distractions instead of the gentle accommodation of inevitable change. As a result, the things I can't face sit there in a box and wait.

I resolve to resolve more. Just to take some time to say to myself, that part of my life is over. It's okay. It's okay.

Taking longer than I thought

The idea was to take a week to go through everything I own and get rid of as much stuff as possible. It's taking longer that I thought.

I've had some great help from my friend Carolina. But it looks like it'll take at least another week.

There are moments when this is absolutely torturous.

Images of my progress

Tough day

Today was hard.

It's bad enough having to cleanup a space that has become the domain of semi-feral cats. Cat detritus. Cats fighting, fucking, and farting and leaving signs. They used some of my good coats as shredding posts. Then there is the smell. I thought I liked cats.

But there is more.

I had to go through boxes of stuff. My stuff. From the past. And it's just the beginning. I had a hard realization today that this is more than just cleanup or creating a space for myself. I'm having to face psychological complexity. Face myself. Face my defects. Face my past.

I have always avoided facing unpleasant things. I wrestled with that today.

But, the day is done. I made a dent. Got rid of some stuff.

Tonight, gonna drink some beer. Maybe have some Ben and Jerry's. Watch a movie.

Where to start?

OK. Make a list.

First on the list? Cleanup.

When I bought this place, I dumped the accumulation of decades of stuff into it. This week I'm going through everything I own and toss.

This could be painful ...

I’m a Student Again, Part 2B: The Dream That Waited

 Yosemite Mountaineering School wasn’t just a program. It was a cathedral tucked in the wilderness—stone fireplaces, wood floors, big beams that looked like they’d been lifted straight from the forest and blessed with permanence. The building itself breathed purpose.

The director was the kind of man who felt like he’d walked out of a sepia-toned movie about taming the American frontier. Rugged, but kind. A storyteller, a teacher, the kind of calm you want tethered to your rope when you’re dangling off a granite cliff with adrenaline trying to crawl up your throat.

He knew when to speak and when to simply be there—anchored, grounded, present. He was, in that moment of my life, a figure of quiet strength I hadn’t known I was looking for.

I wanted to be like him.

Not in the surface-level hero worship way, but something deeper: I wanted that life. The clarity of it. The rhythm. The deep inhale of mountain air and the way people listened when he spoke.

I wanted to become an outdoor guide.

That was the dream. The next step was supposed to be figuring out how.

But then… life.

After the course ended, I hitched out of the park to Lee Vining, where I sat on a bench for six hours waiting for the next bus home. It was one of those liminal days—caught between two versions of myself. The dreamer on the edge of something new, and the kid who still had to go home and deal with a girlfriend, a job search, a college decision, a mother, a sister, a handful of friends all tethering me back to my familiar life.

And just like that, the dream… slipped.

It didn’t crash. It didn’t burn. It just quietly got tucked into a drawer marked “Maybe Someday.”

So now, all these years later, when the move to Quincy started to take shape, I reached back into that drawer and pulled the dream out again.

Enrolling in the Outdoor Recreation Leadership program at Feather River College wasn’t just about learning something new. It was about returning to something old—something I’d left behind on a granite wall under the watchful eye of a man who taught me how to breathe when breathing felt impossible.

And maybe—just maybe—I’ll learn to become that calm presence for someone else, someday.

I'm a Student Again, Part 2: The Backstory

This All Started with a One-Way Ticket to the Wild

It was mid-July, 1974. I was 18, freshly released from Glendale High School with a diploma and a vague sense that something big was supposed to happen next.

So I decided to make it happen.

To celebrate my graduation, I talked my mother into something wildly out of character: dropping me off—alone, with nothing but a backpack—at the downtown Los Angeles Greyhound bus terminal.

If she had known what that terminal was actually like—a combination of a one-act play about urban decay staged in fluorescent lighting and just a shithole—she never would have gone along with it. But she didn’t know. She drove away before I could tell her.

I bought a one-way ticket to Yosemite National Park. That’s where I was going. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I needed to go north, into the trees, into the wild. Away from whatever wasn’t working.

The bus ride took eight hours. I grabbed the only available seat, next to a striking woman who looked to be in her 30s. She nodded politely, said nothing.

There was something unmistakably sad about her—beautiful, but folded in on herself. It took a while, but we eventually found our bridge: Spanish. She was from Paris, but like many Europeans, she spoke a little. I had two years of high school Spanish rattling around in my brain. It was enough.

She had recently suffered a tragedy. Her husband had died in a car accident. No children, just grief and silence and a small bag packed for escape. She didn’t know much about Yosemite—only that it was beautiful. A place people go when they need to forget, or remember.

She didn’t know the campgrounds would be full. I wasn’t worried. I had a tent and no plans beyond the next morning. When we arrived, I tried to help her find a bed for the night, but every place was booked solid.

So I did the only thing that made sense.

I invited her to sleep in my tent.

She said yes.

I gave her my only sleeping pad and unzipped my bag to cover us both. The ground was hard. The air was cool. And somehow, we both slept.

In the morning, she ran off in search of accommodation and—miraculously—found one. She came back just as I was packing up my things. She gave me a long hug. A kiss on the cheek. Her eyes said thank you in a language that didn’t need translation.

And then she was gone.

I walked out to the highway and stuck out my thumb, headed for Tuolumne Meadows. I was about to spend a month sleeping in a tent while enrolled in Yosemite Mountaineering School.

I don’t remember her name. I wish I’d asked for her address.

I hope she’s well.

I'm a Student Again

Reinvention 101

So here’s something I didn’t see coming: I’m a student again.

Yep. Backpack, class schedule, ID card with an unflattering photo—the whole bit.

One of the reasons I left Santa Cruz was to put some distance between myself and the beautiful mess I’d been marinating in for years. The job loss, the breakup, the noise (literal and metaphorical)—I didn’t just want out. I wanted off the map. I needed something new to orbit around.

So I enrolled in the Outdoor Recreation Leadership program at Feather River College here in Quincy. That’s right: leadership, as in leading other people. Outdoors, no less. Nature, apparently, is going to be my new professor. I’ve got syllabi and hiking boots.

It’s part therapy, part curiosity, part midlife shake-up.

And honestly? It feels kind of great. Strange, humbling, exciting… but great. Like hitting the reset button and realizing it actually does something.

We’ll see where it goes. I might end up in a tent giving motivational talks to marmots. Or I might just learn how to tie better knots—in my ropes and in my life.

Either way, I’m in.

Why I'm Moving To Plumas County

A Change of Scenery, and Maybe Also a Soul

It’s simple, really. Something had to give.

I’ve just been laid off from Silicon Graphics. Again. That’s two layoffs too many from the same company, which feels like the universe whispering, Hey, maybe it’s time to go.

Meanwhile, my long-term relationship has quietly fizzled out—not with fireworks or slammed doors, just the slow fade of something that once mattered more than it does now.

And Santa Cruz? Beautiful, yes. But busier by the minute. These days I can hear the morning traffic sliding through my bedroom window, and that’s in Felton—a place once so quiet you could hear your own thoughts echo off the redwoods.

I love my house there. I really do. It’s held more good memories than I could count, if I were the sort of person who counted memories.

But.

(There’s always a “but.”)

There are ghosts in those walls too. A long, bitter battle with a contractor over major renovations left a sour taste I can’t quite scrub out. Add in a looming mortgage and a year of uncertain income, and the math starts looking pretty grim.

Then there was the stranger.

A chance encounter, the kind that feels like nothing until it isn’t. I bumped into someone—just a random conversation, one of those tossed-off exchanges that somehow sticks—and it turned out they were looking for a place to rent in the area.

One discussion led to another… and just like that, I was out. The decision that had been circling for months landed with a quiet thud.

It was the nudge I didn’t know I was waiting for.

So: Quincy.

Will it solve anything?

Will it quiet the noise, shake off the ghosts, reboot the system?

Honestly, I don’t know.

But sometimes the only way out is through a new front door.

And So It Begins.

The Whim That Stuck

Well, I did it.

I bought a house. In Quincy, California.

It has a creaky entry, a roof that looks like it’s held together with good intentions, and a view that will inspire absolutely no one.

I’m not moving there just yet—give me a few weeks to pack up my old life—but the deal is done. No turning back.

New city. New life. New chapter. Cue the dramatic music.

Was this a carefully planned decision?

Absolutely not. It was a whim. A nudge from the universe. A whisper that said, Why not?

And now here I am, trying to organize my entire existence on a three-week timeline. Plotting a future in a neighborhood I’ve only driven through once. Wondering if this house is a Rorschach test I’m supposed to live inside.

WTF am I doing?

Honestly? I have no idea.

But I’m doing it anyway.

---