Elliptical Orbits

While I’ve moved most of my life to Calaveras County, my job is still in Placer County until the end of September. Consequently, I’ve been living in both communities; I spent last week working in San Andreas or from home during the day, and unpacking my belongings in the evenings. This week (and for most of the next three weeks), I’ll be working in Auburn during much of the week, and driving home on the weekends. And during these last three weeks in Placer County, I’ll be saying goodbyes. Sami and I moved to Placer County in 1994, so many of these goodbyes are to friends I’ve known for a long time.

I have felt relieved since the stress of moving ended after the third week of August. Sure, I still have some ranch equipment to move, and I still have much to unpack, put away, and set up at my new place. I still need to move my sheep and our mules. But the emotional strain of saying goodbye to the home where we’d raised our children - and where Sami died - was alleviated when I could no longer call our Joeger Road place home. That said, as I drove to my last Placer County Agricultural Commission meeting last night, I realized these human goodbyes would be difficult, too.

This morning, I visited the ranch of my friends David and Barbara Gallino, between Auburn and Grass Valley. David reminded me that we’d met 36 years ago, when I was a junior at UC Davis and an intern at the California Cattlemen’s Association - and when David was just starting to run cows on a Tahoe National Forest grazing permit. We talked about some of the ranchers we’ve both known over the years - both here in Placer and Nevada Counties, and in my “new” community in Calaveras County. We talked about what it was like growing up on a dairy in Grass Valley, about how he and Barbara bought their ranch in the late 1970s. In short, we had a great visit.

Driving back to the office, I thought about the nature of friendship. I’ve always thought of my community as a collection of overlapping circles of friendship. But I realized this morning that perhaps my geometric understanding of friendship is not quite right. Friendships, I think, are more like the elliptical orbits of comets. Since I met David and Barbara in 1988, I would often go months, if not years, without seeing them or even talking to them. But every time the orbit of my life (or theirs) would loop us back into contact, we’d pick up where we left off. We always had something to talk about - and to laugh about - like we did this morning.

Reflecting further on what it means to be leaving this community, I realized that I have reconnected with other friends during and after Sami’s illness. I’ve had dinner with college and high school friends who I hadn’t seen in decades. I’ve visited my friends in Humboldt County several times, and they’ve stayed with me. I’ve stopped in to see friends that I knew in Calaveras County before Sami and I had kids. Friends of Sami’s have reached out and included me in their orbits, as well. And new acquaintances whose orbits have brought them into similar contact with tragedy and grief have intersected my trajectory.

I have been fortunate to be part of a number of overlapping ranching communities during the course of my life. I grew up in a community where ranching and logging were highly visible - on the rangelands and forests surrounding Sonora; on Washington Street on Saturday mornings. My early career with the California Cattlemen’s Association opened new communities (and friendships), as did my ongoing volunteer experience with the California Wool Growers Association. As I’ve grown older, the length of my elliptical orbit has increased, as has the number of friends. My “community” seems galactic in scale sometimes. I’m a fortunate man.

Ranching communities - like most communities I suppose - rely on shared stories as a way to laugh at themselves, as a way to remind each other about what the community values, and (as I’ve learned in the last 18 months) as a way to embrace those who may be struggling. I have realized over these months that my family was the topic of conversation and concern within the many communities we’ve been part of - in many cases, these conversations happened (at least initially) without our knowledge. I find this to be incredibly humbling - that people would think about us, even in our absence. And these shared stories often get bounced around - I realized today that David and Barbara had heard about a high country trip I’d made with Emma five years ago from someone else. In sharing that they’d heard the story, they also shared that it was important to their understanding of our place, and the values we all put on our connections to place and to people.

So while I continue to feel somewhat bittersweet about leaving this particular community, I realized today that communities are places that we touch during our individual orbits. I realized that the friends that are important to me will still be a part of my journey, and I part of theirs. I realized that my true friends are those people with whom I can pick up where we left off - no matter how long ago that was. And that my true friends have held me in their thoughts and hearts all along.