This winter has been the coldest warmest snowiest driest winter that California has ever experienced. We have seen highway-debilitating snow, forest fires in the heart of winter, a near endless string of sunny days, bitterly cold dry spells, and warm summer-like afternoons.
It has been a winter unlike any other (as all winters are).
In between battling 2ft thick ice dams, I’ve been reading a lot of Alex Steffan’s The Snap Forward. It’s probably my favorite speculation on our climate-driven future. His general premise is that due to inaction on climate change, we have committed ourselves to a future where things will feel as though they suddenly snap forward. The slow, predictable change most people expect will not happen, instead we will face discontinuity. This idea of discontinuity resonates deeply with me, and it feels a little bit like a skeleton key to modern life.
In We’re not yet ready for what’s already happened he attempts to define discontinuity:
My most succinct working definition of a “discontinuity” is a watershed moment, one where past experience loses its value as a guide to decision-making about the future.
This winter has been discontinuous. It has not fit a narrative that fits into our past experience. Humans like narratives that fit into past experience. We crave the cohesive story of it’s been a snowy winter! or it’s hardly snowed at all! We do not like the discontinuity of having too much snow and still ending in drought.
This has made for fits and and starts on the new house. But progress has been made all the same — and as of a few weeks ago we’ve finally started primary framing. Which means the rest of it should be going up at a much more regular pace.
It also means we need to start choosing the exact finishes throughout the house, so our current house is now full of little bits of wood and tile.
And because my obsession with SketchUp cannot be tamed, I’ve been learning how to perfect my renders with V-Ray to deliver ever more realistic visions of the house-to-be.
Is this useful? Maybe? All I know is that I’ve had a ton of fun making these, and it’s been a great way for me to iterate on the layout and design of 3D spaces.
Shortly after my last letter, just after we rang in the new year, my dad passed away. For the past nine years my dad has suffered from a Parkinsonian disease called cerebellar ataxia. His disease profoundly changed his life, my life, and my stepmother D’s life. (Yes, her name is just D. Not Dee.)
This is the part where people want a narrative that fits into their past experiences of disease. They want a story of personal struggle as the disease takes away their previous life, but through a tale of redemption and family support, they overcome the disease to forge a new fulfilling life until some time later, the disease rapidly accelerates and they die after a night in the hospital. They want to ask how’s your dad doing? and hear that the new treatment is working — he’s getting better.
But that isn’t how degenerative diseases work. They just get worse over time. People do not want to hear “worse, every day”. People don’t want to say it, either. It sucks.
In 2014, I left my job in San Francisco and moved up to Dunsmuir to help care for my dad. People want to hear that it was a hard decision, but it was rewarding in the end. But honestly, it was the only decision that kept me sane — I simply wasn’t able to function at a demanding job while I knew D was suffering trying to care for my dad. But caring for my dad was not rewarding. My dad never accepted his disease. He was angry about it until the end. He refused to change or adapt. His only accepted future was to continue his life exactly as it was before the disease. If that meant falling down ten times on the way to the bathroom or using a walker — then he chose to fall down.
If you’ve ever taken psychedelics, you might appreciate how fungible reality can be.
My dad’s reality was on a different track than the reality most of us share. One where an 8ft tall heater can easily fit inside of a 5ft high awning, and where a turkey cannot be cooked in less than 11 hours. People tend to call this confusion, but I don’t think that’s right. Confusion implies a possibility of clarifying the issue through explanation. This is not my experience of neurological disorders — there was never any possibility of explaining anything to my dad. A turkey took 11 hours to cook in his reality, and 4 hours to cook in mine, and mine was obviously wrong. If the turkey came out charred and black, the oven was obviously broken.
This is the discontinuous reality of a neurological disorder.
Leaving GitHub, leaving San Francisco, caring for my dad — these were all good things for me.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I had long grown incompatible with what GitHub had become. And not in a toxic manner — just a very straightforward one: the company was large and political, while I thrive in small and intimate environments. Similarly, I had reached my end with San Francisco. Sorry, no Why I Left San Francisco monologue here — I loved the time I lived there, and I’m happy not to be there any longer.
Caring for my dad taught me taught me many things — most importantly how to stay sane and happy during times of chaos, and how to balance what I give with what I have to give. Neurological disorders will happily take everything you have to give, and give you nothing in return.
A long time ago, I lived on a construction site with my dad. His job was to teach people in recovery construction skills while they built a halfway house for a non-profit supporting those in recovery. At the end of the job, he gave everyone a little trophy — a screwdriver hammered into a piece of 4x4 spray painted gold. On the 4x4 there was a piece of the serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference
I’m not religious, but I think about this part of the prayer all the time.
There was much about my dad’s situation that I could not change. There was the obvious stuff — he had an incurable, degenerative disease. But my dad’s discontinuous reality was always the most challenging. It meant events that happened in dreams were as real as those that happened while he was awake. He could be furious with you for something you did in a dream, or he could totally rewrite a fight you had into a pleasant conversation. It was a hard lesson to accept.
That wisdom to know the difference part is really important. It doesn’t mean giving up. It means picking your battles. I may not have been able to convince him a turkey took 11 hours to cook, but I sure could turn on the wrong oven for the first 7 hours.
While writing my dad’s eulogy, I chose not to talk about the past nine years of his disease. Everyone at the service knew my dad was sick. I also chose not to write a resume-style story of where he grew up, who he married, and what school he attended. Instead, I followed a piece of advice I’d read somewhere that the goal of a eulogy should be to try and bring the person back to life for one more moment. I wrote a story for the people who knew him.
It was good to write it. Nine years is a long time, and in that time I had accepted that I had already lost my dad. That is what neurological diseases do — they take people long before they are gone. So it was good to remember who my dad used to be.
The rest of this letter is the text of the eulogy I wrote.
So there I was in the jungle… Except it wasn’t a jungle. And there weren’t any piranhas. I was in the high country of Yosemite. And I was sitting by a stream with my friend Frankie as a bear started wandering toward us. Two teenagers, alone in the woods, and a bear staring us down.
And my dad wasn’t there.
That’s because he was somewhere in the woods wandering around looking for the trail. While he wouldn’t admit it at the time, he had lost the trail hours ago and had no idea where we were.
This was my dad’s specialty. He didn’t care too much for rules, and his confidence always outstripped his actual expertise. He’d take on jobs he had no idea how to complete. He’d take apart an engine with no idea how to put it back together. He’d plan road trips to places he’d never seen a map for. And more often than not, there’d be cops involved somewhere along the line.
But another thing about my dad is that he figured things out. He’d find a way to finish that job. He’d get the engine running again. He’d find his way back to the highway. And as he liked to joke — he was always the one who talked to the cops anyway.
But everyone here already knows that. You’ve all been conned one way or another to do something you had no reason doing because Tom Neath convinced you it was a good idea. He loved his friends dearly, and he loved nothing more than pushing them out of their comfort zones. It’s what made him a pain in the ass. And it’s also what made him the best adventure partner you could ask for.
In the outdoor community, there’s a saying about fun. Specifically that there’s three types of fun. Type 1 fun, type 2 fun, and type 3 fun. Type 1 fun is fun while you’re doing it. It’s a delicious pizza, a beautiful hike to a waterfall, or enjoying some beers by the campfire. Type 2 fun isn’t fun. At least while you’re doing it. It’s actually kind of miserable. But when you look back on it, you realize you’re glad you did it, you had a good time, and you made some great memories.
My dad was an expert in Type 2 fun.
Tom Neath was the kind of man who would show up in your life, and a few weeks later you’d find yourself half way down Baja trying to explain to the Federales that the baggie of oregano in your Volkswagen was actually just oregano.
The pot was under the seat.
That’s not fun while it’s happening. But he’d talk to the Federales, drop some pesos, and you’d be on your way again. You’d make it home. And it would become a story that you’d laugh at years later.
That’s the part of my Dad I’ve always been jealous of, and will miss the most. He wouldn’t let anyone or anything stop him from having a good time. And he’d always find a way to turn a bad situation into a good story.
And if you’re wondering, Type 3 fun isn’t fun at all. Not when you’re doing it. And not afterwards. My dad wasn’t very good at Type 3 fun.
In the end, the bear didn’t eat those teenagers lost in the woods. It just drank some water and continued on its way. As bears do. My dad eventually found the trail. He came back to lead us out. Everyone made it home safe and sound with a good story to tell.
Tom Neath is the reason for so many of our stories. Not the shallow stories we’ll forget in a few weeks — but the hard-won stories that stick with us the rest of our lives. The stories that maybe aren’t all cotton candy and popsicles, but end up our favorite stories to tell.
I hope that when you think of my dad, you’ll think of the times he pushed you to do something you weren’t sure about, had a great time, and walked away excited to tell someone else about your time with Tom.