When I first moved to Southern California, I was living, briefly, in Huntington Beach with Heron and two of our friends.  I remember sitting in the living room and telling one of my friends — let’s call him Stan Clouds — that I was going to find a way to write a story for the OC Weekly.  He believed it, and he was encouraging.  We even spent some time trying to figure out a way to write a story about him.

Well, a year has gone by, and my buddy has moved.  He’s living somewhere in the northwest.  It’s funny how things change.  It’s funny how people move.  It’s funny how you can never know the direction of where things are going when you start.

But this morning, I biked down to 2nd Street in Long Beach to do some work at a Starbucks, and I opened up the OC Weekly to this:

To the Long Beach community, the closing of Berth 55 is an important story, and I was very lucky to help give this issue some attention.

Let me dive a bit deeper.  I wanted to share with you a piece of writing that always resonated with me.  I’m going to paraphrase.  What I’m about to share comes from an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  My buddy, Justin Dennis, told me to read this back in college.  Well, in that essay, Emerson writes, remember I’m paraphrasing, imagine yourself as a boat on the open sea.  When you’re on the open sea, you have to zig zag on your way to your destination.  If there is enemy ship near you — or even a dreaded pirate — you can’t go in a straight line, because your route will be predictable and you’ll be in danger.

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