For me, 2019 brought a big shift. In the fall of 2018 I knew that I needed to make a change. I had resigned my management position at McCarthy Lodge, at the end of the summer season, but it wasn’t quite clear what I should do next. Should I look for another seasonal summer Alaskan gig? Or should I look to do something else entirely? Was I going to continue to live my nomadic lifestyle, spending summers in Alaska and winters in California? To complicate matters, my health had suddenly taken a bad turn, back in the fall of 2018, and problems in my gut had led to me losing a great deal of weight (which was alarming because I’m already a skinny dude). I was feeling extremely low energy, to the point where a simple, short walk just about did me in for the day. At that point, all options were on the table.
Despite the questions I had about my health, I circulated my resume in the Santa Cruz area, to see what might be available for tax and accounting jobs, and I eventually accepted a job at Santa Cruz Pacific Accounting & Tax, a CPA firm in downtown Santa Cruz, just a short, windy commute through the redwoods, 20 minutes from where I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The new job works well for me because I can continue with the nomadic life to which I have become accustomed, but instead of working summers and writing in the winters, I am now working winters and writing in the summer.
Flip-flop.
I made a big shift but still kept my two home bases.
I love the CPA firm I work at. Really great people, very casual but at the same time these are some hard working, nose-to-the-grindstone type of accountants. The unofficial company motto of “have fun and get shit done” suits me well. It took me the better part of a year to reconcile myself to wearing jeans and Birkenstock sandals to work at a CPA firm. My CPA experiences were always with conservative Midwest firms.
Flip-flops may be on the list of approved office attire, but as my boss recently told me, he hires people for their toughness, so people know how to get stuff done. It’s a great mix and perfect for the way I roll.
But back to that whole “writing in the summers” thing, cause dang, people. It’s absolutely heaven.
Let me slip a few photos under your nose to give you an idea of what I’m talking about when I speak of the delight of spending a summer in Alaska simply enjoying the wilderness and engaging in the creative process of writing:
I started keeping track of the bears I spotted on my trip, after leaving Prince George and driving through the remote spaces of the Alaskan Highway, and while I do not recall the final tally, I recall being somewhere over a dozen but under twenty, i.e., lots of bears 
Caribou on the roadside, roadtripping through Canada on the Alaska Highway, north to Alaska 
Drive at your own risk! The McCarthy Road is not for the faint of heart, though it’s been in pretty good shape in recent years, at least as compared to what it’s been like in the past.
More scenes in and around the cabin:
Stove in the corner was the burning stove. The white and green retro gem beside it is an oven. It also doubled as a standing desk as well as a place to put my kombucha brew. 
Did a little grow in the summer, just one plant that was passed on to me from a friend who was having trouble bringing it along. So I gave her a little air and she did well. 
This mama bear was right in front of my porch, sniffing around and taking a keen interest in the summer resident of the cabin. Meanwhile the summer resident of the cabin (me) was fumbling with the camera in a general state of anxiety. I finally got a pic as Mama bear was walking away 
My lettuce did pretty well. Most everything the rabbits left me (roughly 50%) did pretty well.
More photos from my hikes:
Jumbo Mine. Summer, mid-June, 2019 but still plenty of snow up on the mountain.
I hiked up to Jumbo with my friend, photography Paul Scannell who was collecting photographs for a photobook themed Ghost Towns of Alaska. He got some good shots of Jumbo Mine, despite the fact that we were actually trying to make it to Glacier Mine but didn’t make it because his guide (me) didn’t actually know the way to Glacier Mine and instead wound up taking Paul to Jumbo. 
My photographer friend Paul Scannell, whom we call “Irish Paul” around McCarthy town, was collecting photos for an Alaskan photo book, so I took him up to Bonanza to give him the tour of one of my most beloved spaces. 
Artifacts at the Jimbo mine, 2019
And of course…..good old McCarthy town:
In addition to the serenity and the good times to be had in and around McCarthy, it was a productive summer of writing, which included some good progress on my Impossible Novel. The Impossible Novel is my new name for the novel (or novel series) that I’ve been working on for many years. It’s a massive something-or-other that will probably be in process for another decade or so, so far as I can tell. I also expanded my fiction writing, since The Impossible Novel is so daunting right now. I started in on several short stories, including one short story that I’m working on expanding into a book (either a novel or novella).
Returning to California, I jumped in with activist work, particularly to start working for Bernie, among other things. With Bernie returning for a 2020 run, it was hard not to get excited about the possibilities. From our work with Occupy through to Bernie’s 2016 campaign, the United States now actually has an active political left, for the first time in nearly half a century, and it is composed primarily of progressives and democratic socialists. Here’s a few pics of the activist work:
And of course, there are the redwoods and the beauty of central coast California. This is what motivates me to work as an activist. It is to preserve the beauty and joy of the human experience which consists primarily in our connection to all other life on the planet. To me, this connection is deeply sacred and holy, and worth fighting and sacrificing for, as the onslaught continues from capitalists, i.e., those who seek to turn the living world into dead money as quickly as possible. Time is short, but a better world is within reach.
As 2019 comes to a close, I feel hopeful. Personally I’m feeling much better than I did a year ago. It took an outrageous amount of research and work to figure out my gut situation, but I’m healthy again and eating well. And with the Trump term coming to its close in November, and with Bernie having such a strong base and running a stable campaign with growing momentum, there’s reason to hope. But it isn’t just Bernie. Progressives and socialists across America are running for offices, phonebanking, cutting turf (i.e., canvassing), writing articles, and agitating for change, real change. Not the so-called “hope and change” of the Clinton/Obama years, where disaster is only one election away (cf. George W. Bush and Donald Trump), but the kind of change that only comes about when individuals and communities take power and agency over their own lives, working cooperatively and democratically for self-determination, personal dignity, and social justice and equality.
So I feel hopeful, and I’m working to translate that energy of hope into political results.
Quote of the Year:
“America will never be a socialist country” ~ Donald Trump
Response of the Year (to Quote of the Year):
“I thought it was great. I think he’s scared.” ~ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
