I have a confession. It’s a bit awkward to make in a country founded on the Protestant Work Ethic, but here it is: I no longer understand the word “work.” This became clear to me during the pandemic, on one of countless Tuesday mornings that blurred into each other, walking my dogs through the neighborhood while half-listening to a colleague explain an arcane concept in the state budget. The call was useful. My thinking was sharp. My dogs were happy. By any honest accounting, I was doing my j...

I have a confession. It’s a bit awkward to make in a country founded on the Protestant Work Ethic, but here it is: I no longer understand the word “work.” This became clear to me during the pandemic, on one of countless Tuesday mornings that blurred into each other, walking my dogs through the neighborhood while half-listening to a colleague explain an arcane concept in the state budget. The call was useful. My thinking was sharp. My dogs were happy. By any honest accounting, I was doing my j...

Last week I was finally able to see the cover image of my book, fifteen years after it was published. That’s a funny sentence that needs a bit of explanation.I wrote a book on the pioneering spirit that makes California awesome. The cover was a mash up of the state water project, one of the few pieces of public works visible from space, and Big Sur, by wide acclaim the most amazing confluence of land and sea on this pale blue dot. I recently had the privilege to take an aerial tour of Souther...

Last week I was finally able to see the cover image of my book, fifteen years after it was published. That’s a funny sentence that needs a bit of explanation.I wrote a book on the pioneering spirit that makes California awesome. The cover was a mash up of the state water project, one of the few pieces of public works visible from space, and Big Sur, by wide acclaim the most amazing confluence of land and sea on this pale blue dot. I recently had the privilege to take an aerial tour of Souther...

“History is not a ladder we climb, but a canyon we descend—each layer a story, each fossil a forgotten truth.”In the spring of the plague years, I went down. Not metaphorically—though that too—but quite literally: into the Grand Canyon, down through rock older than life itself, each layer a scripture in sediment. Tommy, our river guide—equal parts maestro, maven, and modern-day Charon—navigated us through the silence and fury of deep time. No cell signal. No calendar. Just sun, stone, and the...

“History is not a ladder we climb, but a canyon we descend—each layer a story, each fossil a forgotten truth.”In the spring of the plague years, I went down. Not metaphorically—though that too—but quite literally: into the Grand Canyon, down through rock older than life itself, each layer a scripture in sediment. Tommy, our river guide—equal parts maestro, maven, and modern-day Charon—navigated us through the silence and fury of deep time. No cell signal. No calendar. Just sun, stone, and the...