Update: My band is doing a little fundraising debut show & open mic at my house the night before the run. Check out the show poster for more details. If you’re near Portland, I’d love to have you come by or even perform a little something! Get in touch and I can get you the details.
Update 2: Thanks to your support, I was the third-highest individual fundraiser for the whole event. This really meant a lot to me!
Since the loss of my wife Michelle last year, I’ve been involved with an organization called the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN). Each year, many cities in the US hold a fundraising run called PurpleStride. This year Portland’s is on September 23 and you can help by donating to my team or even running with us.
Effective this week, I’m done with an over seven year run starting, building, and scaling mobile at the amazing Mapbox and I’m ready for some new adventures. I’m planning on a combination of relaxation, exploration, increased advocacy and time spent giving back, travel, rekindling old interests and hobbies, and baking pies, to name a few.
It is shocking to me how quickly a year has passed since I was on Capitol Hill, just seven weeks after my wife’s death from pancreatic cancer—itself the most shocking event of my life.
The following is a post that I drafted back in October, then let sit for months, planning to eventually get back to it. I decided to publish it mostly as-is in order to move on and to get to some other writing soon. As ever, things are moving fast and life is changing rapidly for me these days. Here’s a snapshot in time from a few months ago.
I haven’t felt moved to write in a little while, but I sat at the counter next to someone at brunch today, someone a fair bit younger than me (easier and easier these days), who was handwriting in a journal. I mentioned to her that it was nice to see someone writing, with a pen and paper, in this day and age. We chatted about the pace of writing, and how the medium could affect your choice of words. It was a nice little chat.
And so for the rest of today, I’ve been sort of primed to think about the power of writing—even if it is typing.
