Being There vs Getting There

I used to live and work here, just a couple of blocks behind the Green Pickle. The work was good. The pay was good. Walking to the office, along the street or below it, was never stressful. On the contrary, it was easy peasy. But it was never satisfying in a pleasant sense. It was satifying only as a challenging environment in which to exist where I could progress on my career path. And to this end it was an excellent choice, facilitating a key ramp-up phase.

From a distance, it was a bit attractive in that challenging environment sense, but up close...

Its dinginess soon became background noise in the mind as its challenges intrigued it more.

Reluctantly agreeing to lead projects and their teams, all experiences played out very well. And it allowed a nice pivot toward the ultimate goal of soon becoming ensconced in nature.

Professional activities were engaging and rewarding in the way such things as those can be. But always in the back of my mind were imaginings of how life could be surrounded by wildness. Eventually it was time to start my own company and I did so without further delay in a home/studio situated deep in high-country wilderness where silence was the acoustical norm, the air was crystal clear and superbly clean, and views out any window always inspired.

Living and working there was a delight, even during the Great Recession when banksters and automakers were being bailed out for their vile criminal behavior, and small businesses were ignored out of hand. Subsisting throughout the following decade in carefully planned and executed two-year sprints of austerity so severe it was thrilling by nature of that characteristic alone, I somehow emerged to land new clientele willing to pay well for my services during the final few years prior to retirement as planned at the age and date I had always wanted to.

Less than half a decade later, USFS arsonists played with fire and lost control of it. That destroyed my high-country wilderness homestead and everything I owned. Pivoting as nimbly as has been possible even as FEMA continues kicking victims while they're down and vulnerable, the next phase is happening now with first steps establishing a food forest at much lower elevation where the growing season is much longer. Getting here was a wild trip, far too unexpected to ever predict. Being here is delightfully surprising, though, every day.