One foot in front of the other

It’s easy to enumerate what the pandemic has taken away from us, but I’m trying to reflect on the positive effects of lockdown too. For one, I’ve never been able to spend so many consecutive nights with Molly and Emoji. When Molly and I first met, we lived in different cities, and even when we moved to Pittsburgh we were both traveling constantly. Spending an entire year together has been a silver lining; I can’t imagine going through this without her. Emoji has been very happy that we’re home all the time, and I don’t miss driving out to the doggie boarding place to drop him on the way to the airport. That fuzzy little guy is the best part of working from home.

Cemetery Walks

In terms of activities, the biggest new thing for me has been building a consistent walking and hiking practice. Every day, when I’m done with work, I go for a walk through my neighborhood. Usually I swing through the Allegheny Cemetery, which has enough wooded areas to attract wildlife. I like to have a consistent route because it helps me see subtle shifts in the changing seasons, and identify how my routine intersects with others. I often see the same people in the graveyard: runners, mourners, and that one guy who brings his guitar to serenade the unkindness of ravens (that’s actually what a group of ravens is called!).

There was one man I saw consistently for months. He would park in the same spot and set up his folding chair near a candle covered gravesite nearby. He was there when I arrived, and stayed until sun set. When I saw that Creative Nonfiction had a tweet-length writing contest I fired up the old Small Flock account to write a micro-story about it:

Forest Hikes

We also started hiking every weekend. I knew I enjoyed hiking, but it always felt like a thing I did infrequently, maybe on a trip, with much planning involved. We started going because it was pandemic friendly, but it was a revelation to realize—wait, we could do this every weekend!

Molly and Emoji on the Heritage Trail in Raccoon Creek State Park

Western Pennsylvania is chock-full of public lands within a 1.5 hour drive of Pittsburgh. National Forests, State Parks, State Game Lands, Wilderness Areas. There are so many options that we’ve never had to hike the same trail twice (unless we wanted to). I love being in the woods, and the landscape here is gorgeous year-round with its rolling hills, massive rock outcroppings, and cozy hemlock groves.

We hiked over 250 miles in the last year, all of them with Emoji on our side—pulling us along as fast as he can. Who knew that such a tiny dog could have the energy to hike up to 12 miles a day? It’s one of his favorite words now; if he hears us say “hiking” he’ll jump up in excitement. It’s definitely one of the things I hope we hold on to as the pandemic fades. It’s good for all of us, physically and mentally, to spend a few hours a week on the trails.

Emoji, in his Stormy Kromer gear

The Fireside Tapes

A YouTube account called The Fireside Tapes is posting videos from the Fireside Bowl in the late ’90s. That venue, at that time, was a big part of my life. I hadn’t yet moved to Chicago, so I’d grab a friend and drive 2.5 hours from Kalamazoo to catch a show. We always drove back the same night, blurry eyed but happy, speeding home on I-94 with the windows down to stay awake.

It’s great to see these videos since very few people recorded shows during those years. It was costly and cumbersome, so at most there’d be one person with a Hi8 camera or a DAT recorder. Aspiring photographers took photos, but the film and processing were too expensive for most people.

Even at very low resolution, seeing this era of the Fireside Bowl brings back a lot of memories and reminds me how young we all were, bands and audience alike. Venues like this tended to blur the lines between the two, with the stage barely a foot tall and no backstage area or green room. After a set, the band would move their gear to the side and join the audience.


The Fireside Tapes has an Instagram account you can follow, with custom title graphics for each upload. It’s such a great way to bring a bit of branding, consistency, and high resolution to these low-res archives. I’m not sure who is behind these accounts, but thank you!

Dear Lighthouse

Just before lockdowns started in March of 2020, after my last week at IDEO, I took the California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco and spent a week in Mendocino County. I stayed in the keeper’s quarters at the Point Arena lighthouse, which is situated alongside the beautiful Stornetta Public Lands, and was lucky to have my trip coincide with a twice-yearly lens tour at the nearby Point Cabrillo lighthouse.

I had planned to meet Molly in La Paz, Mexico the following week, but we cancelled the trip and I headed home, into a year of COVID-19 shutdown and everything that followed. It’s been just over a year, and reflecting back reminds me not only of the beautiful landscapes but the sense of possibility I felt, which has been stunted by this pandemic. I’m hopeful for the return of that feeling in 2021.

Below is my submission to the Point Arena Light Station “150th + 1 Anniversary Writers Invitation” within their “Dear Lighthouse” category.

Point Arena Light Station, March 5th, 2020

Dear Lighthouse,

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since we met. I suppose the memory is stronger for me, given the circumstances. I had just left my job, a bittersweet choice to spend less time traveling. My trip to see you was a personal interregnum, a space left intentionally blank, a time to look neither forward nor backward. I knew that change was coming, but didn’t understand the scale.

I traveled by train, a long continuous line connecting a Great Lake to a great ocean. From the observation car I watched night blanket the Midwest, and morning sun reveal the Rockies. Snow covered mountain passes gave way to red rock canyons. As we wound around the San Francisco Bay, a cruise ship was seeking permission to dock, its passengers infected with the novel coronavirus. We didn’t yet call it a pandemic, just a scary story set in other countries.

You, of course, know about the calm before the storm.

As I drove up the coast to meet you, I managed to stay in the present, immersing myself in the beauty of your neighbors. I hiked rugged coastlines. I napped beneath redwood trees. When I checked into your keeper’s quarters, I was thrilled to learn that I could see your light from my window. I watched you work as the vibrant sunset faded to monochrome.

How many countless people have you guided home safely? As the storm of infection swelled, and the fog of danger thickened, I knew that our time together was short. The future was rushing towards us, and I needed to be home.

It helps though, to know that you’re there.Your steadfast presence on the peninsula, the predictable cadence of your light. A year is a long time to be adrift.


My view from inside the Point Arena keeper’s quarters.