The Falcon's Flight Path

On childhood obsessions, pivots, and how devastation reshapes our relationship with words

It's been about 9 months since I published my last piece here at Substack. It's strange to come back and look at my brief time and think about everything that's taken place since. When I started, I had a big idea: I was going to get back into publishing and writing. I'd spent the last 8 years in ed tech, and other than a relaunch of The Offending Adam, I was pretty absent from publishing and the literary community.

I didn't think that my return to publishing and literature would happen so quickly and, well, in the way that it did. So what have I been up to?

The Unexpected Pivot

Shortly after starting this Substack, I began talking with some folks (John Kaag, John Dubuque, Clancy Martin), who were working on a new publishing company called Rebind. Long story short, they were looking for someone to come in and own editing and publishing operations, and basically figure out how to get from concept and raw content to actually-publishable-book.

After a few conversations with the team, that person ended up being me.

That meant that I had to put this project on hiatus, and that my relationship to the project would need to change. At the time, Rebind hadn't publicly launched and announced, meaning I had to "go stealth" with them for a little bit. Then, once we did announce (here's some coverage, if you're interested), my time and energy was totally focused on the work of publishing.

Now that we've settled into our publishing practice, I'm ready to return here and explore Substack's literary and publishing communities.

AWP, Absence, and a Lost Practice

As I write this, I'm actually supposed to be with the writing community at AWP. A week ago, I was actually getting excited to go. It's been years (2 kids ago) since I made it to a conference. And having it here in LA, where I could easily pop down, seemed like a great way to ease myself back into the (let's be honest) total madness and intensity of the event.

But instead I'm sitting here writing this and not going. On the one hand, I have a lingering cold that's been bouncing around the household. On the other hand, I just don't have it in me. I need to do a quick personal digression here.

I live in Altadena. Or, I guess, I lived in Altadena up until the Eaton Fire in January. Our home technically survived, but it's unlivable—lead, smoke, and a bunch of other toxic stuff we're in the process of discovering. My days are learning about the existence and effects of hydrogen cyanide and chlorine gas, VOC off-gassing, and what is and isn’t actually required of insurance companies. The scope of damage to the home means that it will likely be a year or more before we can live there again. Virtually every home in our neighborhood burned to the ground. Since the fire, we've slept in 7 different beds with an 8th on the way in a couple of weeks.

Suffice to say: I'm exhausted, emotionally and physically. And the thought of heading to a massive conference hall where every interaction will inevitably lead to me retelling the fire story over and over and over again... Let's just say, I don't have it in me.

So instead, I'm here writing. And what I'm really thinking about while I’m writing is reading. Ever since the fire, I've barely been able to read. Some nights, I re-read a few pages of a detective noir series (Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer series, if you're interested) right before falling asleep. But my reading practice as a whole has absolutely cratered.

Before the fire, I was doing a group reading with a friend of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Shortly before the holidays, I finished The Guermantes Way and was planning to start Sodom & Gomorrah in a week or two—once I'd finished some "palate cleanser" books. Of those, I'd finished Carlo Rovelli's White Holes and had Józef Czapski's Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp on deck. In between those, I was about halfway through J. A. Baker's The Peregrine.

For weeks, I've had The Peregrine sitting next to my bedside (whichever bed it was). And I haven't yet been able to pick it up, open it, or even try to read a word. Whenever I look at the cover, a devastation opens up inside of me.

Childhood Obsessions and Mid-Life Reckonings

Even before the fire, this book had put me through an emotional wringer. When I was a kid, one of the first "things" I wanted to be was an ornithologist, specifically because I'd become obsessed with peregrine falcons. How I connected liking falcons with becoming an ornithologist or even learning that phrase, I have no idea. But let a kid read too many books, and there you go. The obsession, for what it's worth, was first inspired by reading My Side of the Mountain.

Obviously, I did not become an ornithologist. But reading The Peregrine has forced me to think about the path of my life (note: I turned 40 last year, so I'm primed for this kind of mid-life thinking), the choices I've made, and what I'm doing with my time. As a parent, it has me thinking about how I'm nurturing and supporting my kids' curiosities and interests. And each time I picked it up, I specifically confronted a realization that's been buzzing around me but I've largely tried to avoid looking at directly: I'd lost my writing practice.

The other distinct desire for my life I'd had as a kid was to be a writer. Ultimately, that was the path I chose, and somewhat successfully I think. I got an MFA, published a book, and some people even read it. I've worked in books and publishing and been a part of the writing community for my entire adult life. At a high level, I can say “I achieved that dream.” But as I started a more traditional career in ed tech, and had first one then a second kid, my engagement waned, with the literary community in general and more specifically my own writing practice.

Writing became something I wanted to want to do, but not something I actually wanted to do. I wanted to have an obsession that I couldn't help but write about. I wanted to have an idea that I could only explore through language on the page. I wanted to have the time, the attention, the whatever-it-is that allows new words to be possible.

The Peregrine, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a strange little book. It chronicles Baker's quasi-religious daily pursuit of peregrine falcons across the East Anglian landscape. As we read his recountings of these daily communions, the delineation between himself and the birds and their prey begin to deteriorate, the three becoming in a sense one. The book not only touches on my childhood obsession with these falcons, but it is itself a book of and about obsession. (Side note: I'm obsessed with books about obsessions and fixations, and I think my own book is an example.) As I read the pages, I'm not only confronting and thinking about my own childhood obsessions, my life choices and paths, but also my own current lack of obsession.

And now, on the other side of the fire's devastation, I look at this book and wonder if I can handle that emotional journey on top of what we're already going through. After a long day of work, parenting, insurance, and FEMA, am I able to return to these pages chronicling a man following these beautiful and deadly creatures soar and stoop for their prey? But I also know that I can’t move on to the next book until I can confront and complete this one. I’m not sure if I’m ready to complete this book’s journey, but I know that I’ll need to in order to move forward.

Here's the last sentence I read a few hours before we evacuated our home as the fires tore through our neighborhood, changing everything:

They had no song. Their calls were harsh and ugly. But their soaring was like an endless silent singing. What else had they to do? They were sea falcons now; there was nothing to keep them to the land. Foul poison burned within them like a burrowing fuse. Their life was lonely death, and would not be renewed. All they could do was take their glory to the sky. They were the last of their race.