Solitude and Loneliness

I’ve never been bothered by being alone, at least until recently. During most of my life, I’ve often found solitude in being in my own company. But I’ve realized recently that solitude involves choice - when I choose to be alone, I find that being alone is enjoyable. Fulfilling, even. But as I’ve written before - and as Sturgill Simpson says better than I could - I’m alone [now] in a way that I’ve never been before. And as a result, I find that the line between solitude and loneliness is blurred for me. I realize that I can find solitude - and loneliness - even when I’m with other people.

I’ve been thinking about these concepts frequently this week - not entirely sure why. My first thought was that solitude is a choice, loneliness is not. I can choose to go off by myself; being alone (because Sami died) is not a condition I chose. But I’ve realized over these days of mulling this over that “choice” doesn’t quite capture the difference. At least not in the sense that I can choose solitude but loneliness is imposed on me.

Just over two years ago, I made the decision to sell our place in Auburn and move back closer to my childhood home. I’m close with my sister and her family, and they still live in Tuolumne County where we grew up. My mom had been diagnosed with dementia, and I felt like I needed to be closer to help with her care. And to be honest, I felt like I needed a change of scenery after Sami’s illness and passing. The familiarity of the home we’d shared for more than 20 years was no longer entirely comforting.

I realized when I made the decision that leaving the community where we’d raised our girls would be difficult. Leaving the friends who were part of our farming and ranching community, and the colleagues at my local cooperative extension office, would be hard. Leaving the landscape where I’d raised livestock for 20 years would (and did) make me sorrowful. But I knew that being closer to my family would be positive. I knew that I was going back to a community where I still had ties. I looked forward to living in a smaller, more rural community. I looked forward to the change of scenery.

Largely, most of these expectations have become reality. I am glad I can be closer to my family. I’m glad I can help my sister care for my parents. I have enjoyed renewing old friendships. But I’ve also become aware that changing my environment has not alleviated the loneliness I felt in the year I spent in Auburn after Sami died. I’ve realized that I’ve not sought out local friendships. And I’ve realized that I’ve been a difficult person to get to know.

I’ve recently been told by several friends that I’m a hard person to read, too. They are probably right - as open and honest as I feel like I can be in my writing, I’m not an open book when it comes to talking in person. When a friend first told me this, I thought, “Well, of course - I’m still processing what happened to Sami.” But that’s probably not entirely true. I think I’ve always been quiet and introspective about serious matters - which is probably confusing when I’m also trying to make people laugh in social situations. I seem to oscillate between using humor to diffuse tension and withdrawing to think about difficult situations.

I joked (via text) with some friends the other night that I was becoming the quintessential “Norwegian bachelor farmer” of Garrison Keilor’s stories - I even sent them a photo of all my laundry hanging on the line, and said, “My neighbors are probably tired of seeing my underwear drying on the clothesline!” But the next morning, I felt the weight of caring for my little 6-acre property, of keeping house, all by myself. I know I can rely on family and friends to help when I need it; you’d think that learning to accept help while Sami was sick would help me accept it now. But I do feel alone. I do feel responsible for the house and the animals and the property. Maybe that’s what loneliness is.

Sami would probably agree that I could be hard to read. As I’ve said before, I miss having someone NOT to talk to after a day at work. I miss the quiet companionship that Sami and I enjoyed. I miss hearing someone puttering in the other room. I miss being the first one in the house to wake up, knowing that someone else was there. Maybe that’s what solitude is?

 

Last Times

I know this is probably a function of the time of year, but I’ve been thinking about the significance of “last times” this week. I suppose “the end” seems like more of an autumn idea, but late winter and early spring will probably always be associated with the onset of Sami’s brain cancer for me. And with the last times that we did things together.

In my life, I’ve often known when I was doing something for the last time. The last day of school. My last football game in high school. Graduation days (high school and college) The first day of a new job was always preceded by the last day of the old one. The last high school soccer game that Lara or Emma would play. I have videos of the last times I worked several of my border collies, Mo and Ernie (who actually belonged to Lara and Emma, respectively). With Mo, I knew he needed to retire - he simply couldn’t handle the physicality of working sheep any longer. My friend and partner Roger Ingram captured drone footage of the last time we used Mo to move the sheep into their first lambing paddock. Ernie, on the other hand, developed cancer in his mouth. We had the tumor removed surgically, but it grew back within six weeks. That fall, I knew I needed to retire him, too - before he couldn’t eat anymore. And so I took him to Oak Hill Ranch to move ewes onto fresh feed one last time.

Each of these last times make me somewhat melancholy - I miss the days of sitting in the bleachers at Placer High School watching the girls play soccer. I miss Mo and Ernie’s presence, ability, and quirkiness. I miss (now that I realize how simple they were) the days of high school football and college fun. But despite my melancholy, these are largely happy memories.

I’ve realized, though, that sometimes we don’t know when we’ve done something for the last time until we look back. And that’s what has occupied my mind over these last few months. Sami and I enjoyed our last Sierra picnic in September 2022. We took our last trip to see Emma in college that November. We drove to New Mexico together for the first - and last - time in January 2023. Had I known these would be a few of many “last times,” would I have savored them more? I don’t know. I do feel like the trauma of Sami’s illness and passing has made me more conscious of my own fleeting time among the people I love. Of my own opportunities to enjoy “firsts” as well as “lasts.”

I wrote recently about reliving the trauma of Sami’s glioblastoma (Days Like This). Looking back at the summer of 2023, I realize now that I was experiencing so many “last times” - I can distinctly remember the last time Sami laid her head on my shoulder. The last time I held her hand. The last time I saw her physically. These “lasts” bring on something more intense than melancholy - they are profoundly sad memories, even two-and-a-half years later.

But as I write this essay, I also realize that I will still experience some “firsts.” Having gone through these “lasts,” I hope I can embrace the joy and excitement of new things. I hope that I can be fully present in every experience my future life holds - no matter how long that future is. And I hope that the “lasts” I’ve already experienced will eventually transform into - I don’t think “happy” is the right word - comforting, maybe? - memories.

Days Like This

Today should have been a good day. I slept in (making up for the “spring forward” loss of an hour to daylight savings time). I exercised after breakfast, slogging (slow jogging) and walking four miles. I got a load of laundry done! And I had a wonderful lunch with a friend I haven’t seen for quite some time - which brought the added bonus of a beautiful springtime drive through the foothills. As I write this, I’m sitting on my deck watching the sheep I purchased yesterday graze on my hillside. And yet…. Unexpectedly, today was a hard day.

For some reason, on the drive to Placerville, my mind kept going back to the trauma of Sami’s illness. To the seizures. To holding Sami’s hand after both craniotomies, while she came out of anesthesia. To holding her hand while she passed away six months later. To watching her slip away during two weeks of hospice. To realizing that the three weeks we spent in San Francisco didn’t really help, after all. Tonight, after a day in which I really didn’t do all that much physically, I’m exhausted. Trauma and grief, even now, have the power to wear me out.

I’ve been traveling quite a bit since mid January, which is also part of the reason I’m tired. I wonder if exhaustion opens the door to grief at this point in the process? Or if grief intensifies exhaustion. I expect grief and exhaustion work in both directions; regardless, I am incredibly tired tonight.

Part of my sadness, I think, stems from wishing I could tell Sami about my week - my trip to San Diego and the people I met. The talks I gave on livestock guardian dogs, and the positive feedback I received after the talks. Emma’s new job. Lara and Micah’s wedding preparations. Even the little aggravations that piss me off during a normal work week. I have some wonderful friends who are always willing to listen, but today, I wished Sami was here to talk.

Three years ago this week, we went to UCSF for a second opinion about Sami’s brain tumor, and to learn about the possibility of a clinical trial. We came hope hopeful, but that hope ebbed through the course of radiation and chemotherapy treatments in March and April of 2023. As I’ve written before, I know my grief began on that evening in January 2023 when we learned there was a mass on Sami’s brain. That was the rubicon for us - the before and after point of inflection. Today, my mind also went back to those last normal days before we knew anything was wrong. The last normal experiences we had as a couple. As a family. Days that we’ll never experience again.

Again, my grief feels like being on the ocean. At this point, three years in, the ocean of my grief is mostly a gentle rocking motion that doesn’t interrupt my life, but reminds me of its presence. But occasionally (and today was one of those occasions), a big wave swamps my boat. On days like this, grief rolls me over. I know the ocean will be gentle again, but I’ve also learned to expect the occasional storm.

Twinges of Sorrow

I’ve been thinking about milestones lately - events that have a before and an after. Key stages of my life. And how these milestones change as we age. And as we grieve (or at least as I grieve). Milestones that Sami and I would have celebrated together become milestones that are still celebrated, but with a twinge of sorrow. At least for me.

I think my first experience with this was my first trip to watch Emma compete in logging sports in the fall after Sami died - an event that coincided with what would have been Sami’s 54th birthday in 2023. We’d planned to go to Moscow, Idaho together that fall. And while watching Emma compete (and lead the University of Idaho team as club president) was an amazing experience, I was also incredibly sad to be there alone. Celebrating alone was hard.

My daughters and I have passed other milestones since that 2023 trip. Emma turned 21 the following summer, and graduated from college in May of 2025. Lara and her boyfriend Micah got engaged later that summer and will be married this May. Emma just landed her first career job. We’ve celebrated all of these events together; in some ways I think we celebrate more fully because we realize now that none of us know what lies ahead. None of us know whether we’ll continue to be able to celebrate together. But each of these milestones make me miss Sami. Each milestone is more emotional for me alone than it would be if I were still sharing it with Sami.

As I was thinking about all of this on my drive to work this morning, I also realized that I’m at an age (and a stage in life) where I don’t really know how many milestones I have left in my own chronology. While I enjoy my work, I do hope to be able to retire in seven or eight years - and I suppose retirement will feel like a milestone. But for some reason, birthdays feel minor to me - maybe turning 60 in 2027 will feel more significant. But for now, I prefer to celebrate my daughters’ milestones and successes. I’m so lucky to be their Dad; I wish Sami could be here to celebrate with us as their Mom. My own milestones seem insignificant.

I wonder if these feelings are unique to grieving for a partner? I know that my family and friends are happy for these accomplishments (and for my own milestones, like birthdays), but I also know they can’t fully appreciate them because my girls - our girls! - aren’t “their” girls. They helped make “our” girls who they are today, but they didn’t have a front row seat - or day-to-day responsibility. They can’t celebrate like Sami and I would. I don’t expect them to.

And I think this probably makes me difficult to approach sometimes. I share my happiness about these milestones; my sorrow is often private. My sorrow makes me look inward, which is partly responsible for my frequent introversion, I suspect. I also suspect that my introversion confuses friends who also hear me say I’m lonely - why would someone prefer to be alone when they’re lonely?! These continued twinges of sorrow must make me a complicated companion.

Adventures of a Foothill Cooperative Extension Agent

Had our first targeted grazing short course webinar Tuesday night. I decided to host it from home, since it was supposed to snow.

I was prepared! Laptop and cellphone fully charged.

The webinar started at 6. Power went out at 6:40. Finished by kerosene lamplight, iPhone hotspot, and battery power.

Fixed leftover soup on the woodstove and went to bed.

Later that night...

Got up to put wood on the fire. Noticed large canine tracks on my porch.

Thought, "Ah shit. Wolves."

Cuz that's where we are at the moment in the Foothills.

Then I noticed the sheep tracks.

Bodie and the ewes went for a nice walk in the snowy woods!

Mae found them across the road in the morning.

So my question is this...

How do I write this up in my next promotion package?! 

Swamped

I won’t lie - these last several weeks have been difficult for me. Maybe as difficult as any stretch in the last couple of years.  I’ve been sad. I’ve been lonely. My family and friends would probably say I’ve been grumpy. Part of the difficulty, I know, is that this stretch of time has been an anniversary of sorts - three years ago, we were living through Sami’s first symptoms and eventual diagnosis of glioblastoma. The memories of those weeks come flooding back to me. Part of it, too, has been returning to some of the things I used to enjoy - like teaching new shepherds about lambing. And part of it, I suspect, has just been the normal cycle of grief. I like the analogy of grief as a series of waves. They’ve been smaller waves until recently, but in these last two weeks, I feel like my boat has been swamped.

Part of my loneliness and grief, I think, stem from the recognition that I don’t really have anyone to confide in or to vent to when work - or life - are difficult. And part of it, if I’m honest, is envy - envy of those around me who do have a partner to whom they can confide. As I write this, I realize that there are people in my life who would be more than willing to let me rant and rave. But for some reason, I don’t feel comfortable doing that. And I miss Sami - not sure if it’s cause or effect.

When I can detach myself from these emotions, I’m intrigued by the cycles I seem to experience. The holidays were wonderful - the best Christmas since I’ve been alone. I’ve always found January to be a let-down month, and I suspect that this feeling is intensified now that I’m by myself. I also know that doing the things that I used to do in January (like go to the American Sheep Industry conference) feel different now. I think about returning from Fort Worth to Las Cruces in 2023 - and about the wonderful visit we had with Lara and Micah. And about the trip home (with Sami’s first symptoms). And about the fact that just a week after that conference, Sami had her first brain surgery.

Just 11 days ago, I was invited to give a talk about grazing management during the Nevada Farmers Forum in Reno. For the first time, I talked about the reason that I don’t currently have sheep in a workshop setting - I briefly talked about Sami’s illness and my move to Calaveras County. I still don’t know whether it was the right thing to do, but I’m increasingly feeling like I need to incorporate my personal life experience into my professional work. Losing Sami, and caring for her in the process of her dying, is a profoundly defining moment in my life. I guess I feel like in addition to being a scientist, a sheepherder, and a father, I’m also a widower. And a caregiver. And maybe it’s appropriate to share all of those things. I don’t know.

I do know that the lack of companionship when I return home from meetings - or just from a normal work day - seems especially difficult at the moment. The silence - in the morning when I wake up, and in the evening when I make dinner and go to bed - seems profound. Oppressive, even. And I suspect that I seem either needy or aloof to my friends.

As I’ve withdrawn, I feel as though I’ve become self-focused - narcissistic might be another way to put it. My social life has largely revolved around work - I haven’t engaged with my neighbors or my community, and often, I don’t engage with colleagues outside of work. I want to, but I also know that my professional life requires me to be “on” - and so my “off” time is mostly at home. Sometimes I feel like it should be the opposite - maybe I need to withdraw at work so I can be engaged at home.

Three years after Sami was diagnosed, I’m realizing that my grief will always be with me. I’m realizing that sometimes it will be beneath the surface - but sometimes it will be the only thing I can think about. Some days I’m floating. Some days, I’m swamped.

PTDS

During the fall of 2013, I went to work part-time for a large-scale sheep outfit in Rio Vista, California. We’d had a germinating rain in late September, but the grass got a false start - we didn’t have any more rain until November, as I recall. After Thanksgiving, we had a cold snap in Rio Vista (I woke up one morning in my trailer without hot water or a working furnace) and a bit of snow in Auburn. And then it quit raining until late January. We fed most of our year’s supply of alfalfa hay to the sheep while they were lambing in October and November.

When I took the job, I was able to bring my own 200 +/- ewes to Rio Vista as well. Even with the rain we finally received in January 2014, feed was scarce - and so I decided that we needed to sell some of our sheep to conserve grass for the operation’s ewes. Sorting through our sheep - and deciding which ones were going to go to the auction in Escalon - was probably the most difficult agricultural decision I’ve ever had to make. And as the drought persisted, I came to a mutual agreement with the ranch I was working for. They’d had to sell sheep, too - and we all decided that they couldn’t afford to keep me employed. In mid-February 2014, I hauled our remaining flock back to Placer County - just before we started lambing. From that point forward, our sheep operation remained a part-time enterprise. And I began to work full time for the University of California.

By the following winter, I was working as the herdsman at the UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley. We still had our sheep, but the drought persisted. That winter, I spent much of my time moving cattle around the research ranch, chasing grass. That summer, I hauled water to the cows so that we could utilize forage in pastures that had feed but lacked stock water.

These experiences stayed with me - much of my master’s degree research focused on how California ranchers responded to our 1000-year drought. As a cooperative extension advisor since 2017, much of my program has focused on helping ranchers prepare for, respond to, and recover from drought. But this winter, I’ve confirmed that I have a condition called “Post-traumatic Drought Syndrome,” or PTDS.

The symptoms of PTDS include anxiety during extended winter dry periods. As I write this, we haven’t had any precipitation in Mountain Ranch in more than three weeks. While I know we often get dry spells like this during the winter months, the lack of rain in our 2-week forecast makes me increasingly nervous. This week, I drove to Reno and confirmed that we don’t have much snowpack in the high country, either.

I remember reading about some research from Australia during our big drought that reported Aussie farmers often kept multiple weather apps on their phones. During dry stretches, they’d check each app until they found one with a more favorable forecast. I find that I do the same thing. At the moment, all of my apps don’t show any moisture for the next 10 days. On day 11, they show a chance of rain, but that chance is always at least 11 days out.

Currently, I only have four sheep - two breeding ewes and two lambs that I’ll harvest next week. I am planning to purchase a handful of feeder lambs and goats (probably a total of 20) in March to help manage the fire danger on my property. PTDS - and the potential for summer/fall wildfire - has changed the way I look at raising sheep. For the foreseeable future, I’ll buy feeder animals in the spring, and sell them when I run out of grass. I won’t keep many sheep year-round.

I know we’ll get more rain, and I know the grass will grow. I also know that I no longer rely on these things for even a portion of my livelihood. But having managed through the Big Dry of 2012-2016, I find that I’m feel the mental and physical manifestations of anxiety. I still suffer from PTDS.