2025

This is me taking one of over
3,000 pictures and videos in 2025.

Every year around this time I set myself up to write this note to you.
I tell myself I need to organize my photos, sort through them, make albums, and put them up on Flickr where I can share them. I pull a few pictures out to share in this post and link the albums to illustrate our adventures if anyone feels like clicking through. This is a useful ruse to push myself to get the task done, and one I appreciate because I like looking through the memories of the year, all the beautiful people and places I spent time with.
This year I don’t want to push. I don’t want the ruse. I am not ready to look.
I am still in this year, still living it out every day, and this year, being present for what is happening right now is probably the best strategy I have got.

It’s dark here in Seattle; it’s December, and it has been raining HARD, flooding out our exurban communities and washing out our mountain roads. The ground is saturated and more rain is on the way. We have seemingly intractable issues here with cost of living and homelessness, what to do with/for our mentally ill or substance-addicted community members, environmental concerns, and, of course, gun violence.
It’s dark out there in America; people are being kicked around like political footballs, their vulnerabilities used against them to enforce a zero-sum vision that blows my born-and-raised blue-bubble mind. I know that fear drives that mindset, and there is a lot to be afraid of out there, for sure. Even nature can seem cruel.

Darkness is part of the deal though, right? As much as my body is telling me to sleep right now—sleep late, take naps, get some rest—it tells me to get moving in the long days of summer. My body wakes me up early on June 21, the light in the sky hours old by the time my alarm goes off and lingering long past the work day, keeping me out in the garden cutting flowers or harvesting the raspberries until 9 or 10pm. So, like the garden, on December 21 I am programmed to rest, compost, let go. The only thing that really sucks about December is that I tend not to adjust my expectations for the season.

If I allow myself to slow down, be with what is happening in this moment, I am less overwhelmed by all that darkness. If I let myself feel my breaking heart, my fear, my discouragement, then I am not wasting energy in avoidance, I am acknowledging my actual lived experience, which is probably the whole point of having a life. In receiving the whole of it— the rotting leaves and fallow, soggy ground of it—I am larger, more myself, truly here.

And here I am! I am writing from my cozy Sodo office, where I have a thriving bodywork practice that continues to nourish me in so many ways. I have a full belly, a well body, and a warm home to return to. I am walking my path with more attention and intention than ever, and it is wonderful. I am grateful every day for this life, even when it is dark.
Morgan is feeling actually good for the first time in a really long time, extending himself some well-earned grace, and finding his creative mojo. He recently bought a bunch of bronze, his preferred sculptural medium, which bodes well for his future artistic expression, and he has a wait-list of clients hoping to get his attention on their projects.
Huck’s world expanded quite a lot this year; he has been stretching out, learning new skills, having fun. He joined the Iron Monkeys and went back to Burning Man, now 21 and able to explore every corner of that wild and magical place. He took a leadership role in co-producing a big community event. He is learning blacksmithing skills from our old friend Tabasco twice a week. He still teaches and practices Kung Fu, and after replacing himself at Jack’s Fish Spot with a young friend, managed to fully step away from the job he held there for 4 years.

We are lucky enough to have families who love us, cats to love on, projects to dive into, friends to play with, and places to go when we need a break from the city.
We keep learning, looping back, learning more/again, looping. We are alive in a dynamic time, doing our best to be with the full spectrum of of our experiences, to show up as whole beings and learn.
Thanks for being on the journey with us.
May the new year bring us all some good news, and may we be ready to embrace it!

With love, Bevin

Here’s what my camera caught from the scene at the top. Winthrop, February 2025

One Step Closer

We have a big chunk of messy indoor work to do here at the Hammershack before we can close that pesky permit we opened in 2014. The upstairs bath and laundry and hall will undoubtedly take many months and a good chunk of moola to complete, and though we have made progress on our design concepts and clearing the way by getting rid of large objects, we just are not quite ready to dive in.

There are a few smaller and more immediately achievable pieces we can peel off in the meantime, and last week Morgan finished these beautiful steel and gravel stairs connecting our front door to the upper driveway.

The slippery slope of before, and process

It took 4.5 yards of gravel to fill, much of which I shoveled- oof, rocks are heavy, y’all. That said, I was very glad to contribute what I could after Morgan did all of the truly hard work.

Not shown- the step lights that pop on when you approach, and the sweet little under-boulder lights that he’s been playing with. You’ll have to come visit to see those!

Next up- handrails? Stay tuned…

Let This Sink In

Once upon a time we were visiting our friends Shelly and Greg at their new (to them) Skykomish cabin. It must have been around ten years ago because when I saw this cool old double-drainboard sink in the shed I immediately asked if they thought they were going to use it.

I spent some time daydreaming about using this gem in my new kitchen and researching compatible faucets, and ultimately decided it wasn’t going to work.

A few weeks ago I was back in Skykomish for a mosaic tile workshop at Sky Artworks, Shelly’s (really the town’s) super sweet little maker space.

Mine is center left, Jeff’s center right.

I asked Shelly whether they still had that old sink in the shed, and she said they probably did, and I was welcome to it if I could find it. The shed is now full of ten years worth of Burning Man and project detritus, so it seemed super unlikely that I would be able to locate and/or excavate it. Miracle of miracles I did, with Flaster and Jeff’s help.

Morgan salvaged some legs from a haggard desk we were throwing out and fashioned a basic frame to support it. I found a faucet online to fit the holes (if not the perfect coverage, at least perfectly functional) and Morgan hooked it up along with a simple drain-to-watering-can situation. I made it pretty with some oilcloth, moved the BBQ and…

I use it almost every day. Harvesting veggies, floral arrangements, and cooking on the grill have all become easier, more fun, and frankly cuter. Big thanks to all my helpers, making dreams come true.

2024

Well, folks. It’s been quite a year.

Not too many posts on the ol’ Hammershack Report in 2024 as much of our work has been construcTIVE but not construcTION. It’s hard to capture the interpersonal, felt, and experienced work without risking an overshare or feeling really vulnerable. My sense is that we are going through a time in which “everything is fine” is an obvious lie that perpetuates more suffering. In the spirit of learning together, of awkward authenticity, an offering of intimacy:

Huck’s journey this year began with a realization that he really truly hated being at the University of Washington. He kept thinking it would get better- with friends, with a major, with familiarity. It just didn’t.

He withdrew after winter quarter and threw himself into training for an international Kung Fu competition with his Shifu as his coach. He was charging full steam ahead with a fairly brutal training regimen when the organizers canceled his event. Waa-waaaaa. In July, his teachers managed to set up an exhibition match in town so he could at least fight someone, and he did very well. No medals for an exhibition match, y’all, but it was satisfying to watch him move with ease and grace and confidence and completely out-gas his opponent. Huck’s Instagram is probably the best place to find photos of him these days, you can find him HERE and HERE, the latter is mostly the WW1 re-enactment feed, still going strong!

After a summer of full time work at Jack’s Fish Spot in Pike Place, he is currently working there on Saturdays and teaching Kung Fu to kids three days a week. He is treading water, wondering which island he should swim to, but he has stamina and a strong heart and we trust he’ll figure it out.

Morgan has been learning who he is under the social mask he has worn since he was very little. He hasn’t been formally diagnosed, but it is pretty clear that he is on the Autism spectrum in recognizable ways once that mask gets dropped. We have both been learning how to navigate the fear and confusion, the exhaustion and the overwhelm that comes with being authentic and neurodivergent. It has basically been a full time job for him this year. If you are curious about this at all, there are lots of creators on social media talking in really helpful ways about what it is like to be on the spectrum, and we can recommend a few to start with.

Showing up for this process has exposed my oldest and dearest coping strategies -again- for me to renegotiate -again- with more kindness, perspective, compassion, and the certain knowledge that this is going to come up for both of us -again- and -again- and -again- and that’s ok. We have got each others’ backs, and there are deeply satisfying rewards to human being at this level in the company of someone you love.

What else… I have been learning to listen to my dreams. I was quite ill for a couple of weeks in March and got a whole bunch of really cool teachings in my long sleeps about the wheel of the year, circles of sustainability and community, the ongoing and endless cycles of beginning, growing, flourishing, maturing, withering, ending and beginning again. Those themes have been strong this year, so I appreciate the dreamtime primer. This listening practice emerges from my studies in the Arbor Legacy Program, which is turning out to be exactly what I had hoped it would be.

I took a Non-Violent Communication class this summer, six sessions that were just the very beginning of a whole philosophy of helping people understand each other and work towards solutions that honor everyone’s needs. There is now an online offering for this that is very accessible, and I highly recommend it and will be doing it again.

Callahan ancestors, including Jim and John as little ones, my grandparents and great-grandparents.

One branch of my family tree got hard-pruned this year; in my my matrilineal line we lost Cheryl, Nate, Dylan, John, Terry, and Jim. My mother was the fourth of six siblings, and between early September and early December all three of her older brothers shuffled off their mortal coils, leaving her the eldest of the remaining three. YIKES, and OUCH. More graduate-level human being in this absolutely normal part of life. No use in fighting it, just lay down on the floor and let those tears roll. And then get up and tell some jokes, that’s what they would have wanted.

Ok, let’s include in this rundown the many moments of beauty, joy, and connection we enjoyed, shall we? I spent a lot of time playing with flowers this year. Morgan has found some online support groups and is building a stunning sculptural outdoor fireplace insert for some dear friends. Huck is enjoying the suit of Song Dynasty armor he commissioned many months ago that has finally arrived. We have spent time with friends and family in nature, in their lovely homes, in ours. We laughed a LOT, often at ourselves, with full bellies and full hearts, exquisitely open to the actual experiences we were having.

Testing the flame pattern on this commissioned sculptural fireplace insert.

In the dark and rainy months I sort through all the photos I have collected from the year and post my albums up on Flickr. In my photos I am focusing on balance, beauty, light, and fun– things that fill my cup as the world takes sips and gulps and occasionally makes me spill. I am so very grateful for the container of this life, the privilege of living it, the ability to feel, even when it’s hard.
May the new year bring us all reasons to celebrate, people to celebrate with, and the ability to notice and celebrate even the smallest wonders.

100 Years/10 Years

Our little craftsman cottage, built in 1924, is 100 years old this year. I was looking at some maps from that era and trying to imagine what it must have been like in Seattle, in this neighborhood in 1924. Who built the house, did they do it on speculation or for themselves? There are some really cool historical photos online of the neighborhood in general, and we have this beauty from the WPA Land Use Survey in 1936.

1924 map of Seattle found on Ted’s Vintage Art. We live at Henderson and 42nd.

This weekend I was weeding along the fence line and a truck pulled up with these gentlemen in it. They said, “We used to live here. Did you raise it up?” We used to get mail for them, so I knew their names when they told me: Steve and Jim. Steve used to use the garage as his artists studio, and was glad to hear that it is still used as such. They said they had a little wood stove in the living room and they kept the house warm with that, and that they had enclosed the porch for extra warmth. It was so fun to get a little bit of backstory, and they remarked on the big changes, especially to the yard.

Speaking of big changes, this is also the month of our ten year anniversary of lifting the house! I remember writing somewhere long ago on this blog that we hoped we would be done in a year or two, but I also acknowledged that there was a lot of mystery to the process. Reviewing the posts about waiting for our permit or our excavation contractor, or Morgan realizing that he had to hand-dig what our excavation contractor missed, I am aware of how much we have learned about process and patience. Truthfully, once I got a new kitchen and we were able to move downstairs, it was all worth it. Getting a toilet back inside the house felt amazing, and getting one that actually had a door we could close was even better. A big upstairs bathroom will be luxurious when we finally get to it, but we have all we need. Nothing like living in privation to bring home how sweet heat and indoor plumbing are!

We were hoping to tackle the big remaining piece of indoor work this year (that upstairs bathroom and laundry room), but circumstances did not line up for that to happen. It would have been so neat and tidy to finish our permits at the ten year mark, but life is so rarely neat and tidy. Perhaps we will be able to wrap it up by year 12, and move on to just fiddling and fixing and “stretch goals” and enjoying it. Heck, we are already enjoying it, so that’s a big win.

Happy Birthday 8824! Deepest gratitude for your shelter, your teachings, your protection, and for letting us alter you so significantly. You have been an excellent container for our family, and we love you. We have occupied you for nearly a quarter of your life, and somewhere around half of ours- or in Huck’s case, his whole life! We hope our attentions mean you will last another 100 years, and that we get to enjoy many of those with you.

The Garden

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to a salon-style dinner party where one person from each couple was asked to make a ten-minute presentation about anything at all. Neither of us being practiced public speakers, a simple slideshow seemed like the best choice, and this one gave me an opportunity to showcase and appreciate 20+ years of hard work:

What you don’t see in these images is the work party I came to in the spring of 1999, before Morgan and I were dating. He had invited my friends and I to a “garden party” that turned out to be a lot of people doing big projects- setting up a spot for a greenhouse (long gone), digging up garden beds, putting up privacy screens around the old hot tub, and laying brick pathways down. There is an image of me doing that last task somewhere, but I didn’t go that deep in the photo archives. This is all before he even owned the house, which he bought later that year. That’s a whole other story.

There are no photos of the big work party our friends gave me for my birthday in probably 2006? 2007? I must have been too busy working! King County had given us our land back in 2005, but we needed a plan and we needed some help to get that plan in action, and we got it. Very, very grateful for that. I did manage to include star-player Mark Tomkiewicz (buphalo) in the set, as he helped out with some of the more ridiculous projects over the years, like moving boulders.

Also not pictured: truckloads of horse manure and many many bags of leaves we used to create soil on top of the fill dirt and two inches of topsoil the county gave us. I did have at least one photo of compost being delivered and the wood-chip pile we have our arborist friend Andy deliver every couple of years. Add to that the piles of weeds the chickens composted for us and now we have maybe 12″ of soil in most places? Soil building is an ongoing process.

Tending a garden is an ongoing process, for that matter. We have reached the stage where we have begun to pull things out- we took out two diseased pear trees a couple of years ago, for instance, and this winter removed two alders we had once planted for quick shade. I used to take it personally when something didn’t make it through the winter, but now I am more ready to see it as an opportunity to plant something new, or enjoy a bit of space and wait to see what happens.

The garden gives me lessons about time, about patience, about the cycles of death and renewal, about trying and failing and tweaking and trying again, every year an experiment, every season an opportunity. This garden, an ongoing creative collaboration with my beloved, supported and influenced by friends, keeps me connected to LIFE.

For a lot more photos of flowers at the #hammershackgarden, check out my Instagram.

2023

30 Doradus, from the humbling image collection of the Hubble Space Telescope

Happy New Year! I write this as we here in Seattle tilt dramatically away from the sun, enjoying long nights with plenty of dark sky to contemplate our cosmic place. We are so very small.

Around this time last year we lost an old friend to the ongoing tragedy of the opioid crisis. Rani had been clean for 18 years, had a medical issue and the hospital gave him a painkiller that sparked his addiction as if he’d been using last week. So, 2023 started off with a memorial service for our friend, a reminder to enjoy each other and our time here on this planet- it’s special! It’s fleeting! Get that good stuff in you!

To that end, Morgan and I took a trip to Hawaii in March, staying part of the time with Chris and Carol in their fancy Waikoloa condo and adventuring on our own around the Big Island to check out the stunning volcano and the lush jungle vibes of the Hilo side. Hawaii is such a special place; big respect to the formidable energies of creation and destruction that live large on those little specks in the sea.

The house project of the year was our glorious shed/shop extension/covered deck which has been getting some use as a work space, a social hangout, and houses our new (previously owned) ping-pong table. Come on over, Morgan needs a challenger! The big remaining chunk of this permit set is to build out the old upstairs kitchen and hallway (which was once our bathroom) into a bathroom and laundry area, which will involve a large mess and a fair amount of disruption. It is possible that we will begin to tackle this in 2024, so we have been thinking about configuration, tile design, fixtures, etc. in anticipation of the rush of decisions that that will entail.

Huck survived freshman year at the University of Washington, and also the end of his relationship with Frankie. Her path took her out of state for college, but despite the no-fault need to end it, the pain of loss is always acute.
He threw himself back into his Kung Fu practice and began learning new forms at JunHong Kung Fu Club where he had previously been practicing Sanda as an add-on to classes at White Dragon Kung Fu Seattle. He now finds himself at Jun’s studio almost every weekday, teaching 2-3 days/week and working on his own skills for 3 hours on the days he’s not teaching.
Through Kung Fu he made a connection with a new friend who also attends UW, and she introduced him to a great group of other students- hooray! Friends make all the difference, especially since school has not been a slam-dunk. Going into next quarter, he is taking an intro to the Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) program, which is now officially his major. We are all hoping that having a smaller cohort and a more concrete goal makes things feel more manageable at that giant school.
He continues to work Saturdays at Jack’s Fish Spot in the Pike Place Market, and participate regularly in activities with the PNW Great War re-enactment group. Honestly, I am not giving the re-enactment enough of a word-count here, it’s a big part of his day to day, as evidenced by the gallery below. Let me just say that he recently bought a reproduction Great War era blue French greatcoat and has been wearing that all over town. Imagine seeing that long-legged Kung-fu trained body striding around the UW campus in that decidedly unique look- they cannot know that inside that intimidating giant is our little Huckleberry Blue!

Morgan spent the first part of the year building the aforementioned shed. The rest of the year has been dedicated to other people’s projects ($$), maintaining friendships, and getting out into the world with me.

We had an active summer, with trips out to the coast, to the family property in Twisp (a whole delightful week there!), up to Bellingham, and over to Quilcene, among others. It was a bit like our pre-pandemic summer frenzy again, which is super fun, and leaves the garden feeling lonely.

I celebrated 30 years in practice this August, a milestone I can’t quite believe. For the past couple of years I have found myself wanting a better narrative for some of the things that have been happening in my practice, so in October I began a path of study that I have been describing as “bridging the conscious and the unconscious” with dreamwork, constellation, and ceremony. The first retreat was out in Hansville on the edge of the Salish Sea, and we practiced listening to the quiet, attuning to subtle shifts, paying respect to feelings and imagination, and I came away with three new friends and a bunch of homework. So far, it has been helping a lot.

Here’s to the great mysteries, my friends; may we maintain our awe, may we plant, tend, and harvest joy, and may we all become more and more excellent at compassion. All of our love to you.

Introducing the Shed

This is such an exciting addition to our property. I’m just going to blast away with photos first:

If you read the last post, you know that we needed storage. We also needed some covered outdoor space that could flex between hangout and work zone. Hangout is obvious, work zone is maybe obvious when you see how small the Shop is, even when it is clean. Big railing jobs have historically been built in the driveway, and protected with tarps and pop-up canopies, which is not ideal. So check out our amazing new outdoor room! We love it!

Below, a video showing the custom locking mechanism that Morgan designed and created for the big sliding doors:

Shed as workspace with very bright work lights in full effect:

Some details:

You don’t see the brackets here, that’s on purpose.

Here are some process shots, including our main helper Jeremy Calvert and occasional helper Mark Tomkiewicz:

And finally a few images to remind us what this area used to look like, plus a previous blog post for context:

We have one more big disruptive piece to do, but that’s for another post. In the meantime, we will enjoy this great new addition to our day to day lives.

Storage is Everything

As we were finishing up the permit set one thousand years ago (or in 2014, but who’s counting?) We realized that we had just eliminated our major cache of storage space by designing a new first floor out of our funky old basement. Where would all that stuff live? We scrapped together a quick drawing with our good buddy Thomas (of SHED Architects) and Barbara got it on the permit set before it was finally approved. (Barbara is one of my besties and also our dedicated designer, you can find more of her work at Allied8.com. How lucky are we to be resourced with all this talent?)

Here’s a cute little action shot of Thomas and Barbara helping us look over the plans.

In the sequence of this build, you might think that the last thing on the permit set would also be the last thing we do to complete the project, but again- where does all that stuff live?

It originally went into every cranny we could find. We purged hard, burning piles of sentimental scraps and donating, selling, trashing whatever we could. If it was replaceable, we didn’t think it would be worth paying to store it so we only kept what we could stash on-site. The attic space above Morgan’s Shop was stuffed. We opted to use the attic of the house as well, despite the loose insulation and awkward access. Things that went up rarely came down. The yard absorbed a lot of it, and we did our best to keep it tidy.

Here’s a version of storage we used until the big tub move last fall.

When we did the new roof in 2021, all the stuff we had in the house attic had to come down. By this time the old kitchen space could catch it, so there it has been for the past couple of years, along with my bike, a late 2020 acquisition that I LOVE, and that cannot live outside tempting thieves and enduring the weather. In order to do that last big piece of the inside of the house we had to create the Shed. THAT is where the stuff lives!

A month or so ago the Shed became waterproof and lockable, which meant we could finally drag all the stuff out and decide what to do with it.

We did a deep clean of the Shop attic, starting (at my insistence) with ALL empty containers coming down, even if they were “holding space” for something. We dug stuff out from the closet under the stairs, went through the piles and stacks in the old kitchen, tidying up those spaces we already use and figuring in that process we’d see what wanted or needed to move.

There are a few items that have to be in the shed- the bike, *large tools and heavy sports gear that just aren’t safe to lug up and down a ladder. There are a lot of things that might be great in the shed- Morgan has to climb that ladder a lot to access his work stuff, and his life would be a lot easier if there were more of it on the ground level. Camping gear in season, yard tools, coolers… we have a lot of stuff!

In the end, most of it fit neatly back into the spaces we had already been using, leaving a LOT of room for what we want to access instead of what we need to access. This is such a good feeling. I couldn’t stop Morgan from putting a few big empty containers on the shelves of the Shed closet, but at least we know they are empty and they can be filled when it’s time.

So now we have a tidy Shop attic, a pile of things to be donated or sold (Garage Sale, coming soon!) in the old kitchen, plenty of shelf room to use in the new Shed, and lots of space in the Shop to work. (*The Shop, until this lockable space was created, was CRAMMED with large tools and toolboxes, making it very difficult to use. I wish I had thought to take a “before” photo, but I didn’t.) It feels great to know where things are and where things go, at long last.

Shop Attic, including a “landing zone” for stuff to rest temporarily

Roll away roll away roll away

The shed space is basically done, but since there are still a few unfinished cosmetic details I am going to wait to post the photos.

In the meantime, I have been very much enjoying the ability to simply roll my very heavy e-bike into and out of its new home on my daily commute instead of wrestling it up and down the back stairs into the old kitchen.

Rolling in after work

Additionally, the bike battery needs to be charged for no longer than 12 hours at a time at the risk of ruin or fire (or both, I suppose). I have forgotten a few times! Morgan rigged up a timer for me for an outlet near my bike. He’s the best.

These little details add up to a real improvement in my daily experience, all the sweeter for the awkwardness of the previous one. Thank you, Morgan!