Category: Paul Gerald Writings

The first time I ever went to a 12-step meeting, I brought one problem with me, and I found one immediate piece of solution. The pattern continues to this day.

When, after years of self-inflicted misery, I was finally able to walk into a 12-step meeting, I thought I had one problem and I needed one solution. I knew that I kept getting loaded even though it made me miserable, so I figured I just needed to get sober and I’d be on my way.

Continue reading “I’m a Runner”

A random “update your profile” moment on Facebook triggered a contemplation of where I (don’t) live.

I have been without a fixed address now for something like 22 months – a deliberate and somewhat planned state of affairs which one might call voluntary homelessness. Certainly, it’s addresslessness, unless a mailbox in Portland, Oregon counts as my address. And it does, to much of the official world. But Portland hasn’t been my home since I drove away from my apartment on May 31, 2021, bound at the time for Wyoming.

Continue reading “On Voluntary “Homelessness””

Somebody asked me the other day if I missed Portland, where I lived for 25 years, and I immediately said not really.

The ease and conviction of that statement caught us both off guard. Portland was a major chapter in my life, the place I chose when I chose to leave home, to go and build myself a life away from everybody and everything I knew. It’s a place where I learned and grew and lived and loved and had adventures and miseries and got sober and wrote books and the whole damn thing.

Continue reading “On (Not?) Missing Things”

I love the social media posts about being a “digital nomad,” which always show a lean, tan young model laughing at a hip co-working space or relaxing near a beach, with the sun just so, a laptop on her lap, coffee at her lips, and no doubt a yoga or paddle boarding date to come very soon. And then cocktails in a rooftop bar.

It all looks and sounds great — as does my life on Facebook at the moment. And sometimes people say things to me like, “Your life sounds amazing,” and I say in response, “It does sound amazing, doesn’t it?” Because on some level, that’s the point, especially of Facebook: to look and sound amazing.

Continue reading “Looks Are Intentionally Deceiving”

I just have to get back to writing.

I don’t even care what I write, how well, or for whom. Just push the damn words out. So many things go through my head and then … where? To what purpose? I always say my life is about “travel, hike and write,” but for me, if I don’t do the last one, why did I do the first two? It’s like putting a loaf in the oven and not baking it, much less eating or sharing it.

And it’s been a damn long time since I did any writing. Why? I have no idea. Being (self) blocked becomes a habit, I guess. Or a refuge of some sort. Can’t suck if you don’t write, can’t fail if you don’t try, can’t be rejected if you don’t ask, can’t get lost if you don’t take off. And once not trying becomes a habit, it’s awfully hard to break. You just wind up kind of … there, but messed up about it.

So I guess today was the day that the “write, dammit!” voice got loud enough, and the “maybe tomorrow” voice ran out of excuses. For now, anyway — no promises, to me or you.

Continue reading “Dammit!”

I was three miles up from the road, sitting at the edge of a forest, looking over a grassy, flower-dotted meadow and up a forested creek valley. There was a big grey mountain up there, half shrouded in clouds, with a few big patches of snow. The map said it was still a 12-mile hike to the base of it, but it looked like it was just right around the next bend in the creek.

It might as well have been 100 miles away, though, because I was not going to make it up there. At least not on this trip. That mountain, and all else that is up there, will have to wait til next year.

Continue reading “Up Eagle Creek”