Doing the Heady

Carlo Capella has become the successful businessman he once dreamed of being. The problem is that he no longer wants the life that comes with it.

The son of Italian immigrants, Carlo grows up carrying the influence of a father who taught him the importance of truth, honor, love, and an ethical life. After military service and college, Carlo enters the pharmaceutical industry and achieves the outward signs of professional success. But the closer he looks at his career, the more disillusioned he becomes.

So Carlo walks away.

He accepts a two-year job as caretaker of The Meadows, a secluded private retreat high in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Trading corporate routines for forests, wildlife, deep snow, physical work, and long stretches of solitude, Carlo sets out to find something more genuine.

Then there is Molly.

Warm, playful, and astonishingly accomplished in mathematics and theoretical physics, she challenges Carlo’s assumptions about brilliance and connection while becoming an increasingly important presence in his new life.

DOING THE HEADY: “The Cupping Dance” by Carl Raines is a story of reinvention, relationships, ethical conviction, and the search for a life that feels authentic. Against a vivid mountain setting, Carlo discovers that leaving one definition of success behind may be only the beginning of finding another.