Hello Friends,

Like many of you this holiday season, Nidhi and I decided to remain at home instead of traveling across the country to be with family. The choice was easy but still painful – the days leading up to Christmas include both Nidhi’s birthday and our wedding anniversary.

Despite having to cancel a coastal, weekend getaway for our anniversary due to California’s latest shelter-in-place order, we did our best to celebrate everything else at home.

We bought more Christmas decorations (including our first outdoor lights – to which our neighbor gave an enthusiastic when he saw me putting them up), Nidhi made her mom’s (her family tradition), and I made her a for her birthday, with 6-feet-apart-outdoor friend visits and family video calls sprinkled in between.

Hello Friends,

Relief. After living through 4 years of deliberately incompetent and belligerent leadership, a majority of Americans have chosen to course correct.

Of course, all of the same problems still exist but I’m a little more hopeful today than I was yesterday.

Hello Friends,

I’ve been burned out. Emotionally, spiritually, and creatively.

That’s why I haven’t sent a Bonsai email to you since April (when I wrote a ), even though I try to publish this newsletter monthly.

Hello Partners,

I’ve had multiple stay-up-past-1AM-work-nights in the past couple of weeks, and Nidhi and I are also in the middle of moving apartments which is to say: this is a short, partial update that’s also 1.5 weeks late. Apologies!

The real update is coming soon, which will come in a video format of me sharing the vision of Bonsai Season 2 with you (as well as recapping Season 1 with all the details I provided in my last update).

I was going to wait to share this until I sent the video but I’ll share this with you now:

Hello Partners,

We’re half way through 2020 (!) which means we’re one month away from the end of Bonsai Season 1.

Concluding Season 1

Hello Partners,

Apologies for being about a week behind on this update. The last month has been exhausting with the unrest in America.

While I only managed to write one new piece (though I consider it one of my best pieces of writing in the past year, more on that below), I did make some good progress on other aspects of Bonsai.

Tiny Tree Grant

Hello Partners!

This month’s primary Bonsai work was creating a new central home for partner perks:

Hello Friends,

Would it be irresponsible or refreshing of me to avoid mentioning COVID-19 in the first sentence of this email? I guess we’ll never know. I’ve already written about the anxiety I’ve experienced during this pandemic (you can read that here), but this email will hopefully be a small oasis in your day.

Onwards to a reprieve!

Hello Partners!

I hope you’re all staying healthy, safe, and sane. The month of March has felt like it’s contained an entire year’s worth of…fatigue? Thanks for being a pocket of encouragement to me in all of this.

Technicolor update

Hello Friends,

I’ve purchased goods from an online stranger twice in my life: seven years ago when I bought a used iPod touch on eBay, and then a few weeks ago when I bought a used iPad through Facebook Marketplace.

I met the seller outside of a nearby Safeway grocery store, where he talked to me for 20 minutes about everything from what it’s like working from home with a small child and cat to, well, that was basically all we talked about.

I’ve never felt more valued for being something other than a small child or cat.

Hello Partners!

For the entire month of February I felt like I was riding an emotional pendulum – the contrast between life’s highs and lows was especially stark.

One day we’re attending a Minnie Mouse themed birthday party for our friends’ two year old, the next we’re visiting an exhausted friend battling cancer. One day we’re talking three hours with close friends and their newborn outside of a coffee shop on a slow weekend in perfect California weather, the next I’m hearing from a friend that they’ve were racially profiled at work and lost their source of income.

But through it all I’m so, so grateful for the friends I have around me. Hug a friend today (but only if they like that).

Hello Friends,

Every day for the past five years I’ve driven myself to and from work. But no more! Nidhi and I have swapped roles – she drives herself to work while I take the train.

I now have a 25 minute walk to the train station, and during one of these recent walks I came to a simple realization:

I miss driving.

Hello Partners!

We’re halfway through the first year of Bonsai projects, and I wanted to give a quick recap of all the work that you’ve enabled me to accomplish since starting in August 2019:

Hello Friends,

I hope you’re enjoying the holidays — I’m back in Tokyo with my wife’s family in an attempt to see how much of my mother-in-law’s homemade Indian food and Japanese cafe au laits I can cram into my body without exploding.

That came out more graphic than I was expecting.