It’s a marvel to consider the changes in all of our lives in the last four years. Surely we’ve heard enough about all of the terrible, sad, and confusing changes, but it was also the start of one of the biggest changes in Alana's and my life, and it provided the barest of kindling for something better than what was here before.
Four years ago today, we were in a cab on the way to the airport in San Francisco–where we still lived at the time–to board a flight to D.C. to attend the Women’s March. The truly insane “American Carnage” inaugural address was on the radio of our cab, and I tried to will it out of my ears, not recognizing the dimensions of the country trump was describing. It was dark and it took the wind out of my already slack sails.
But the Women’s March was something else, perhaps the most electrifying, hopeful thing I’ve ever experienced. In the face of such darkness the day before… to see so much energy to love, to fix, to care, to change, was invigorating. It was a confirmation of a sense that was already dawning on me, that it was time for something else. Not just something else in the White House, but something else for almost everything in life: different ways of working, different ways of consuming, different ways of living, different ways of caring for others.
At this point, Alana and I were already in the thrall of what we called at the time “The Humboldt Project”, the effort to help our friends in rural Kansas reinvigorate their small town into something better, richer, more at the scale of a manageable life. A couple of weeks after the election we took an Amtrak train from CA to Kansas City to visit family and our friends here in Humboldt and we fell in love with the idea that we could work to help make the community we wanted to live in, a place that embodied what we felt was missing. It was a the first sign of a breeze to our slack sails after the election.
And that feeling of opportunity was perhaps magnified by the fact that I was working at the time doing design consulting for big banks and other giant corporations, building automated systems that ultimately concentrated wealth into fewer and fewer hands. It didn’t feel like I was helping to make the country any better off.
So, it wasn’t too long into 2017 that we decided to buy a house in Kansas, quit my job, pack up and move out here to help start what is now called A Bolder Humboldt.
This life change is a direct consequence of the election of 2016, not really because of trump specifically, but just the realization that regardless of your political beliefs, the breakdown of the country over the last four years (and more!) isn’t doing anyone any good. And we wanted to put our efforts into a place where we could do our small part to bring a little balance back to the country.
This change has seen me run for office and be elected as a city council member, it has seen Alana become the vice chair of our county democratic party, then run for the state legislature and is now the chair of the 2nd congressional district of our state democratic party. It has seen us help open a cafe and a mercantile, and help numerous other people start businesses. I have got to design more fun things than at any other point in my career, even getting to return to architecture. I was able to finally really invest some time in honing my craft as a woodworker and build out my shop. We have developed incredible friendships and partnerships here.
But mostly, I’m proud of the work we are all doing here to create something that is the opposite of the greedy, grinding, pointless, money-grubbing version of the American spirit that has been on such grotesque display for the last four years.
So here’s to building something better than what we had before. In the coming years I hope to be more of a participant than a consumer, more dedicated to helping make this country strive to be better, more aware that things aren’t as good for everyone as they are for me and finding ways to change that as much as I can.
Those were a dark 4 years, but everyone that built and rallied and resisted were the light. And I hope that we never forget the light we all generated.
Keep working, keep loving, and stay safe.
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