What a year....

 2022.... wow. Quite the year, yeah?

The weird thing is that, in the midst of all the chaos and horror and sadness and hate that seems to have engulfed the world -- I had one of the best years of my life in many ways. To be honest, I kind of feel guilty even saying this. But it was an incredibly momentous year for me, and a very good one as well.

2022 In Retrospect

The year started off with a bang. At the very end of 2021 we bought our new place, and in January we moved to Kauai.

Needless to say, this has worked out well for both of us. We bought a pickup truck. We planted trees and vegetables. We fixed up the house and the greenhouse, and we tricked out the yurt - turning it into a guest hale. We got our Hawai'i drivers licenses and voted in our local elections.

I'm now a resident of Hawai'i - and that feels great. I live somewhere that is part of the United States -- but is not part of America. And that feels right to me.

We met new people, and started making friends. We got to know our neighbors and have started to become part of the hui. 

This helped lessen the sadness of missing our friends from the mainland -- and as expected some of y'all have come to visit. Which is great! In no small part because guests bring us one of the only things we miss here... fresh handmade corn tortillas. We saw Kavin, and Mon. Catherine came and visited. We saw Lisa and we saw Connie and George. We saw Terry and Kelly, and we saw Erik, Angela, and Aurora. We saw Sam and Anne, and even a few folks from work who came through Kauai! We love sharing our new home with our friends.

I had to go to the mainland for work (speaking at an investor conference in Monterey), and it was shocking how challenging the visit was. You know the frog in the slow boiling pot of water story? It was like I was one of those frogs who had been plucked out before I was boiled and placed in a lovely terrarium all of my own... and now I was being (temporarily) dropped back into the soup. My ability to deal with the negativity and hatred and selfishness and lack of any sense of connection to other humans much less the world around you seems to have been stripped away. This left me with a strong desire to not leave Hawai'i for a bit!

Summer came and it was hot. Tourists were everywhere - with their mainland entitlement and self-centeredness. It was a lot -- but it's still Kauai. It's still amazing. We grew incredible cherry tomatoes. We harvested tons of lychee. We spent time with friends and at the ocean.

Work had been going really well for me. Mach49 has continued to grow and continued to do very well. I was having a great time in my job - and love the company. Around this time Linda, the CEO and co-founder, approached me and asked if I was interested in becoming the Chief Strategy Officer. We talked through the role and I, happily, agreed to the promotion.

We took a little "Staycation" here on Kauai, which was fantastic and honestly is something we'll probably do every year. People spend huge amounts of money to vacation here. Why would we go somewhere else?

Valerie's 50th birthday party was incredible. We did a "best of Kauai" themed party with Valerie's favorite foods from all over the island. We had a big party tent, a bartender, a sound system, and a ton of great friends. It was, IMHO, the best birthday party either of us have had.

In early September I went back to the mainland again, this time for the Mach49 Summit. Unfortunately, I ended up contracting COVID at the event (despite all my safety precautions). I'd made it all the way to mid 2022 without getting sick... but my luck ran out. I ended up pretty sick, but Paxlovid sorted things out and I didn't end up with any lingering symptoms. Sadly, I also infected Valerie but her symptoms were at least mild.

Once recovered, we decided to take advantage of our "temporary but robust immunity" and went to Honolulu for almost a week. We took advantage of the local Kamaaina rates and stayed right on Waikiki with great views. We ate amazing meals at great restaurants (Mud Hen Water, Piggy Smalls, and Fete all stand out). We got spa treatments. We shopped and we stared at the ocean. It was great. The food scene in Honolulu is very good now, and I feel like it gives me everything I need that I don't have on Kauai (other than, of course, my far-away friends).

As we moved into the fall, and the second of our two seasons here (The Dry Season, The Wet Season), we continued to plant fruit trees and expand our vegetable growing. We grow a huge percentage of the fruits and produce we eat, and what we don't eat we either gift to others or have a friend sell at the farmers markets. It's an amazing feeling.

Valerie took a consulting gig working with me at Mach49 late in the year - which has been lovely. We've always really enjoyed working together - and have a great work partnership. 

As the year wound down we decided that this new life, this new place, this new lifestyle and reality we live within doesn't seem to really fit with some of the mainland structures and values and moments. After a lot of discussion, we decided that instead of Thanksgiving (with its embedded colonialism and racism and oppression of native peoples) we would celebrate Pigsiving the weekend after Thanksgiving. We roasted a whole pig, set up some tents, and had a pot luck with the ohana, our friends, and the hui. It was absolutely perfect. As a result, we also reconsidered Christmas. Neither of us have been fans of much of what Christmas has become -- and it feels completely divorced from our reality. So, based on a conversation with my friend Alex Knight, we decided we would instead start celebrating Winter Solstice. This has turned out to be great - and we're going to move to a more "growing season" based celebration schedule in the future.

I've cooked a lot of great food this year.

I've grown a lot of great ingredients this year.

I'm made connections and friends.

My job is great - and I am in a new, exciting, and senior role.

The relationship I have with Valerie is the rock that everything is built on and continues to be the thing that brings sense to my life.

My health continues to improve, in all ways. At my age -- that's a miracle.

My only hopes for 2023 are:

1. that it's as good if not better than 2022
2. that both Valerie and my health continues to improve
3. that our friends from the mainland keep visiting us
4. most of all, that it is better than 2022 for everyone else... especially for those for whom 2022 was a truly awful year (and I know that is a lot of people out there).

Aloha to all!

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