As a child, I believed I was special. I grasped complex ideas quickly, asked questions about reality that my peers never considered, and felt destined for greatness.
But as I grew older, life had a way of dissolving those ideas. Not that I was unhappy—I had a great wife, great kids, joyful moments—but something was missing. A dull ache in my chest, a heaviness in my eyes—surfacing at odd moments, unbidden.

On Dana Street in North Berkeley, unhoused men and women huddled under a church awning in the morning downpour. I looked away, then forced myself to cross the street, raising my voice over the pounding rain.
“This weather is awful,” I said, shivering, water running under my collar, trying to sound casual, though I likely came across as what I was: guilty and entitled.

In Richmond, the trees are not where they should be. In their gangly adolescence, each was planted in a rectangular bed along the curb; situated 40 feet apart, the beds leave ample space for the canopies to spread, but measuring six-by-eight-foot, they are perhaps too small for the lower half. The roots of the oldest trees, older than the inhabitants who live indoors, have extended from their little box and into the sidewalks, creating fault lines for us to leap over.