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Within criminology, my field of work, the advent of actuarial crime models—informed by the language of the insurance world—has been accompanied by a shift in emphasis. Solutions to crime are not sought out, and the social or economic canvas on which behavior occurs is deemed unimportant. Today, the system depends extensively on the harvesting and analysis of data to assess risk. It’s a system that eats its young and is riven with inconsistencies and dubious practices. Money is the imperative. The wellbeing of victims and perpetrators are secondary. This concerns me greatly.What I want to address below are concerns based on my experience working within a community substance-misuse service. The benefits of the science and technologies of data management are undeniable—but who amongst us could claim to have no second thoughts about our ever-increasing dependence on computer models and processed risk assessments? Where, one might ask, is the space for intuition and a professional human eye?

Risk Management in Criminal Justice Is About People

In a previous article, I discussed my experience working with survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire. Prior to that event, I spent 18 months working with criminal offenders sentenced to drug and alcohol rehab programs in the same postcode area of London. A portion of them were sex offenders. I can honestly report, when I started working within this particular community service, the service was exemplary. My team had access to psychiatrists and addiction doctors, along with employment, education and training. The service program provided a drop-in for clients in recovery, a food bank and legal aid and advice for clients. We had time to get to know our service users and criminal justice clients. I remember well supervising two psychology major interns from the U.S. who were bowled over by the amenities we had managed to build. Unfortunately, after a contract tendering process, the service was taken over by two new corporate entities. Their agenda was to streamline the service and cut budgets—the centerpiece of their operations model was a new database system and an actuarial approach to risk assessment based on, essentially, a tick-box exercise. This shift in emphasis, in my honest opinion, tore the heart and soul out of a program that had been delivering an outstanding service for clients and, importantly, boasted an inspiring work environment. We worked effectively managing criminal justice referrals, and had the authority and professional access to advise an individual’s probation officer on a course of action, including breaching (returning an offender into custody), if a client’s behavior had given cause for concern. It had been hands-on work, and the professional integrity of decisions was checked and balanced through conversations with psychiatrists, doctors and educational practitioners in regard to a team-wide decision-making process. This was purposefully and completely undermined by our new “employers.” They wanted us to crunch more numbers, highlight sketchy, dishonest outcomes and, dangerously, shy away from any negative client decisions—particularly a breach, which could see a client back in prison. Breaches looked bad for our new bosses; the consequences for the community were disregarded. It was painful to be a part of this sham, and many of us looked elsewhere for work. It was hard not to see it as an exercise in squeezing profits out of community services—and if not profits, generous salaries and conditions for senior management.

Dangerous, predatory sex offenders were allowed way more leeway than was safe. Soon, the inevitable happened.

Sex Offender Risk Assessment Tools Include Humans

My personal role shifted from counseling and supervising clients to completing data charts, and treatment outcome profile surveys (TOPS forms). We punched numbers and, in response, the computer pumped out a series of results, which included a risk assessment. For clients sentenced by the courts to attend our service, increased risks would result in enhanced restrictions, or a breach and imprisonment.The time staff members once spent working with the court-referred clients was instead taken up with corporate induction days, endless training and, of course, data entry, analysis and management. The end result was that dangerous, predatory sex offenders were allowed way more leeway than was safe. Soon, the inevitable happened. One man with a history of domestic violence and sexual assault (involving a 14-year-old neighbor's daughter) hadn't ticked enough boxes to be "breached" by this automated system. My concerns, and those of my colleagues, were ignored. It only mattered what this database assessed. It was essentially an institutional move to replace a well-paid, highly-trained staff with interns, volunteers and support workers. And what of the consequences? The offender I referred to attacked yet another woman he became involved with, hospitalizing her and leaving her with facial scars for life. It’s the harsh reality of a system, once functioning so well, being sacrificed to the measurement of abstractions. We have an instinctual, ambiguous concept of “risk,” but no broad, fundamental agreement about what it actually is. One person’s risk is another person’s fun.

Technologies have their place, but they should never have the last word.

Criminal Justice Risk Assessments Are Only One Example

This is just a microcosm of the societal risk we take when statisticians—and the technologies they deploy—are left to calculate risk using actuarial models. It also speaks to the U.K. government's obsession with statistical models and algorithms. Neil Ferguson's analysis of COVID-19, undertaken at Imperial, was as far off the mark as his disastrous modeling of the foot and mouth crisis over a decade ago. His "predictions" led to the unnecessary slaughter of millions of healthy animals and the bankruptcy of thousands of farmers.I’ve struck out on a tangent to galvanize my points. Actuarial models have permeated all levels of health, social and criminal justice systems in the U.K. Their promoters cite savings and efficiencies by predicting risk. Sadly, experience has taught me that wherever actuaries and analysts are used, there is little time for justice, and even less for human beings. It’s not what you do—it’s how many boxes you tick. Technologies have their place, but they should never have the last word.

Have you ever had the overwhelming urge to get a piece of art out of your head and into the physical realm? That was me with this drawing. It was the bust of a woman from the sternum up. The right side of her face was either scraped or melting off, with blood, muscle and bone exposed. She held her right hand up to her face, as if saying, "What happened to me?" I hadn’t intended for her to look like me, but I’d used a mirror to guide her facial proportions, so it's easy to see how we ended up looking similar.I’m no stranger to artistic impulses guiding me to work feverishly on a project. This time I felt like I couldn’t stop until I had at least finished the initial sketch. Tuesday night, I stayed up until 3 a.m. to sketch it, with plans to paint it in watercolor the next day. A few hours later, I was found unconscious, tangled up with my bike, in downtown San Francisco.My bike gave me freedom. At this point in my life I’d been biking everywhere I went, every day, for over eight years. The whole time, I’d never been in an accident. I don't take big risks with my body, and with my asthma, I would never push myself too hard for fear of not being able to breathe. On top of all of that, I also have a healthy respect for the fact that cars are big, dumb, murderous tanks that can't see me as easily as I can see them. Perhaps this caution is why I felt impervious, and how this whole situation caught me off guard and drastically changed my life.

I Was Hit by a Car and Left for Dead

The details of this day are fuzzy, as happens when massive head trauma occurs. I remember hopping on my bike in the morning with the intention of going to the courthouse downtown, in order to try and figure out how to finally clear a bunch of old tickets on a car I hadn't owned in many years. I remember bombing down a hill with the cool San Francisco fog on my face. Then I remember total darkness and a feeling of flying. I didn't have control of where I was flying, but I never felt scared or in danger. It was surprisingly fun. The next feeling was as if I had slipped into the world's most comfortable memory foam pillow top bed, with the softest, plushest blankets you’ll ever feel. There was an immense warmth and an all-encompassing feeling of love all around me, as if I was getting the biggest and best hug of my life.Eventually, I started to shake out of it. A thought popped into my head: "Wait, you're not in bed. Weren't you just biking? Am I dead?" It yanked me out of my comfortable bed of hugs and I woke up in an ambulance, strapped down on a stretcher in a head restraint, with at least three people hovering over me trying to figure out if I was still alive. It was a mad dash to the hospital, but luckily we were less than 20 blocks away, so it didn't take long. I was in and out of consciousness. I remember a slew of doctors and nurses poring over me. I don't remember getting scans, although they said I did. I do remember them saying, over and over, some version of, "I can't believe she's not dead."Eventually, the flurry of doctors around me subsided. I wasn't dead. I didn't even have any broken bones, aside from my nose and a tooth that had been knocked out. The entire right side of my body was covered in road rash. The best I could surmise was that I was struck by a car on this relatively empty intersection and flew headfirst into the concrete while my bike got tangled in my legs. The firemen who arrived first on the scene were called by another car who found me in the street unconscious. I assume the car who struck me left me there to die, which unfortunately is not uncommon here.

I Had to Learn the Hard Way How to Accept Other People’s Help

As the pain medication and adrenaline faded, my fears rose. How was I going to pay for any of this? What happened to my bike, which was my only mode of transportation? How was I going to work if I couldn’t even move my neck or walk properly? This was the first time in 27 years being alive that I had been fully incapacitated.Within 24 hours of learning about the accident, a friend of mine had created a GoFundMe page to gather funds that would sustain me over the next months I’d need to recuperate. This was before crowdfunding had become the common solution to a social system that would rather leave people poor and houseless than to help them monetarily. You know those people who say, "I never ask for help, but I always give it?" I was their queen. I don't say this to brag—I actually think it's a debilitating way to live. When you refuse to let people give you the same kindness you give them, it not only heavily taxes your resources, but can leave you feeling resentful and in pain.For the first time in my life I had to learn to lovingly accept help because I had no other choice. It ended up being the best thing that has ever happened to me. When you are perpetually the "strong friend," you can find yourself in the position I was in prior to my accident: working non-stop for your survival and your community, and in lots of chronic pain, feeling like you'll never get the help you need because you're too terrified or feel too unworthy to ask. In fact, I had been in chronic inflammatory pain for so long prior to this accident that I had all but given up hope that I would ever be pain-free.

For the first time in my life I had to learn to lovingly accept help because I had no other choice. It ended up being the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I Learned How to Let Myself Be Loved, Thanks to Some Generous Strangers

Within a week my campaign had surpassed its goal, funded by a community once and even twice removed from me. I‘d been working consistently and without any significant breaks since I was 14 years old. The GoFundMe gave me something I’d never conceived of having: time and support. I was able to get physical therapy that addressed pains both old and new. It took about eight months to recover enough to have enough mobility and functionality to work again, and during that time I found countless wells of resources in friends, family, therapists, medical professionals, spirit workers and, most importantly, within myself.Even if it had to come painfully, the biggest lesson I learned is that when you love people, they love you back. For the first time, I was thrust into a position where I had no choice but to trust others, and in doing so I liberated myself from feeling like I had to do everything myself, boundaryless and in pain.Now I do work that I absolutely love, I’m in less pain than I was even before the accident and I have more trust in the universal rule that what you invest into this world will come back to you. I wish I could say I could have found this out without getting hit by a car, but as a perpetual learn-the-hard-way type, that’s apparently what it took. The body, like the earth, is truly an amazing vessel that wants to heal. The only question is, will we provide the right conditions to make that healing possible?

• “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves”
• – Cassius, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

To my fellow young citizens of Portland:I am afraid. I am afraid we are losing touch with one another and our elders at a time when we need to cooperate against vast common threats. Our discord feeds the multidimensional violence that has blighted our city every night of the past three months and it affords natural disasters the capacity to cause us pain. Our state is aflame. Our city has filled with a dull, thick smoke. Some days we have breathed the vilest air in the world. Our firefighters will subdue the fires, God willing, and these conditions will abate. But they are unlikely to vanish. We must be prepared to live for months beneath a dark sky.If ever the heavens have sent a signal for reconciliation on Earth, this must be it.I feel moved to appeal to you, my contemporaries, and to myself, to detoxify and expand our discourse on politics and society. We ought to moderate our rhetoric and pursue mutual understanding through dialogue across cultural and ideological differences. At every step, we should seek to defuse, not incite; to empathize, not antagonize; to find points of engagement; and not to turn blindly away from one another.I would like to offer some insights from my experience interacting with people from opposite sides of the political spectrum and people in a dreadful armed conflict. My experience is limited, but I humbly submit my learning for your consideration.

I am afraid we are losing touch with one another at a time when we need to cooperate against vast common threats.

To Create Peace, First Recognize How Much You Have in Common With Your Opponent

I begin with war. Over the past months I have arranged conversations between youth in two cities that in our lifetime were under the same flag of the same country, whose citizens subscribed to the same national identity, until violence obliterated this consensus and fed forces that wanted no memory of it. These forces, both in good faith and in bad, exploited the uncertainty and the divisions across a heterogeneous society to recruit and mobilize supporters.For the security of all involved in the project, I will not name the country or cities in question. But suffice it that people drifted apart. Tensions escalated. And then someone fired shots. It does not matter who, for by then the sides had formed, and they were hurtling toward confrontation. Regular people became locked in the struggle. They developed fear and hatred for their attackers, and a loose geographic gradient in cultural preference became a frontline separating two new societies. My friends found themselves across the bloodshed from each other. Communication across the line, already weak enough to have allowed the crisis, all but died. People sought out those near them—those who shared in their pain and could confirm their version of anger. Those who disagreed with their new milieu left for the other side, if they could. In the ensuing years, more lives and homes fell to destruction. As the split hardened, so did the sullen silence between the cities.I see parallels between us and these young people separated by war. I see a similar cognitive divide. I see a tendency to mistake views for truths. I see hostility to candid discussion. I see groupthink. I see vain and provocative rhetoric. I see a fear of error disguised as belligerent pride. I see a sense of tragic resentment that suffocates conversation.At least, that is what I saw in our early meetings with people from these two foreign cities. In the months since, I have seen change. I have seen stigma overcome. I have seen a will to grow. The tragic resentment is still there. The loved ones they lost to each other’s fighters and shells have not returned. But now there is a will to honor them by achieving a just and lasting peace in their hometowns, even if it will require concessions. There is a will to set aside antagonisms and cooperate to end this war. They have rediscovered that there are good people on the other side after all. That is a fruit of restoring communication.Therefore I urge the following: Let us restore communication among ourselves, immediately. Let us prevent ruinous polarization, enrich our public affairs, and stem the violence. We ought to temper our language in conversations and on social media. We should focus not on how much validation we are soliciting from those already in agreement with us, but how much needless dismay we are causing perfectly decent people whose world-views diverge from ours. Many such souls do exist; my interactions with Portlanders of various milieus have taught me so, as has the project I have described.We as a generation must renounce the cancel culture that we have bred, for it is a sure path to deeper trouble. By ostracizing a person, we refuse an entire world. If people avoid exercising their constitutional right to express themselves, we risk tyranny in this city we celebrate as an apogee of liberal democracy. Let us not be warriors. Warriors are killers, a last resort. Their enlistment signals failure to respect a shared humanity. Instead, let us build understanding. Let us constructively engage with one another, our elders and the systems we find flawed. All of us, of diverse backgrounds and persuasions, must commit to this change for it to succeed. If we do, our joint effort will repair the eroded trust we need to heal our city.

Let us restore communication among ourselves, immediately. Let us prevent ruinous polarization, enrich our public affairs, and stem the violence.

Our Polarizing Leaders Are Likewise More Similar Than They First Appear

Recently, a fervent dispute broke out between our president and our mayor. Each portrays the other as a villain and an existential threat to everything good in this country. I have seen this inflated language beguile people’s judgment and drive them to extremes. They begin viewing one of the two men as the savior, and the other as the devil.Neither President Trump nor Mayor Wheeler deserves these appointments. I have met both in person. My meeting with President Trump was more accurately a reception, as I arrived at the White House with a large group, and he welcomed us in the East Room. His manner was genial, unscripted. Even the visitors who had avowed their animus toward him laughed at his jokes. He replied to our exclamations with wit. He said he was optimistic for our country, and that he was pleased to have us as compatriots. That morning, I perceived a man concerned about our nation. I saw and heard a person—not some savage creature, but a person. I likewise saw and heard a person when I took a seat at Mayor Wheeler’s conference table. He warmly greeted my small party, told us about his child our age, and dove into the issue we had come to tackle. The mayor sincerely wanted to help our city improve.I hesitate to believe either President Trump or Mayor Wheeler may be more evil than the average human being. Each has certainly pursued plenty of problematic policies. I dislike their proclivity for exaggerated rhetoric. I can believe that each is any combination of short-sighted, obstinate, deluded and selfish. But neither has a monopoly on good or evil. As I have learned from my calls with youth from societies at war, virtue and sin are on both sides. We ought to ask ourselves what we would do in our leaders’ place—how we would act. I urge us to not overlook the flaws of whichever candidates, parties and movements we choose to identify with, nor the strengths of the other sides.

As We Search for Villains, We Have to Account for the Harm That We Inflict on Others

I am certain that evil lurks in our country. There are agitators, tyrants, opportunists, plunderers. I suspect these types carry most of the responsibility for the violence our city has endured of late, and possibly some of the responsibility for the inferno that has consumed our state. But not all of it, to be sure. For there is also evil in each of us. There is evil in our vanity and our intolerance. There is evil in our apologies for violence and destruction. There is evil in our tribalism.When a society fractures, everyone is at fault. So take responsibility now. Take responsibility for our city’s well-being. Ask yourself: When was the last time you intimidated someone? When was the last time you pushed someone away? When was the last time you felt convinced that you were on the right side of history? Look not far for the monster, for the monster is in you.It is unlikely, fortunately, that Portland’s skirmishes will develop into full-blown armed conflict. The ideologies at odds are not grounded enough in popular psychology to elicit large-scale militancy, and democratic institutions are sufficiently firm and trusted that transitions of power should happen peacefully, thank God. Still, I urge us not to delay the work of restoring our community. Let us prevent further loss of communication, further stigmatization and further strife. Let us remember that we all are carved from the same piece of earth.This task will not be straightforward. But we, the young people of Portland, are talented and capable. I look forward to fulfilling this mission together, all the more in the shadow of sickly orange skies.Sincerely yours,Peacebuilding Portlander

Jesse was meant to be a straightforward, no drama delivery. After already birthing two previous children, both with traumatic emergencies, our third little boy was due to be born via Caesarean section—predictable, safe. The National Health Service midwives prepped me with a spotty gown and razor, and I was wheeled into the sterile surgical room to be injected with a substance that would numb my body from the shoulders down.Within minutes, Jesse was placed in my arms and we were taken into recovery. Then, in a flurry that I can hardly recall, a midwife noticed he wasn’t feeding. Instead, he was gurgling, trying to breathe. She picked up the phone. Before I knew what was happening, they had taken my boy. Apparently Jesse’s lungs weren’t working as they should, weren’t giving him breath to inhale. He was taken to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) and I was taken to the communal room where the mothers hold, feed and sleep with their new babies. All I could do was weep. He should be here with me. I should be feeding him, dressing him, cuddling him. Instead, I have to be pushed by a midwife to SCBU to meet my baby. The first time I saw him on the unit, in a plastic enclosure, I rained tears. He was sedated, tubes everywhere, wires, beeping machines. I held a pillow over my incision wound and struggled to catch my breath between sobs. This was the start of his journey. And this was the start of overflowing kindness amid trauma—kindness done out of duty and expectation, but kindness nonetheless.

Before I knew what was happening, they had taken my boy.

People Simply Doing Their Jobs Became My Heroes When They Saw My Pain

That first night, a night I had expected him to be keeping me awake, I lay behind my curtain in agony. As pain meds wore off, the incision pulsated pain throughout my body. Between the trapped wind from the surgery and crying each time I heard a mother talking to her baby, I could scarcely breathe.A sympathetic midwife heard me and pulled back the curtain to ask if I would like a private room. It was a powerful gesture. It’s her job to make sure I’m safe and comfortable, not to go out of her way to spare me the pain of hearing babies cooing. She didn’t have to, but she did.The next day, the doctor who delivered Jesse came to visit. He assured me that he was checking on Jesse and looking after his care. The doctor had become our friend over the course of the pregnancies and births of our three boys. Knowing we shared the same faith, he asked if he could pray for us and for Jesse’s lungs. Following up on Jesse, praying with us—he didn’t have to, but he did. In the middle of the night, I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to go sing to Jesse. A midwife on her nightly rounds saw that I was an emotional mess. She made me a cup of tea and asked if I wanted a wheelchair ride to SCBU. She had other patients to tend to, other tasks on her to-do list. Yet she took the time for me. She didn’t have to, but she did. We were told that Jesse wasn’t getting better and that he needed intervention at a hospital an hour away. My husband’s mum and dad stepped up. They moved into our house for the entire time we ended up being away, acting as parents to our lively boys. I’d expect them to care for our boys, of course. That made it no less kind. They didn’t have to, but they did.

You Never Forget the People Who See Your Struggle and Decide to Help

In that time, my husband and I lived in a flat financed by families who’d had premature or very ill children in the NICU of Jesse’s new hospital. People we would never know gave us the opportunity to stay near him during treatment: kindness. The doctor who let me take Jesse out of his incubator for the first time, with all of his wires and tubes, to have skin-to-skin contact with me: kindness. The nurse who let me phone in at 2:30 a.m. to make sure Jesse’s oxygen levels were normal: kindness. The desk clerk who gave me free meals to support my constant pumping of breast milk: kindness. Amid those many memorable gestures, nothing surpassed the “NICU necessities” gift bag our friends drove nearly two hours to deliver to us. They’d had a little boy born far too early, requiring them to be back and forth to the NICU for months. With all their experience, they dropped a bag full of unexpected lifesavers: Chocolate and sweets to be eaten when we needed a pick-me-up. A portable phone charger for when we had nothing to do but sit beside his incubator and flick mindlessly through Facebook. Hand cream for our dried hands that had to be washed upon entering and leaving the NICU. And coffee to provide energy to fight when we had none. Our friends knew the road we were walking and went out of their way to make sure we had their love, support and empathy. So much of the kindness we experienced after Jesse’s birth was what you might expect. Nurses, doctors and midwives are paid to do a job. My in-laws are grandparents, after all, and should be ready to step in during an emergency. Friends are supposed to have your back when the going gets tough.Their duties, or my expectation of them, doesn’t change the fact that I accepted all that they did as kindness. They made my husband, my children, and me feel safe and loved. Recognizing and appreciating those kind acts gave me life during the weeks that followed a period of trauma. And that feeling, I admit, I did not expect.

In 1981, I was arrested for serious felonies in the State of California, and incarcerated on a life sentence, first at Chino, then at Folsom State Prison. Recently I was paroled.I entered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation during a period of violence, rioting and racial tensions. When I arrived at prison, I had assumed that I knew what violence was. However, to my shocking surprise, what I encountered was far above anything I ever expected it to be.

I Tried to Find Myself Behind Bars

What I saw made me sign up to participate in programs that would improve my life, give me insight as to why I committed my crimes and hopefully build a better person out of me. I quickly tried to separate myself from those who wanted to continue criminal thinking and violence. I told myself, “How could they put me in here with these types of people? I’m not like them.”But the truth of the matter was, I was just like them. I was in prison for violent crimes, too. How could I separate myself from the things that they did? Around that time, I came to a realization that changed my life: I did not want to be like those men anymore. I didn’t want other people to see me the way they see other incarcerated people.Then I set out to change the person who I was into the person that I am today.I had been sentenced to 61 years to life. I didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. During the unrest at Folsom, I did whatever I could to participate in programs that were open. Even though I wanted to improve my life, the extended lockdowns and limited access to programs—because of my custody level when I first entered the system—hampered my ability to do so. After the wars, riots and racial complications subsided, I began to participate in any and all education that I could.As my custody level and points decreased, I was able to transfer to Level III programming. For years I worked for the California Prison Industry Authority, where we manufactured state t-shirts, boxer shorts, jackets, pants and flags. After that I went to work in the metal fabrications factory, where I did everything from working on press brake machines to filling out procurement forms.At every job, I was promoted to either first or lead man, before I finally worked my way up to the office, where I became a superintendent's clerk. My custody level points eventually dropped even further as a result of my consistent, positive programming. I was transferred to Level II, where I continued learning more skills, mostly doing clerical work for the prison’s upper ranks.I was also a teacher’s aid in Folsom’s academic inmate program for approximately eight years.During that time, I tutored inmates trying to get their GEDs while also attending Sacramento City Community College vocational classes on the weekends. Several years later, I became the college clerk who helped run the program, and convinced some of the very same students that I had previously coached into getting their GEDs and high school diplomas that college was the right choice for them. It didn’t take long for them to fill up the program.

Then I set out to change the person who I was into the person that I am today.

I Moved Around—a Lot

Due to institutional mission change realignments, I was subsequently transferred from one institution to another. I had no choice in the matter. According to CDCR regulations, my new level meant I couldn’t be housed at Folsom anymore. I was mandatorily transferred to Corcoran, Mule Creek, Centinela, California Men's Colony and eventually to Soledad State Prison, where I was finally paroled.While being transferring from one institution to another, I continued to work on my college education, trying to learn as much as I could and accumulate as many credits towards my associate’s degree as possible. My psychology classes taught me how I was considered abnormal according to society’s standards. I began to understand how my past experiences and my childhood upbringing shaped how I feel about women and how I feel about myself. Those were issues that I needed to address and change.My many years of learning in prison and working in those groups made me the person that I am today.This is one of the main reasons why I’m still involved in programs that provide services to those who need them.At Soledad, I continued to develop insight into my life, my crimes and the person that I wanted to be. I heard about people who left prison, entered a trade and improved their lives. I enrolled in the Prison Industry Authority’s healthcare facilities maintenance program, because it was a trade where one could more than likely get hired once they’re paroled.The training involved the regular cleaning of hospital offices, patient rooms and all aspects of regular hospital cleaning. I scrubbed and waxed floors. I emptied bedpans, handled hazardous materials and cleaned up every sort of bodily fluid. I was trained extensively in handling personal protective equipment, one of the hallmarks of healthcare facilities maintenance and the first thing you learn in the program.

Finding a Job After Prison Is Difficult Enough, Let Alone During a Pandemic

I was paroled from Soledad Prison in April. Unfortunately, I was stepping headfirst into the COVID-19 pandemic.After nearly 40 years of incarceration, I was confident that I was returning back into society with saleable skills that I could put to use for myself and others. Unfortunately, and to my surprise, I wasn’t able to find a job. I also couldn’t get a Social Security card or a driver’s license. If someone sent me a check, I can’t cash it.As a society, we should take a more careful look at how we treat one another as people, especially those coming back after being locked away. You can say that these are the ramifications for participating in crime, but the last time I checked, that’s what completing your sentence is all about.When I went into that boardroom at Soledad and that commissioner told me, “You are suitable for parole,” it boosted my faith to know that there are people in the world who care and can show it. It made me proud of the work that I’ve done to improve my life, and my existence on the planet. We should be just as interested in who comes out of prison as we are in who we lock up.

Whenever someone finds out I recently won an episode of the hit Food Network show Chopped, I get a wonderful reaction followed by the same set of questions. For example, somebody recently asked me if there were really only 20 or 30 minutes per round to make a dish. To answer them, I recounted the moment I realized I had no dipping sauce for my popcorn chicken tenders with just 10 seconds left in the round. I had plated everything—the tenders, cheesy smashed potatoes, sauteed broccoli rabe—but I ran out of time to make a spicy aioli. So I sprinted to the pantry to grab ketchup. The judges questioned my decision but cheered me on—and also counted down the clock out loud. At the buzzer, I finished putting a squeeze of ketchup on each plate. Yes, that ticking clock is real.A couple of months removed from the show, I now have my answers down pretty well. So I figured what better way to talk about my experience than to tell the people what they want to know!

Yes, that ticking clock is real.

How Did You Get On the Show?

A casting agency slid into my DMs on Instagram! I was shocked. I didn’t have much of a following or even post that often (although since the show, I’ve been stepping my social media game up a bit). But when I got that first message asking if I would interview for the Food Network, my initial response was, “NOPE.” There's a funny stigma from restaurant folks about going on shows like Chopped—as if it's not "cool" or something. But I went through with the interview because, in all honesty, I had been coming out of a deep COVID depression and had close to nothing lined up professionally. After a call and a recorded Zoom interview with the casting agency, I received an email from one of the show’s producers congratulating me for being cast for the show. And after some convincing from loved ones, I decided to just go for it. But let me tell you: If the experience itself—the cameras, the rush, the people I met, the accomplishment—wasn’t enough to convince me that participating in a show like Chopped is far from "lame," walking out with a paycheck like that after one long day of work sure did.

How Long Does It Take to Film?

All in a day’s work, babe! Well, almost. The day before the competition, I went to the new Chopped film set—a beautiful old warehouse converted into studios in Paterson, New Jersey—for a couple of hours to film the introductory portion of the episode (I discussed who I am, what I do, my style as a chef). On competition day, I had to be on set by 5:45 a.m.Less than three hours later, I was figuring out what to do with ingredients like nacho cheese and hot dogs. If you get the boot in the first round, your day is over by noon. But after making it through all three rounds—the emotion and adrenaline running rampant—I sat down for three hours afterward to talk about it all on camera before finally heading home at 9 p.m.

Is It Really Like What You See on TV?

The cooking and judging were as real as it gets. At the beginning of the day, we got to quickly tour the pantry, but for each round, you open your basket, look at the ingredients and start cooking because the time goes by fast. The narrations and interviews were scripted at times, but mostly things were just swayed. The producers would ask a question hoping for a certain response, and you’d have to reply in a full sentence so it didn’t sound like an interview. For example, I really didn’t want to speak poorly of any contestants on camera. But if I didn’t give them a straightforward answer to, “Who do you think will be chopped first?” their next question was, “Who do you think will make it to the next round?” The introductions were written by the producers based on things I’d said in my recorded interview a month prior to the episode’s filming. And while I would have maybe written things slightly differently in my own words, it was nice to have everything completed and ready to read the day before competing. When you’re watching the show, contestants discuss what occurred in the present tense as the b-roll shows them running around like headless chickens trying to pull everything together. That narration actually gets filmed after you’re done shooting. So, whether you win or lose, you have to sit down and narrate each moment of the show bit by bit by bit. As the producer asked me questions, he pointed me in the direction of what I should say or how I should say it in order to create the right narrative arc for the episode.The interviews in between each cooking round are simply prompted by questions. The producer stands next to the camera and asks, “How are you feeling after that round?” and, “Who do you think will be chopped?” and, “What are the judges going to say about your dish?” That was hard, mostly because I wanted to support my competitors and be grateful for the opportunity. But, of course, there was pressure to say things that would make for good entertainment.I walked into filming prepared to avoid saying anything cheesy. I had watched about 20 episodes of Chopped leading up to my taping and told myself I would not take part in the puns and the exaggerated statements. All that changed as soon as I got on set, which I found hilarious. Suddenly, I was the one making the puns and using a sing-songy voice that I so much wanted to avoid. But I’m glad I gave the people what they wanted. See, here’s the thing: I think I know why I won the show (besides practicing at home with friends and family…and being an awesome cook *wink*). I love to have fun, no matter what I’m doing. I try not to take things too seriously because I’m not saving lives! I’m a chef. I’m passionate about what I do and bring a positive outlook with me wherever I go. So when the time came, I went with the flow and just had fun with it all. This leads to our next question.

There was pressure to say things that would make for good entertainment.

Were You Nervous?

I was nervous until I got to the kitchen. Leading up to the show, the best advice I’d received was the simplest: just have fun. I didn’t know how important that advice would be. I realized that all I could do was cook with my heart and be my crazy self. I didn’t want to be upset if I lost, whether in the first or final round. I knew that I was stepping out of my comfort zone and taking on a new challenge. With that in mind, having fun became the only option. I went into each round playfully, followed my intuition and had an awesome time. I think that mentality was a big part of my success. It always has been throughout my life.

Has Winning the Show Changed Your Career?

It has! Not drastically, but certainly. Winning Chopped gave me credentials. When a new opportunity comes up, telling somebody about the show gives them a reason to believe I’m great at what I do. It’s an indispensable part of my resume and an experience that I’ll take with me throughout my career.The biggest change has been my boost in confidence. To win Chopped, you have to have key culinary skills: creativity, technicality, time management, great taste and more. I’ve always struggled with imposter syndrome—the feeling of not being good enough or not knowing enough—because being a chef is an endless journey with infinite things to learn. Being named a winner gave me pride in those skills and proved I have what it takes to be great.

If you want to know what’s going on behind the scenes in a family, head to its kitchen. This room of food preparation is where people feel an urgent need to divulge everything that’s going on in their lives to one another, and the things you’ll learn there if it happens to be your workspace are downright shocking. As a former private chef to celebrities, I've been privy to some outrageous family matters. Perhaps because food is a medium that connects people, or because it feels less formal than a family room, the kitchen is a place where people talk openly—and somehow, my clients always managed to forget about the girl cooking in it.If you’ve ever wondered why any person in a celebrity household has to sign an NDA, I’d say the number one answer is because of what they’re bound to overhear in the kitchen. For as much as I tried to ignore the people speaking loudly just feet away from me, I was never able to block the entire conversations out of my mind. And often, they were disturbing enough that I wished I had.

They did, however, offer to pay for her abortion, an offer that she ended up taking them up on because she didn’t have any other choice.

The Worst Conversation I Overheard Was All About Optics

Throughout these years of inadvertent eavesdropping, some of what I heard was to be expected of the rich and famous. For example, one couple lamented that, having earned $2 million dollars the year prior, they were being forced to pay $100,000 in income tax. I did the math in my head while they spoke about this calamity and quickly realized they were upset that they owed a measly five percent of their year’s income in taxes. If taxed similarly to the average worker, that number would have been significantly higher, of course. Yet from their mansion in the hills, they plotted how they could get this amount reduced.Other family matters were more mind-boggling. Many years later, I cooked for a family while they spent an extended vacation in America (they lived abroad full-time but were staying in the States for a year). The household had numerous nannies, which is common in very high-income families, and it had just learned that one of the nannies was pregnant. Despite her own family’s lack of support, the nanny wanted to keep her baby, and in the country where she and her employers lived, she was covered under their health insurance by law. However, if she went through with the pregnancy, her insurance didn’t extend to America.In order to see her pregnancy through, the nanny requested that her employers offer her American insurance, and specifically insurance that included maternity benefits. They declined due to the cost. They did, however, offer to pay for her abortion, an offer that she ended up taking them up on because she didn’t have any other choice. She was essentially alone in a rural area, pregnant in a foreign country, with no resources, without citizenship beyond a work visa and with no access to care.What shocked me the most as these conversations unraveled feet away from me weren’t the basic facts of the situation—outrageous, maddening and heartbreaking facts considering the unlimited resources and money the family possessed—but the continued focus on optics. The matter was reviewed from every angle, with assorted personal staff members, in relation to how it would look if something was leaked to the press. The primary struggle was: Would it be worth it to spend the money for health insurance just for the sake of looking like better people, or were they safe enough from exposure to not have to do that? They decided on the latter, and there was one less child brought into the world accordingly.

That family was likely the least well-off of anyone I ever cooked for but filled with the most joy.

Wealth and Status Does Not Make a Happy Family

In addition to the gossip you overhear while cooking for hours on end, spending time in another family’s kitchen makes you privy to unexpected family dynamics. We have a myth in our culture that money equals happiness, and working in countless mansions made it clear to me how much this isn’t the case. I saw divorces unfold in real time and children who were so badly behaved that families couldn’t keep assistants on staff. The happiest occasion I ever cooked for was a surprise birthday breakfast that a husband purchased for his wife in their 600-square-foot apartment. The wife was a new mom who had many dietary restrictions, and the husband had taken over morning baby care duty so that she could sleep in. He spoke excitedly to me all morning about everything from the experience of fatherhood to how thrilled his wife was going to be when she woke up. He was correct about that: When she awoke to a table set with her favorite breakfast foods, she broke down in tears and called her mother about what an amazing gift she’d been given before even eating. That family was likely the least well-off of anyone I ever cooked for but filled with the most joy. For as many happy tales as I saw, there were far more downright sad ones. In one grandiose home in Beverly Hills, I was to spend every afternoon in between lunch and dinner preparing snacks and baked goods for a retired couple’s grown children, just in case they stopped by. Though they lived locally, they never visited, and the food was tossed in the trash on a rotating daily basis. Yet when I asked if perhaps I shouldn’t continue making food to only be thrown out, the client insisted I not stop. “You never know when they might show up.”I’ve moved on from that field of work for many reasons, but I remain grateful for the unique lens I got into the lives of others. I learned that happiness comes from within, no matter how much or how little money you have. And you can bet I also learned that if I’m ever in the position to have a private chef, I’ll be keeping my mouth shut when I’m in the kitchen.

Skydiving is one of the biggest rushes that you can experience. It takes the human body through one hell of a rollercoaster of emotions: anticipation, anxiety, fear, excitement, adrenaline, relief.I’m a certified skydiver, with an A-level license from the United States Parachute Association. I’ve skydived dozens of times, both solo and in groups. I’ve loved skydiving all throughout my life. I’ve always believed that chances of accidents in skydiving are low because of the many precautions in place to reduce risk, and the very high safety standards for all the equipment professional skydivers use. Accidents are most likely to happen during advanced maneuvers; typically “normal” skydiving results in even fewer issues.In 2016, I meticulously planned a month-long solo trip around Europe, ending in Interlaken, Switzerland, a place where I’d always wanted to skydive. I’d been a professional instructor for four years, and although I hadn’t jumped in two and a half years, I wasn’t nervous. I felt like I hadn’t taken a break at all. I couldn’t wait.

Against All Odds, My Parachute Failed

Tucked in an alpine valley between the glistening mountain lakes of Thun and Brienz, Interlaken is ideally situated for exploring the Swiss Alps. Surrounded by the snowy mantles of Harder Kulm, the Eiger and the Jungfrau—arguably Europe’s most beautiful mountain—it’s the gateway to Bernese Oberland, as well as a popular vacation resort in its own right. I wanted to see the Matterhorn—which I knew from the logo for Toblerone, the iconic Swiss chocolate brand—for myself. As I flew over this gorgeous landscape in the front of a Twin Otter prop plane, facing my six-foot-six English jumpmaster (a goofy and entertaining guy), I looked out the window and admired the view. When the light turned green and it was my turn to jump, I shuffled to the door, handed the jumpmaster my static line, gave him the biggest shit-eating grin and jumped straight out. The wind roared in my ears. My harness jerked me around. With my arms overhead, my knees bent and my feet pressed together behind me—so that I looked like an upside-down banana—I leveled out before pulling my parachute. Nothing happened.Ten long seconds after I pulled the cord, the canopy of the parachute opened partially. The connecting ropes trailed out and quickly snarled up. I struggled to untangle them, but I couldn’t. I was falling fast. Then the automatic activation device, which is a small electronic device that attaches to your body and monitors the rate of descent and altitude, automatically deployed the reserve parachute, but its ropes wound up tangled in the main parachute too. After several more failed attempts at untangling myself, I started to panic.

It was the most terrifying minute of my life.

Had I Landed Just a Few Meters Away, the Outcome Would Have Been Much Different

It was the most terrifying minute of my life. As I plummeted toward the ground from 2,000 feet in the air, the faces of my family members appeared in front of my eyes. I was certain I was about to die. I was going so fast: How could I possibly survive something like that? I continued plummeting, with two parachutes on my back, for what felt like forever. Until that moment, I’d never really appreciated my life. I had only taken it for granted. I was dropping at speed, but I had so much time to think. It may seem obvious, but all that was going through my head was, “I really don’t want to die.” Just before impact, I closed my eyes, holding the image of my parents in front of me. And then I landed with a thud. I’d survived. How? I felt so much gratitude to still be alive. My mind raced with thoughts about everything I wanted to do with my life. I was in the middle of a field. I was absolutely conscious and in instant pain. The grass surrounding me was green and shiny. I was just meters away from a concrete surface that would have killed me for sure if I’d landed there. I could feel—and hear—my broken rib bones. My mouth was full of blood. My whole body was in the most intense pain I’d ever felt. I knew I had to try to get help, but there wasn’t anybody around. I tried to move and realized that I couldn’t feel anything below my waist. I couldn’t crawl or even lift my hand. It was horrible. A few minutes before I’d been completely fine. Now I was paralyzed and might be that way forever. After a short while, two people rushed towards me. Seeing my intense pain and the blood everywhere, they immediately rang an air ambulance. Soon I was being airlifted to the hospital. The ride was excruciating, and I slowly lost consciousness. On the outside, I had barely a scratch, but I had broken my rib cage and shattered my teeth. My hands were broken in three places. I had suffered a spinal cord injury.By the next day, my brother and sister had flown in from India. I broke down crying beside my brother. I didn’t know how I would be able to cope with life in a wheelchair. I loved traveling so much. And forget about skydiving—there was a chance that I wouldn't even be able to walk properly again.

It’s a beautiful life, and I could easily have lost it.

My Skydiving Accident Survival Ignited a Renewed Sense of Gratitude

After a couple of months in a Swiss hospital, I was allowed to fly back to India with my family, where I stayed in the hospital for another five months, doing physiotherapy every day to try and improve what little movement I had. Somehow, with my daily efforts and practice making small movements very slowly, I started to see improvement. Over the course of the following year, I began to stand on my feet, then move my knees, then eventually my legs. It was slow, and initially very painful, but my condition improved a lot. I couldn’t believe the improvement. I reckon it was a mixture of practice, patience and luck. Then miraculously, one day I was able to walk on two crutches with my physio’s help. The lasting effects of my accident are permanent, though. I still walk with a limp and I get tired easily. I still don’t feel any sensation from below where I was injured. I face difficulty in controlling my bladder and bowels. With all the support I received from my friends and family, I managed to accept the reality. Limping, digestive pain and difficulty in controlling my pee became my new normal. Since the accident, my perspective has changed a lot. I feel more gratitude toward my body: My eyes with which I can read, my hands with which I can write, my senses with which I can still smell and taste. Yes, I still miss the thrill of skydiving, and the adrenaline rush of being in the air, but I reckon myself to be lucky to be alive and to have my friends who are my greatest support system. It’s a beautiful life, and I could easily have lost it.

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” my friend said, with a tone that really meant, “You’ve got shit for brains.” I’ve made questionable choices. Many of us have in our early 20s. I’m not sure what you’re imagining for yours, but what I experienced was less forgiving, more powerful and indescribably more wonderful than any night of partying or one-night stands that might occupy top spots on a typical 24-year-old’s list of regrets. (I had those too, but they didn't make the cut). I’m talking about experiences with Mother Nature herself. Have you ever spent time with her, away from everything? It’s the absolute best, but you damn sure better know what you’re doing. With this sentiment in mind, my friend advised me against my latest idea: hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back in one day. Googling “day hiking at the Grand Canyon” has this top result from the National Park Service: “Over 250 people are rescued from the canyon each year. The difference between a great adventure in the Grand Canyon and a trip to the hospital (or worse) is up to YOU. DO NOT attempt to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day, especially during the months of May to September.”Naturally, I went in June. I couldn’t get a permit to stay overnight and therefore do a multi-day rim-to-rim trip. So I did the next best, far less intelligent thing and decided to hike down to the river and back in one day. In June, when temperatures inside the canyon can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The trail was 7.8 miles, one way. While the elevation change is just shy of one vertical mile, the merciless switchbacks take you down almost four miles to the plateau. I had plenty of backcountry hiking experience, all the gear and was in great cardiovascular condition. I thought heat stroke, exhaustion and a helicopter rescue wouldn’t happen to me because I knew, theoretically, what I was getting into and was prepared, theoretically, for the challenge. I was lucky to make it out safely.

Sometimes it’s better to quit.

Doing the Grand Canyon Rim to River Hike in One Day

My descent began at 4:30 a.m., past the sign that read “Down is optional. Up is mandatory.” National Park Service, you tried your best. I practically ran and reached the bottom by 10 a.m. after lollygagging to eat a second breakfast at Indian Gardens. This is where Havasupai families used to spend parts of the year near the ever-present, forested creek before Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson evicted them from their ancestral homelands in the early 1900s for the park’s creation. The trail I hiked is what Havasupai people utilized to get up and down the canyon regularly. It was positively stunning down there. Sure enough, “up” was really fucking hard. The sun was relentless, the trail much steeper than the way down (I swear) and the nine liters of water I drank never enough. Eventually, I rested on a rock at every other switchback corner, questioning my abilities until I realized I was leap-frogging two fit-as-fuck young guys resting on every other switchback corner that I was. The validation helped. At one point, an out-of-place mechanical noise cut through the canyon’s silence: a helicopter. Looking like a fly against the backdrop of the North Rim, it descended near Indian Gardens and sat for 20 minutes before taking off. A rescue, I figured. One of the 250 that occurs annually for people like me who bite off more than they can chew. As I said, I was lucky. That day, the internal canyon temps reached only 85 degrees. It was over 110 degrees on both the days before and after. By 3 p.m., I emerged to throngs of tourists and buses, in stark contrast to the quiet nature below. The hike was incredibly difficult and I will never do it again. I don’t recommend it. My body was crashing as I dragged myself back to my tent. I felt ill and napped until evening. Still, I was proud of myself. I still am, with the caveat that it was inadvisable. My body successfully carried me in and out of one of the most amazing places on the planet, to a place most people never see.Lessons learned:

• Mother Nature holds the cards.
• My body is amazing and can do really hard things.

You Can’t Be Too Prepared When It Comes to Hiking

The next summer, I learned another valuable lesson about backpacking. I was doing an overnight trip in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park, Texas. I climbed switchbacks, ate lunch on a rock next to a rattlesnake that I didn’t see until I was leaving and kept watch for a mountain lion that had been spotted on the trail every day for two weeks. Towards evening, the sun suddenly vanished behind angry, reddish-gray clouds. The wind picked up and within minutes, a raging thunderstorm was on top of me. I covered my pack with its waterproof cover but had nothing for myself. At higher elevation, surrounded by nothing but scraggly trees and rocks, there were few options for protection from lightning. As quickly as it arrived, the storm passed. Once again, Mother Nature dealt me a kind hand. It was warm and I dried off quickly as I hiked. I got stormed on twice more. I pitched camp, made dinner and got comfy in my tent. Here’s the inadvisable thing I’d done: I left my tent’s rainfly in the car. Why? To save two pounds. I knew it got cold in the desert at night and thought my sleeping bag and layers would suffice. Forceful winds barrelled straight through the mesh of my tent. It was dark. Like, really dark. Big Bend is one of the best places for stargazing in the country and has the least light pollution of any National Park in the lower 48 states.I don’t remember the stars that night, because I was too busy freaking out about every sound and feeling incredibly vulnerable and exposed. Does the orange piece of nylon that is my rainfly really protect me from anything detecting me? Practically, no. Psychologically, absolutely. I eventually fell asleep, knife in hand, imagining ancient supernatural creatures that roamed the mountains at night that would get me, all because I didn’t have my rainfly. Never again. Lesson learned: When you’re backpacking, every ounce counts. But for the love of Gaia, don’t skimp on shelter.

Mother Nature holds the cards.

Realizing It’s OK to Quit

Years passed. Wiser, I became. I met my now-spouse, and while we’ve had a couple of instances of being not entirely prepared, we put into practice the lessons we learned from our younger days.Like, sometimes it’s better to quit. I quit my trek through Bryce Canyon, dragging my sorry self off the trail at night and catching a ride back to the visitor center from a kindly British couple. I checked into a nearby KOA, showered and relaxed in my tent watching Netflix on the campground’s WiFi. Was it the backcountry, badass experience I’d planned? Absolutely not, but it’s what I needed. Similarly, my spouse and I made the smart decision to abandon summiting Mt. Marcy, New York, halfway up when we ran into two French Canadians coming down the mountain. When we had planned our “autumn” trip up the tallest mountain in the state, we didn’t know it’d be 15 degrees Fahrenheit and that the treeless, rocky summit was encased in snow and ice. The descending Canadians noted our lack of ice axes and asked if we at least had crampons. We did not.“Well, be very careful, there are two feet of snow covered in ice at the top,” they gently warned, but what I saw in their eyes was, “You’re gonna die.” We left and found a bed and breakfast in Lake Placid instead. Another lesson from this trip: Do your research.

How Hiking Lessons Translate to Real Life

The “deadliest” mountain in America is Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. At its 6,288-foot elevation, it’s hardly the size that matters. Mt. Rainier, the second “deadliest” mountain, stands at 14,411 feet, and Denali, the third, with a 20,308-foot elevation, would be taller than Mt. Everest at sea level. So what gives? “Deadliest” is in quotes because it’s not the mountain’s fault, it’s the unprepared hikers'. Plenty of folks stroll up Mt. Washington for a day hike without knowledge and the necessary gear to survive the sudden ice storms and flashing 100 mph wind gusts. I roll my eyes at the bumper stickers that say “My Car Climbed Mt. Washington.” Cool, you sat there, hit the gas pedal and steered as a powerful engine did the hard work. I’m not knocking anyone who drives to gorgeous places, but is it an accomplishment? Even with my mistakes, hard-learned lessons and close encounters, these adventures have been times of intense personal growth and self-discovery. I still take pride in my accomplishments and have some good stories. And I know sometimes it’s better to quit, adapt and go with Plan B.When I emerged from the trail at the Grand Canyon, a woman asked me to take her family’s picture by the trailhead and she took mine. “We went down to that arch,” she explained, and I remembered the landmark I’d passed before it was 5 a.m. “How far did you go?” she asked me as she snapped my photo. I smiled. “All the way.”

It’s not easy being a climate scientist these days. On the one hand, there are the climate deniers and “lukewarmers” who deny the fundamental reality of climate change, or insist that climate change’s impacts somehow won’t be so bad. About once a month I get an email out of the blue from a retired engineer or physics teacher explaining why we climate scientists have it all wrong, and why we don’t understand some basic physical principle. Often, these emails come with helpful links to self-published textbooks or online manifestos offering more details.On the other hand, there are the many people, especially younger ones, who are genuinely worried that climate change is very soon going to bring about the end of human existence as we know it. And about once a month, I get an email from a high school or college student asking what they should do to help prevent the collapse of society.While I commend and respect this level of concern about the climate crisis, I don’t personally view climate change as an existential threat to society. The countries and communities who can afford to adapt to a changing climate will do so—and they already are. But those who can’t will experience all of climate change’s worst effects. For me, the climate crisis is a question of social justice and equality, of ensuring that everyone can be prepared for its consequences, rather than something which will bring about the end of society as we know it.

The climate crisis is a question of social justice and equality.

Did Scientists Fumble Our Climate Crisis Response?

As a climate scientist, I often ask myself how we got into this situation. The conventional explanation is that this mess is the fault of the business conglomerates and special interests who have funded, directly and indirectly, so much climate misinformation. But do we scientists deserve some of the blame? Could we have been clearer in explaining our findings? Have we fallen into a trap set by the fossil fuel industry and its entourage?One of our biggest problems is communicating uncertainty. Scientists are obsessed with uncertainty—defining it, measuring it and reducing it. You’d never publish data without putting some uncertainties in it. But most people don’t spend so much time thinking about uncertainty. Politicians especially like to have clear, simple stories to tell. So people on either side of the climate debate can latch on to climate scientists’ discussions of uncertainty. It’s a clash of nuance versus messaging, and scientists are much better at nuance than messaging.I still don’t know what the right line to take on this is. There’s no uncertainty about the basic science and data of climate change: It’s real, we understand it and we know humans are responsible for it. But we’re still trying to work out how bad it’s going to be. Really bad? Or really, really bad, but not apocalyptic? We get excited when a new piece of evidence helps us parse these shades of gray, but non-scientists typically aren’t as interested in confidence intervals or new advances in data-infilling.

Climate Science Has Become a Mission-Driven Science

Another issue is that we depend on models to make predictions. In fact, this is how all of science works: We make models of reality, which we test by making predictions. The climate models used to forecast the future are some of the most complex computer programs ever written—millions of lines of codes, written by hundreds of researchers, which run on some of the largest supercomputers on Earth. But even these models are imperfect representations of the climate system, with countless biases and approximations. It doesn’t take much work to pick apart a climate model and decide you don’t trust its predictions. Clouds are the largest source of uncertainty (how do you even define a “cloud"?), but they’re far from the only source of error in climate models.The key, though, is to realize that these models are all we have. And they’ve actually done a pretty good job at predicting the climate’s trajectory since the first climate model predictions were made in the '80s and early '90s. Everyone who works on these models is an expert in their field, and does their best to create the most accurate simulation of the climate system that they can. In a way, it goes back to the issue of uncertainty again—there’s much we still don’t know about the climate system, but we’re confident in the big picture.I would actually argue that this confidence is another source of anxiety for climate scientists. I said before that scientists are obsessed with details, but we also like to have deep, important questions guiding our work. Think of Darwin’s endless study of finch beaks as he gathered evidence for his grand theory of evolution. In climate science, the basic science is settled. We know how radiation interacts with Earth’s atmosphere to keep the planet habitable, and how adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause the climate to warm up. We know why storms will get stronger, deserts will expand and the oceans will acidify. The question of “why” has been replaced by questions of “when," “where” and “to what extent?” Having answered the fundamental questions, climate science has become a mission-driven science. Societal and political relevance has replaced the romance of pure, blue-sky basic research.

We know the climate is changing and that this will have many bad consequences.

We Know Change Is Coming—the Only Question Is How Bad It Will Be

Returning to the question of what climate scientists can do to better communicate our science to the broader public, you can see our dilemma. We know the climate is changing and that this will have many bad consequences. But we aren’t sure how many meters the seas will rise, how much stronger storms will get and how bad, generally, things will become. We’ve built incredibly complex, sophisticated models of the climate models, but we also know that these models are riddled with errors, and that some of their predictions won’t come to pass. People want answers to precise questions: How much warmer will it get in my city? How will my crops be affected? When will all the glaciers melt? As a climate scientist, I don’t feel confident about saying anything other than: I’m not sure, but trust me, it’s going to be bad.

When I was 26, I took a trip to Patagonia. Outwardly, I was traveling—backpacking in the Andes. But inwardly, I was searching for something I couldn’t have articulated at the time: meaningful work. Purpose.I found what I was looking for volunteering on a small community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm on the Argentine slopes of the Andes. I fell deeply in love with farming there. Like any true love, it changed my life. Farming became my career. My wife and I now own and operate a much bigger CSA farm in rural-coastal California. During my time on that Patagonian farm, ten years ago now, I would write long, maté-caffeinated letters to a friend back home. The letters were romantic, verbose and dripping with the Wendell Berry-inspired agrarian idealism that fueled my own, and my generation’s, back-to-the-small-farm movement. I unearthed one of those letters recently, at the end of a difficult harvest season marked by wildfire, drought, the pandemic and civic and social reckoning. I decided to write myself back. But first, here is some of that letter from Patagonia.

Working on this farm has put me in forceful contact with the sources of my life—the water, the land, the plants, the animals.

A Letter From Life in Patagonia

June, 2011When the sun rises, I go to work.When the sun goes down, I take my rest.I dig the well from which I drink,I farm the soil that yields my food,I share in creation. Kings can do no more.– Unknown Author, Ancient Chinese, 2,500 B.C.Dear Theresa,It is nearly winter here now. I can see my breath in the cabin. Things are quiet on the land. I am spending the days caring for the animals, trying to trap the wild hares eating our last crops, cleaning up trash piles and helping Alex wrap up the season. A spokeswoman for the Mapuche people just passed through and spent the night. A gaucho folk guitarist the next. My friend Ponta, a Japanese orphan who has had the hardest life I have ever heard, just left for Peru. Pirata the dog is very sick. His sister Michay is pregnant. The Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano is exploding 200 kilometers to the north. I can hear it in the cabin on still nights, like stampeding horses on the earth. Life and death are tangible forces out here.It’s all quite lovely, but I think it has done something deeper to me this time.Working on this farm has put me in forceful contact with the sources of my life—the water, the land, the plants, the animals—and the fact that these things are not commodities, they are not necessities. They are our relatives and our greatest teachers. To work with them is to work with creation.Alex, the farmer, is very serious about this one point: The farmer does not create. He may have a vision for the farm, but after that he is a butler, a steward. This is how he should work the land: First observing, then responding—moving this there, maybe taking that away. And then, one day, as if by magic, a vision reveals itself to him as he sits back peeling an apple, watching in awe as the sheer creativity and richness of life weaves itself through the fields, writes its stories in the rows, plays its song in the seasons. The blossoms, bees, fruits, fungi, bacteria. The animals, the people, the stars, the moon—the movements and arcs of their lives, and all their far-flung interactions, alight the farm. Working here, I’ve realized some things about culture and art: Agriculture, or however a group of people survive on their land, is the root of that people; it is their original art and therefore the root of their culture. It is in their houses, their clothes, their dreams. It is the very material of their musical instruments and the rhythms and stories of their songs. As American and Chinese agribusiness have slowly begun mono-cropping large swaths of Argentina and Chile, so has American culture taken root in many South American cities. I don't think it's a coincidence that people started wearing the same clothes they were in Los Angeles in Buenos Aires and Santiago, and started building similar houses or dreaming similar dreams, around the same time that those countries adopt—or were forced to adopt—Western agribusiness, its methods and its seeds. What I've seen here in the Painted Valley is a beautiful work of art. The farm sustains many, and is sustained by the beings it sustains. The human culture around the farm hums with life. The farm has an identity, it is a home to so many. Inventors, pioneering agrarians, builders, indigenous activists, artists, who stop in and take refuge here almost daily. Economically and socially the farm works through mutualism and reciprocity. The association of families who support the farm is most concerned with the long-term health of the farmland and the farmer—as they should be, it is their sustenance.One evening after work, I was putting away some tools, and Alex came jaunting over with childish glee on his face yelling and pumping his arms in the air. "I love life in the campo [field]! I love life in the campo!”"Me too!" I laughed. “Me too.”All of a sudden, he was serious and stared inwardly out at the small field of winter rye spreading before us. He was silent for a while. Finally, he said quietly to me, but also to himself, “It is the art of life and death, you know? Nothing more and nothing less."I am a man looking for arable land. In love in Patagonia,XX

The farm was your first child. Maybe your last.

A Letter to My Younger Self

April, 2021 Dear younger self,You found some arable land. You built a farm a couple of hours north of the bridge. The magic you found that first autumn is still magic. But it is routine magic now—and it has required sacrifices of blood, sap and fantasies. It’s America, so your farm is much bigger and beastlier. Over 260 adults and 100 kids, running and screaming through the rows, picking flowers and strawberries, kicking up dust. Three tractors, employees, liability insurance, 90-hour weeks. The farm is essential, to many, just like in the Painted Valley. Your members tell you so and you see it on their faces. But you do not rest by the river reading Pablo Neruda and rolling cigarettes. That’s the first sap the farm required.You’re married. She is a farmer, too. You met in Massachusetts on the farm that you read about by Ponta’s fire. Among many other things, your wife is the queen of the greenhouses and the flower garden—a magnificent flower garden that makes people remember things in their hearts. She has an encyclopedia of the strange names of the flowers she grows inside her brain—along with the names of all she wants to grow next year. You love how each seedling, in each tray cell, is like a child to her. Especially the weird ones that take months to root. Especially the feral greenhouse cat that is now in the palm of her hand. You love how the tips of her dark hair bleach blonde in the summer; how her arms and her body fill out and grow strong each Spring from the work, her skin darkening in the sun. Farming has given her body, both your bodies, strength, nimbleness, confidence, settledness.The farm was your first child. Maybe your last. You don’t know if you’ll have the energy, the juice, or the money for kids. It is hard to be lovers. Operating a small farm reprogrammed your brain and your relationship, as living in constant vigilance will do. You relate most to your couple friends who, a few years into their first child, stand differently next to each other in the garden, gazing at their kid, slightly askance, slightly withdrawn.You willingly gave that sap for a while, but now you’re angry, searching for the feeling of your life together before the farm—at least on Sundays. Along with your personal reckoning, the “sustainable farming” movement itself is going through a reckoning of its own, led by BIPOC agrarians questioning the whole scene. Why is this movement all white? What of our land and our ideas that you stole? How do you congratulate yourselves, at the farmers’ markets, while your balance sheets and the agronomic and ecological world hastily implode around us? Is not the family-farm movement escapism, or lipstick on the racist, extractive pig of colonialism? On top of these questions, you just filed this year’s taxes: There is no compelling economic reason there why your farm should continue. You’ll survive this lean rainfall year with another infusion of privilege. So, gone is the Wendell Berry-infused righteousness that small farms will save the world’s soul from the clutches of industry. Gone is the disdain for the bigger farms you drive past in Salinas—replaced with clear-eyed understanding and fearful respect for the system that shaped those fields and that bears down on yours; and respect for the massive human migration and the skill that works those straight rows, etched by the shiny New Hollands with catalytic converters, pulling 80-foot boom harvesters packing 15,000 cases of lettuce a day.Trundling atop your tiny, dated tractor, inhaling the fumes, you watch the fantasy—that a small farm next to a river will give you peace—burn.Is this scaring you, younger self? I thought it would, but re-reading your letter, I’m not so sure. You aren’t so green. It wasn’t the peace that made you really fall in love with life in the campo. It was the ceaseless and inescapable honesty. Maybe you knew the moment you “sat back peeling an apple” was the moment the irrigation line exploded or the orchard burned down. That the peace of the craft for you wasn’t in the bucolic murmurings, but in the fact that all the roads lead back to the farm—all of the angels and demons of your mind, your time and your culture had to be dealt with there.That is obviously still true. You are still in love.So you stand, looking out on your farm beside your lover, perplexed and slightly askance, in horror and in love, at the fantasy come reality; at the sputtering business that you were unjustly allowed to chisel out of this non-prime valley; at the local kids running in the furrows; at home with the magic here. So you will go over your spreadsheets, your profit-loss, looking for a redesign, looking for truth. Not finding it always, but finding it often enough. Like harvesting melons. Hard and heavy and sweet. When you bite into it the juice rolls down your chin.Good luck, younger self, you are on a good path, as foolish as this one is. Don’t take the bus to Chile. The ash from the volcano won’t vibe well with the air filters.

I learned from an early age that my mom was adopted. Instability and chaos are what I most remember of my childhood. Mom was a mythical creature that was full of life and had the inexplicable power to attract others. Although she was neurotic, chaotic, irresponsible, unpredictable and at times uncaring, she was absolutely comfortable in her skin. Mom had to have her freedom no matter what the cost. But she developed the habit of sporadically abandoning me and my five siblings, sometimes for years at a time, just dumping us off on her neighbors and our Nana. As an infant, my siblings and I were separated. She left one of my older brothers and me with an unknown neighbor. This part of my history seems to be a total blur in my family's memories.

Growing Up With an Unstable Mother Wasn’t Easy

The earliest memories I have as a child is my time with Nana, my mother’s foster mom. Nana was brave enough to take on the responsibility of raising me and my three brothers in addition to her own adopted son and a niece that was sent to her in Mexico City. Can you imagine what it takes to raise so many children? She managed to keep her household impeccably clean and her affairs in order. Nana was content with her routines. The sleeveless dresses she wore to stay cool in the hot Sierra Madre desert always exposed her strong brown shoulder. She was a reserved woman who spoke only when necessary. She wore her three gold bracelets and gold ring with a sense of honor. Her jewelry seemed to always have traces of masa from the tortillas she handmade. She was natural and wore no makeup, a thrifty woman who never spent money on herself and always took care of the food and household needs. Although my Nana was not one to easily demonstrate her affection, she never failed to care for our every need.During this time, I felt like a ghost. As my body moved around the house going from room to room, I felt as if I was floating, dissociated from my environment. As I traveled around the house, I witnessed Nana in her habitual routine moving from the stove to the kitchen table cooking and preparing food for the family. It was like a mirage. I heard her voice, “Mi hija Magdalena ya viene por la niña,'' sharing with them that my mother would be coming to take me with her. These words filled me with anguish, uncertainty and created an infinite whirling that pierced through my stomach and chest. There was no face of this person they called my mom to refer to in my mind. I drew a blank. She abandoned me at such a young age there were no memories or feelings to connect us. This stranger was now coming to remove me from the people who had offered me safety and care, yet, I felt ready to move on. Perhaps because this place represented where I was forgotten, felt no outgoing love and abandoned. I finally landed in my body ready to face whatever may come. Somehow, the news filled me with the courage to take her hand. I was ready to go “al otro lado,” across the U.S. border.

Mom was a mythical creature that was full of life and had the inexplicable power to attract others.

I Eventually Had Stability, but It Didn’t Last

When my mom and I arrived in California, I was introduced to my new stepfather, my new baby brother and was also reunited with my two older siblings. For a while, family life was perfect. I had my own bedroom; we shared wonderful holidays; Mom and Dad were in love. One of the most memorable moments during these happy days was one Christmas when my parents surprised us with new bikes. I learned how to ride my bike faster than my eldest brother and was thrilled. Suddenly, everything turned around. My mother was diagnosed with uterus cancer and was hospitalized. During her recovery at the hospital. I was told that my stepdad had asked for a divorce. My mother recovered and moved straight into her new adventure. My brothers and I, on the other hand, ended up back with our Nana. This time, in her wisdom, she reunited me with the man she believed to be my father. At my Nana’s request, this stranger came for a visit to meet me. There was a calmness to him, and I felt comfortable and accepting. It inspired a smile in my heart. It was soon after that my new dad took me to his home to introduce me to his wife and my three new siblings. They were kind, respectful and always treated me with love. I felt like I was family.

Some Genetic Testing Stories Don’t Have a Happy Ending

News would randomly hit about my mom’s whereabouts—some said she was in California, others thought she was in Australia, while some believed she was here in Mexico. Needless to say, she continued to mystify people's imagination. She was a mystery to us all. I often asked myself “Why does mom behave like this?” Is it possible that her unknown mother also gave birth to children with different men? Did she also feel like I did—unwanted? Did her siblings also share this same pattern? Why couldn’t she just be normal? My mind was often full of questions?I don't know how I turned out as well as I have. As an adult, my childhood feels like a rollercoaster, full of ups and downs and lots of unknowns. I am happily married now with a lovely adult daughter and a wonderful caring husband. Although I had been reluctant to take a DNA test, I felt compelled when my husband gifted it to me. Initially, I hesitated because of my distrust in the possible unknown uses of my DNA, but my curiosity outweighed the worries. I was fascinated by the results. I was excited by the ethnic breakdown and the geographic tracing of my DNA around the world. A few months later I purchased a test for my younger brother. Weeks later we got results and realized he was in fact not blood-related to me. I was devastated, as this also meant that the man I called “dad” until the day he died was not my father. It broke my heart. I recognize this man was brave enough to claim me as his daughter and made me part of his family. After much discussion with my brother, we decided not to inform our siblings and continue to move forward as if nothing had happened. We both realized that love and family are beyond blood.

Weeks later we got results and realized he was in fact not blood-related to me.

My Unexpected DNA Results Did Have a Silver Lining

Weeks later, after receiving my DNA results, I was sent an email from a person who turned out to be my mother’s unknown sister’s son—my cousin. I found out they had always lived nearby, and that for a time, we literally lived on opposite sides of the same freeway. After many exchanges, I discovered my mom and her siblings all came from different fathers and that they too had at times been abandoned by their mother, my grandmother. It became clear that there was a generational pattern with the women on my mother’s side, who were having children in unstable relationships that resulted in them leaving their children behind. Despite my past, I consciously chose to nurture and love my daughter and husband. I have broken the ancestral pattern of bad choices and abandonment which has burdened the women of my family. My DNA test results opened many doors to discover my family's history and brought new questions regarding my unfound father. Does he know I exist? Would he like to know me? Do I look like my father and his children? Is he still alive? I wonder.

No one ever really talks about the emotional upheaval we feel around solo travel. Although I knew it was going to be challenging, I had no capacity for understanding the fear I was about to undertake—which was underpinned by such a drastic change of lifestyle.When I left New York last year, I wasn’t planning on coming back until I had ridden my motorcycle around the world. I was five months in and had reached Santiago, Chile, when COVID-19 forced me to come home. In these past few months of quarantine, I have had time to reflect on what I learned and experienced.Riding around the world is an enormous undertaking, but I wasn’t entirely sure I grasped how hard it was going to be. Needless to say, it was a huge learning curve and a myriad of emotions. I felt a deep excavation into understanding who I am, resulting in profound realizations.

Overlanding by Motorcycle Isn’t for Every Woman

Overlanding solo as a woman is, generally speaking, quite a radical, unique means of engaging with the world. I inquisitively assessed my behavior throughout my trip with curiosity and marvel at suddenly being very alone, and how comfortable I was in this solidarity.The answer always was whether or not I felt afraid. Fear was the barometer of how much enjoyment I was experiencing. Typically, I find that the emotional side of embarking on such a journey is often overlooked. The anxieties, daily stress and hardships of consistently being in a new place, meeting new people, being a stranger and not having a home or comfort zone to which to retreat to is challenging just as much as it is rewarding.I gladly left New York with two renowned adventure travelers who cushioned my anxieties about leaving my home. We went separate ways in New Orleans and, truth be told, I gritted my teeth through the fear and exhilaration as I rode towards the Mexican border. I was suddenly solely dependent on myself—an unusual feeling as a modern city dweller. I felt deeply lost and even though I knew the transition was going to be hard it was almost like going cold turkey from having everything at your fingertips to nothing apart from the provisions I was carrying.Although deciding to travel alone as a woman on a motorcycle may sound drastic and frightening; and despite the crippling fear, there were equal amounts of boundless vivification, and I’ve always been told to move towards the things that scare you—so you can conquer the fear rather than be ruled by it. There was also an inexplicable desire within me that kept pushing me forward: into the unknown.

Solo Travel for Women Can Be a Very Scary Experience

After crossing into Mexico, I distinctly remember the roads from Monterrey to Real de Catorce. This was the first time I really experienced the disconnect from the digital world because my phone went completely out of service for long periods of time. Of course, I knew this was going to happen but the reality of being completely detached made my heart sink, triggering me to monitor my cell service addictively as I rode along, having small panic attacks when I saw I had no way of calling anyone for help.The digital separation triggered an uncomfortable awareness within me, and I was forcibly pushed into the present moment, to feel feelings of complete abandon.Fear continued to haunt me.I was so terrified that I could barely stop or speak to anyone, leaving me feeling like a fugitive. The fearful thoughts whirled around in my head: My bike was going to get stolen; someone was going to point a gun to my head and just tell me to hand it over; I was going to get lost and never find my way to safety. As these morbid ponderings coursed through my brain, the chatter would get so loud I could barely enjoy what I was experiencing, which was the pure joy of having the freedom to explore this planet. The fear was quite ridiculous, quite upsetting.I was getting in the way of my experience of a lifetime.Nothing was physically happening to me but my mind was hijacking my reality. If this is what the trip was going to be like, I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it very far.

Fear continued to haunt me.

Over Time, I Started to Conquer My Travel Fears

It wasn’t until I got to Guatemala that this began to lift a little. By then, I’d spent about six weeks on the road and been through a number of dodgy experiences that, of course, I had figured out how to navigate and survive unscathed. I took someone on an adventure training and began to control the bike on dirt roads, something previously even the idea of which would panic me. This helped enormously: I believe a lot of fear stems from not knowing how to do something.As a part of my training, I got to see some of the most beautiful dirt roads in Guatemala, some of which I most definitely would not have traveled on alone. I had such an incredible teacher and who helped breathe some joy back into my adventure. We rode through rivers, sand, up bouldered tracks and lots of gravel road. I began to start really enjoying myself. This was a huge turning point for me and I set off into the next part of my trip with a renewed sense of confidence.Traveling alone doesn’t always mean you have to be alone. It means that you set off on your own and then whoever you meet along the way becomes a part of your journey and experience. Traveling solo simply means you aren’t tied to anyone. I used to think that if you traveled with other people then it was as if you were somehow cheating, but now I realize this is as much a part of the journey. The question also raises: What am I cheating against? The only rules that have been out in place for my trip have been set by myself. I am equally able to break at any given moment. This is another lesson in flexibility and acceptance—two lessons that are required for adventuring.

I was getting in the way of my experience of a lifetime.

I Plan to One Day Complete My Solo Travel Adventure

Solo travel as a woman really is a double-edged sword. The collective mind projects all kinds of stereotypes onto you. To assume the worst, it’s that people will prey on your vulnerability. But in reality, it’s quite the opposite. Most people want to protect you; they invite you in, ensure you are okay, ask if you need help.Being a solo female traveler suddenly makes you incredibly respected and powerful.Even though I was a long way from conquering my trip and my fears and COVID-19 has left me cooped up in quarantined New York City, it has just enticed a more acute craving for adventure. The biggest fears are nowhere near big enough to stop me from getting back out on the road, experiencing life in the present moment and adapting to change—there and then is life performing in its pure magnificence.Granted, I still have a long way to travel and multiple ways in which I can grow as a person to feel more comfortable in my own skin.The freedom of uncertainty is what propels us. The wilderness calls our soul to challenge ourselves and to experience things we never thought we would be capable of.