Painting a mural
At the confluence of Valencia Creek & Aptos Creek, there once existed much more than a mural
I’ve tried my best to clearly communicate to everyone that everything I’ve ever done for NRG I’ve done with extremely clear intentions, despite those intentions being clear only to me.
You may notice I’m not particularly skilled in the art of brevity.
Almost every single one of my valued advisors encouraged me to take a stepping-stone approach, move slow, and focus on one or two projects first. My response was always the same, although I’d often interchange metaphors. For example - I might say something like “How can I know which stone to step first if I don’t know which direction we’re moving?” Or maybe, “How can I start painting the bricks if I haven’t yet completed the pencil sketch of the mural?”
More than a few times I’ve relayed a lesson I learned from one of my advisors, which I’ll describe later in this post. The take-away from that lesson is something I’ve repeated to many of my advisors along this nearly year-long journey of Nisene Rio Gateway.
“I have no intention of beating my head against the wall for 8 years to accomplish next to nothing.”
Let me be clear. This may sound dramatic, but it’s true. When the time is right, I am willing to dedicate myself to directing this nonprofit which I founded. But I an unwilling to do so against the will of the community and I am unwilling to do so in a manner I believe to be ineffective.
So I’ve spent about a year now doing this. It has been an extremely challenging year with nearly too many traumas to list, and I’ve endured it amid intense pressures at work and at home. More accurately - my family has endured it. More specifically - my wife has ensured it, long past the point of impatience. I love my wife & kids as much as life itself. And I’d like to spend more of that life enjoying it with them. But sadly, this has become exceedingly challenging to do in the modern world while still putting food on the table.
I have no intention to spend the next 7 years in this manner. To most people, including my loving wife, I’ve been running around Aptos like a madman and rambling on social media, jumping from theme to theme. I understand this perspective, and I’ve received this criticism time and again. But there has been a disconnect that will hopefully begin to resolve itself.
A very sick nurse log in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park
When we decided, on not much more than a whim, to move to Aptos in early 2020, the pandemic had only just begun and we had no more than an inkling of the world that would arise from it. Now, almost two years later, we still don’t know when the world will put the pandemic behind it and what the world will look like after it. But at that time in early 2020, what was almost more clear than anything else in life was that the world was in pretty bad shape. I hate to be a downer, but if you haven’t looked up in a while, Do Look Up from time to time, please.
Not only have we caused massive destruction to this planet, but the growing awareness of that reality seems still insufficient to adequately slow the rate of destruction.
Stop destroying the planet?
The consumed corpse of a felled giant
That seems unfathomable to our society at large. Our economy seems to be screaming, “How will we make money if we can’t destroy the planet?!” Worse than anything else - we’re not even screaming this at each other or even legitimately discussing it. The prevailing attitude seems to be, if you read between the lines, “How can we more slowly destroy the planet so we can continue destroying the planet?”
I work in Tech. I am a Technologist. At the heart of my core value set is the view that Technology is a Tool to improve Humanity. Sadly, I am no longer convinced that Technology is achieving that goal.
Nature, meanwhile, will always embrace Humanity even when we brutalize Her.
These realizations, together, are why I am willing to take this little NRG nonprofit quite seriously. But again, I have no interest in “banging my head against the wall for 8 years.” An early NRG advisor told me this, as a cautionary tale to dissuade my involvement with improving Nisene Marks. Her advice to me was to “work within the system, not against it,” as her organization has done. She recounted the fact that many small community groups have successfully raised money to make needed improvements but the money then sat unaccepted due to systemic challenges that I couldn’t possibly understand. Her advice to me was essentially: set this aside, spend more time with your family, and let more established squeaky wheels continue to squeak and be ignored.
Another trusted advisor, perhaps the most influential of all to me during the early days, told me definitively and in no uncertain terms:
“Nothing will ever happen here without the attention of State-level elected officials.”
It was around the time I first heard this advice that I began to realize we’d need to form an independent nonprofit. Over time, as the scope of that nonprofit grew well beyond just Aptos Creek Road and even just down to the beach, I began to formulate a vision. It is a vision that has been bounded & refined dynamically over time, and it is still incomplete and out-of-focus. But again, everything I’ve ever done for NRG I’ve done with extremely clear intentions.
Don’t just stand there screaming with tunnel vision. There’s light at the end of that tunnel, and your community will meet you there.
The intent is to formulate & formalize that vision, and to do so with wide-spread local engagement.
This is a vision that will undoubtedly take many decades to manifest into existence, even with full support. But remember, “make no little plans.” Without the 1909 Plan of Chicago, who knows how the city would have developed - but it would almost definitely have lacked the world-class grandeur that endears Chicago to the world today. Aptos’ majesty is nearly unparalleled by any other small town, but someone needs to blow the dust off and as far as I can tell there’s no one around to do it. I, for one, certainly don’t intend to fulfill that role, especially not single-handedly. Instead, this is the responsibility of the community at large.
In my own small way, I’d simply like to shine a light on our spectacular dusty gems and respectfully remind Aptos that these gems do not belong to any individual, but to Us All, and We All have a responsibility to protect them.
So, long past the point of brevity, in order to evade further rambling, suffice it to say that my goal now in to give you a glimpse of my pencil sketch before NRG shifts focus to the Rio Flats Mural.
The mural is intended to showcase Aptos’ interconnected community & ecosystem, a central theme to NRG. The two main categories within NRG’s scope are “Parks” & “Transportation”. These two elements are vitally important for every community, and they are inherently interconnected in a large variety of ways. Investments here pay huge dividends in a community’s physical & mental health, appeal to visitors & residents, social cohesion, and economic vitality. If designed properly, these efforts can also improve sustainability & equity, two critical themes for community planners to embrace.
Canvas awaiting Tay’s artwork
All in all, plenty of great stuff worth dedicating myself to directing!
Our interconnected Parks & Transportation Network is build around a pinpoint which I refer to as the Gateway. It is roughly centered at Aptos Village, but it is more specifically located at the confluence of Aptos Creek Road, the Coastal Rail Trail, Soquel Dr, and Spreckels Dr.
If you’ve ever keenly looked at NRG’s logo, you’ve already seen the Gateway. We need your help to see the Vision. This Aptos Parks & Transportation (APT) Network, if developed as envisioned, would establish a safe & enjoyable network to walk & roll along the following perpendicular corridors:
Aptos Village Corridor
Aptos Village, East Village, West Village
Redwoods to Sea Corridor
Forest of Nisene Marks to RDM Beach along the course of Aptos Creek
Confluence of Corridors - the motivation for NRG’s logo
If you’d rather Aptos stay dusty & derelict and you reject our Vision, please let us know.
Otherwise, if you’re ready to help us build the next chapter of Aptos, please join us.