I am very happy to report that my book Deep Response: An Emergency Education in Post-Consumer Praxis is finally complete and available.
I still have the audiobook to record and publish, and to make it available through non-Amazon channels, so there’s a little bit of work left to get the whole project across the finish line.
The most immediate effect of finishing Deep Response is that I’ll be able to turn my writerly attentions back to my blog, this newsletter, and the podcast. I’ve missed putting out short(er) form content on a more regular cadence and have a bunch of ideas stacked up.
For now, though, here’s Ch1 of the book:
Deep Response Chapter 1: You Are Walking Into A Trap
I’m standing in the rain on the sidewalk outside of the house I lived in twelve years ago, near Telegraph and 61st Street in Oakland. The old post-war bungalow is as I remember it: tired-looking, layers of paint softening its lines and giving it the illusion of pulling into itself.
I let myself in and open the door to the first room on the right. It’s a small bedroom. The mattress pushed into the corner takes up most of the space. Immediately inside the door is a desk piled with books, pads of green graph paper, empty coffee mugs and beer bottles, and a beat up laptop with glowing red keys.
And there I am. There he is. I mean, my twenty-five year-old self is sitting with his feet up on the desk, big over-ear headphones on, a book in his lap. He scowls up at the intrusion and then his face freezes as he recognizes me.
Apparently he was not expecting his thirty-eight year old self to burst into his room tonight.
He pulls the headphones down around his neck and I can hear the music clearly now. It sounds like Wolves in the Throne Room, which seems appropriate.
“Hi,” I say. “We need to talk.”
He pulls the plug on his headphones and tries to speak but it comes out a croak. He tries again: “What?”
“I’m you, visiting from twenty twenty-four. There are some things I need to tell you about.”
He stands and steps right up to me, well inside my comfort zone, and studies my face. I’m oddly okay with it. I suppose it is our comfort zone, after all. This is going to be a strange night.
He’s got a good ten to fifteen pounds of muscle on me, a remnant of my college powerlifting phase, but he looks softer. I’m leaner and harder now. He could probably beat me in an arm-wrestling match but I know I would outpace him on a long trek in the mountains with a heavy pack.
I watch him study me. He’s got my signature scowl, all right. It doesn’t mean he’s mad, it means he’s thinking. His eyes settle on mine and I can see their question: Is it true? Are you me? I hold his gaze calmly. His scowl fades to neutral, which is as close as I got back then to expressing surprise.
“Holy shit,” he says softly.
I’ll be in the lower 48 for the next couple months before heading back up to Alaska. The place is really starting to grow on me…
