June 2025
A journal
Early June, at home
It’s a pleasant morning out, and I’m writing at the table in what you might call my garden. You could even call it a walled garden, in that we have tall wooden fences with locked gates providing privacy and some security. I’m listening to the wind swishing through the bamboo and the sound of heavy construction two blocks away, in a state of absolute mental privacy, writing by hand in this notebook. No phone, no laptop, just an analog watch to keep an eye on the time. No way to check messages for no reason. It’s possible that someone or something could bother me back here, but it’s not likely. I have a sense of complete mental privacy, which I need to engineer somehow every time I sit down to do creative work. Having this sense of privacy is crucial in order for me to be able to compose my thoughts, and in so doing, compose myself.
But it’s interesting that I don’t actually need to be physically alone to bring about this state of mind. Often it only takes writing on paper for a few minutes, even if I have company. Solitude isn’t even necessarily helpful. I think of the number of solitary mornings over the past ten years that I have simply burned up on doomscrolling, something I never would have done if there were someone else around. I’m not ashamed of that behavior, so it’s not that. I think the mere presence of another person causes you to subconsciously imagine what you look like to them. It instantly evokes a view of yourself, makes you self-conscious, in a neutral sense. When I’m sitting quietly with someone else, I’m reminded that I also am a fully-developed, complete person with agency, with ideas about what I want to do with my days, not merely a conduit for formless, global anxieties, to be stoked by social media in order to goad me into purchasing more notebooks, fountain pens, and art supplies.
I almost wrote, sarcastically, “as if that would help.” Of course the purchasing itself does not help for long with an anxious mood. But it does help to sit down and actually use that stuff, as I am doing this morning. It helps a lot. More than almost anything I know, apart from being with my wife and pets. Satisfying the creative urge in itself seems to replenish my energy and protect me somewhat against these sadly unsurprising, but all the same very unexpected anxieties provoked by events in the world. Or rather, provoked by the words and actions of one powerful man and the monstrous people who surround him. It helps me feel more determined to not let all this intimidation go unopposed. We all stand together, or we all fall together.
I switched notebooks midway through the year, mostly to get away from the emotional resonance of the one I had been using, which I started in January, a time of traumas public and private. But I have started returning to it lately in an effort to accept the ups and downs. Things get better, things get worse. It’s been a bad year for the world while on balance being a really good year for me personally. That’s been true for almost everyone I know. Nobody knows what to do with the uncomfortably mixed feelings provoked by that.
Personally I fall back on my Stoicism- and Buddhism-sourced belief that nobody really deserves anything they get, be it good or bad. Whatever bad things happen to you are not your fault, and you don’t get credit for the good things either. Life is mostly luck with a very, very small scope for controlling your reactions to each specific circumstance as it arises. If there is any credit or blame to be handed out, it’s in those little choices in a day, those tiny nudges to the rudder which set the course of your little ship.
That said. Even the situation of knowing that you need to steer away from shipwreck is a matter of luck. As are being capable of identifying a dangerous course to avoid, and being capable of figuring out how to respond appropriately in the moment.
I really enjoy drawing and sketching in my journals, so I’m not sure why I so consistently fall out of the habit. It’s such a fun thing to do, and it livens up the pages so much just to have a little doodle or two of whatever was near me as I sat jotting down my thoughts. Sometimes I simply have no thoughts at all, I’m just sitting, and the most interesting thing I can do is make a bad drawing. I remember it being a revelation to see the instruction in one of Lynda Barry’s books (maybe Syllabus) to get a cheap comp book and start drawing in it, right over the lines, with a cheap Flair pen. Her larger point is that you don’t need any special materials to start drawing. The pen doesn’t have to be nice, neither does the paper, and the pages don’t even have to be blank. For an investment of $2 and fifteen minutes a day, you can begin practicing art.
If you keep things basic, making art and writing are two of the least-expensive pastimes. They can also be two of the most time-consuming. That’s not a bad thing. But until recently I tended to overestimate the time I’d need, and so I’d put off doing a sketch because I was afraid of looking up and finding an hour had gone by and I’d missed an appointment. But then I do it, and even a more-involved sketch, like this one of the merch display at my corner coffeeshop, turns out to have taken only a quarter of an hour.
Another example is this large-format sketch. Recently one of my cats was sitting in the window behind my large easel, when I was in a process of shutting down the studio for the day. I figured I would just wait for her to jump down since she’s never up there long. She’s an energetic and curious young cat, and never hangs out anywhere long unless she falls asleep there. It happened that I’d already set up a blank sheet of large newsprint on the drawing board, so I grabbed a soft pencil and started sketching. She could only have been in the window for ten minutes, and I was able to make a complete light sketch of her form in that time. I may try and make a real drawing based on this sketch.
We spent most of Saturday at the No Kings protest at the waterfront. It was really worth the effort of attending and standing for our values. I’m glad we went to march, despite our fears of violence. It only takes one nut with a gun. But there were no incidents, either that we saw or heard about later. We couldn’t hear most of the speeches where we stood, but it was worth it to be there if only to be a few drops in the enormous sea of people who have also had enough, more than enough, had enough on the first day of this moral catastrophe, and need to raise their voices in peaceful opposition. It was moving and inspiring, an example of what this country can be at its best. For me, the biggest effect was to overturn the feelings of isolation, powerlessness and despair that I’ve been feeling since January. This is almost the main reason to attend a protest: for the moral support. Who knows how long its effects will last, but any medicine is welcome if it keeps me going, and keeps me defiant in the face of the constant outrages of this administration, which somehow manage to be petty, stupid, cruel, deeply tragic, and deeply dangerous simultaneously.
Late June, California
This weekend I’m staying in the little town where I grew up. I’m here to attend the memorial service for my friend A– tomorrow, which I’m oddly looking forward to. The following day, I’ll be seeing my sister and her son to pick up the rest of the random possessions I inherited from my mother. And I hope to get in a hike while I’m here.
The whole town feels much more run-down and poorly-maintained than I ever remembered it being. The main road itself is a mess of overlapping patches and asphalt seams, and the buildings along it that aren’t brand-new are in a state of dusty disrepair. I booked my AirBnb based on price alone, which was a mistake: weirdly, it has turned out to be a poorly-converted commercial suite directly on this main road. It’s adequate as a place to crash out, but it doesn’t really have anything to recommend it apart from its proximity to my purposes on this trip. All the same, I expect to spend much of my time here sitting on the couch in this unappealing apartment, because I have no desire to deal with eating out (or even going out for drinks or coffee). I brought more than enough food to live on and plenty of entertainment, including a sketchbook and some art supplies, in case I feel like drawing. I almost brought my data archive along, with the idea of revisiting some of my adolescent writing in the town where I wrote it, but in the end I decided against this in favor of doing some new writing here, with a focus on journaling. The only thing I plan to do outside of my errands and the memorial service is to go for a little hike in the nature preserve some morning while I’m here.
In a funny coincidence, I’m staying right across the street from the location of my first job, which was with a piano technician, who appears to have been working on pianos as late as 2022 and is today likely in his 70s, if he’s still living. I must have been 12 or 13. He hired me to do little odd jobs around the shop. It didn’t last long, but I don’t remember why. I don’t think it was anything about me, because I remember shrugging it off and don’t sense any bad vibes in my memories of the place. My clearest memory is of sitting at one of the pianos in their showroom, laboriously deciphering the funeral march from Beethoven’s 12th piano sonata, which happened to be open on the music stand. I remember the technician praising my voicing of the block chords.
I’m looking through the blinds at the building where his business used to be, which shortly thereafter became a liquor store, and has stayed that way ever since. I used to stop in there on my way home from middle school to grab a soda. Not far from here is the location of another important music-related job I had in my late 20s, a small ballet studio where I served as the pianist. That job was actually the main reason I developed any skill at all at sight-reading. That is too big of a story for today, though.
One of the most consistent things I’ve noticed about my own personality is the way I cycle between long periods of introspection and shorter periods of outward engagement. I have intensely energetic periods when I’m all action and little thought, and much longer periods when the opposite prevails. Often to a fault, only doing what I am literally obliged to do from day to day in order to keep my life together, and spending the rest of the day on reading, listening to music, tidying up my bookshelves. Taking baths and sleeping in. After a while, of course, I begin writing and making music again.
The memorial service for A– was actually a pretty good time. An enormous number of people came to pay their respects, at least 400, which gives a sense of the man’s impact. The family gave a number of really nice tributes. I knew a lot of people there, including our entire family except for one member who couldn’t make it. Many amusing stories were told of the man—he was a real character, larger than life. He had been in the habit of calling people from the drive-through line when he was just on the point of placing his order. I too had my share of McDonald’s calls from him, so this made me smile. He had a penchant for giving books away to people, and in the reception they gave away large piles of some of his favorites. There were many books I knew I’d never get through, books by the likes of Peter Drucker and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, so I left all of those alone, opting instead for a book I might actually read, The Second Mountain by David Brooks. I embossed it with his library seal, which the family had left out for guests to use.
So there it is. One last book from A–, after so many received over the years. Later on, back in the room, I did start reading it, but was so wiped out from the day that I decided instead to play guitar for a while.
I have many feelings about being in this town again, as I always do when I need to return, but this time they are not strong feelings. This might be my first extended visit since I left for good that has not been overshadowed by some terrible and stressful event that required my prompt return.
Being here in a relaxed way for the first time in decades reminds me of what it was like to live here. Not that exciting, and the whole town is run-down and dumpy, but it’s not at all a bad place to live from day to day. It’s peaceful, and if you like keeping to your apartment or property for the most part, it’s perfectly fine. As my friend Garrett once said of Pleasanton, California: “Nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit.” The kind of place where I’d be perfectly happy to settle down, if I had some reason to, if I hadn’t grown up there. As it was, I wanted to be anywhere else, as soon as I could possibly arrange it. My first move was to the closest big town, the site of UC Santa Cruz; my second move was to Mexico.
But a lot of people did stay in my hometown, or moved back after a period of study and travel. Usually it’s the rest of one’s family being rooted in a place that draws people back to that place. In the cases I’m familiar with here, that’s exactly what happened and they accepted it. Or perhaps they just never cared so much about where specifically they live as I did (and still do). In any event, it seems my own family ties were not so strong. Three of us four siblings scattered to different places, the closest distance being two hours’ drive, so it’s not just me. The fourth sibling, the sister I mentioned, stayed here to help my mother in her later years.
Having gone to middle school and high school here, it’s interesting to see names I remember from roll call on the windows of real estate offices or chiropractors, who like me are now fully in the midst of their chosen careers, with one eye on retirement. Probably their own children with similar names are attending those same schools. Although I completely respect this, there’s something about the foreclosed nature of this tableau that makes me feel short of breath for a moment, when I imagine being in it myself, and I’m glad I escaped it.
There were a number of ghosts like this on this visit. At one point for lunch I went to the grocery store that used to be our primary store, which at the time was essentially a superb Italian deli with a mediocre grocery store attached. I ordered a ham and cheese on rye, a favorite teenage order. It was fine, nowhere near as good as the sandwiches that used to be made there, but that’s all right. I sat at the usual table where I’d have lunch as a teenager, with a bottle of Dr. Pepper—another teenage habit. I hadn’t had one in the decades between, so I tried one. Given my fond memories, I was surprised to find the soda completely disgusting.
My first gym had been a short walk from that table, and I sat facing the building where the gym used to be. I’d have a workout, walk up to the store and order a sandwich, soda and chips, and read a book or a magazine. My big subscriptions back then were Harper’s and the New York Review. Those were my mental escapes to the wider world, which wasn’t even really all that far away, given the presence of UC Santa Cruz. Considering those who stayed and those who returned, though, I could see how an identity could be built around being here, being a part of this place, and how it could become something comfortable to hang out in.
Identity is a thing you simultaneously cherish and grow within, and long to be free of. It happened that the longing to be free of mine, to re-create my identity on a new basis (and to be free to endlessly re-create it) was immensely strong in my case. But if you mostly prefer to remain where you happened to find yourself in life, among the people you’ve always known, well, why not stay put? It’s a perfectly fine life.
I ended up hiking for two hours in the nature preserve on a blazing-hot afternoon the day before I left for Ashland. It was my second or third visit to those trails as an adult. I qualify it that way because when I was a kid, it was unguarded private property, and I trespassed on it with impunity, along with everyone I knew. Thus, the older trails are very familiar to me, even if I don’t always exactly remember how they fit together, but there are now new trails and fire roads built in connection with the dedication of the land to public use, and these confuse me to some degree because I don’t remember them, and I don’t know where they lead.
The combined mileage of the trails is only about four miles, so I thought I’d be able to easily hike it all in two or three hours and then retire to the Air BnB for an early dinner and a beer. But between the heat and my tapped-out state, I was only able to complete a bit more than a third of it. I finished the first loop of three, went to start the second loop and walked the whole length of its western trail, and then reached the bottom of what appeared to be yet another 150-foot climb on a 90-degree day. And I was running out of water. I decided to err on the side of staying properly hydrated.
So I doubled back. Unfortunately, before I could get back to the loop I had started on, which led back to my van, I encountered a coyote sitting in the middle of the trail. I evaluated the situation and decided that it wouldn’t be especially wise to try and scare this one away. It was trapped by my approach between a steep drop and a steep hill, which meant it would most likely run away from me down the trail I would want to continue on. It probably wouldn’t run towards me, but it also didn’t have many options. I didn’t like the look of things.
So I drew myself up and stared at it for a few moments to make it aware I was not afraid, and then I slowly turned and deliberately walked back down the trail out of its sight. I turned around again and waited a couple minutes to make sure it wasn’t following me. When I was satisfied it had gone on to attend to some coyote business, I continued on, guessing I was either going to have to make that climb after all, or figure out how to get into the adjoining subdivision despite the high fence.
Then, as I came out of the horse trail into a wide fire road, I saw a flock of wild turkeys crossing the fire road on foot, with evident anxiety. The reason was soon clear: they were “being pursued” by another hiker. When she saw me, she took off her headphones to ask me some general orientation questions as the turkeys “escaped” into the brush, and we both looked at the locked fence down the hill that led into the subdivision. The fence looked climbable, but I didn’t want to mess up my pants, and I also didn’t want to walk back through a suburban housing development if I could avoid it.
I told her about the coyote behind me so she wouldn’t take that trail, and then shared my whole story about growing up in the area and knowing the preserve in general, but not really knowing the trails as they are right now. And since she had come down this new fire road, I wondered if she could tell me where it led? She had great news. It turned out that if I just followed it a little ways up the hill, it would lead to a connector trail going straight back to where I was trying to go, neatly bypassing the stretch where the coyote was hunting.
I thanked her and went on my way, and eventually got back to my van, thoroughly exhausted. For all my worrying about keeping my pants clean, they had gotten destroyed with dust anyway, as had my shoes. I washed my clothes in the washing machine and my shoes in the tub. Since nobody was in the building I tumbled my shoes in the dryer despite the immense clatter, so I could wear them again in the morning.
After an uneventful evening, I left the unit in a rush at 7:30 in the morning just as people were arriving to work in the adjoining unit.
Late June, back in Portland
I’m sitting outside a cafe this morning, on a bench in the warm breeze. This is one of those peaceful mornings that I dream of—sunny, writing outside, warm with a gentle breeze, and it is just quiet and lovely with birds tweeting and the sound of the cafe music inside, and people greeting each other and talking, and people playing with their dogs in the off-leash field that this patio overlooks. It’s the kind of morning where I am just content to exist, content to live my life as it is, and enjoy being alive. We must take in moments like this for all they are worth, for all the sustaining power they can give us against the many difficult days yet to come.
Note: This “journal” was an experiment that I plan to repeat. As you may have guessed, if you made it this far, it does not consist of verbatim entries as I wrote them at the time. In early October, I went back through all the journal entries, sketches, jottings and miscellaneous notes I had made in various places over the course of June, and I collected together whatever seemed interesting. Then I organized these sketchy passages and expanded and deepened them. I ended up reserving about half the material for future essays, since quite a number of my observations and thoughts didn’t suit the themes of the piece as it developed. I think the result is much more compelling to read than the source material, but I also think it conveys a more accurate sense of what I was thinking about that month, and how I felt about it. A lot of this essay can be summed up as: “What I was thinking and feeling at the time, in roughly the order I thought it and felt it, but couldn’t find the exact words for on a given Tuesday.”