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.

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.

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!

Stepping it up

The big house project of the summer finally got underway last month. You know how it goes. At any rate, Morgan is building a sort of shop addition, a covered deck with a shed/closet on the east side where we can put our sports and camping gear, big tools, off-season gear, and gardening equipment.

Hot tub move thanks to friends! Thank you so much, friends!

Right now that stuff is either in the old kitchen (which will someday be a bathroom and laundry room), in a cramped attic space above the shop, taking up precious floor space in the shop, or tucked into a corner of the yard. This is what happens when you turn your old basement into a living space.

Throughout this project there have been many glorious moments when things find their forever homes, as with our craft and office cabinets. This structure will likely potentiate several of those moments, and I will do my best to share them with you as they arrive.

❤️ Morgan’s notes in the landing pad. ❤️

In the meantime, one concrete piece of the structure has been completed, and we can now run up and down stairs on the east side of the house instead of slipping and sliding on the muddy slope we had there. Check out the step lights in the side of the house, finally united with their true purpose.

Morgan showing off the alternative to a slippery slope.

Counter this!

Tell you what, there’s nothing like global crisis after global crisis slamming through the news to make your house project seem like a ridiculous indulgence. Here we are though, trying to make something beautiful and frankly working pretty hard for it, so I will go ahead and share it with you.

When we had our quartz countertops put in we had planned for a natural stone piece on the peninsula bar. The contractor nixed our choice for not being solid enough for the task, so we pivoted.

We thought we might use a piece of live-edge cedar newly harvested from Chris and Carol’s place in Bellingham. Not wide enough. We tacked it on for temporary use and pivoted again.

We thought we might use the beautiful live-edge walnut bar from a friend’s old business. Also not wide enough but Morgan had a plan to use bronze to make it bigger. A really cool plan. But also a lot of work and time and ultimately not really less expensive than going back to the drawing board for stone.

If you have never chosen natural stone, it’s pretty fun. We went to Meta Marble and Granite (among other spots) in Georgetown on our contractor’s recommendation, and walked through the stacks, admiring the amazing things the earth has made. So many beautiful and wild things… I wanted something with dramatic seams, but my tastes were expensive.

In the end, I found a slab of granite that was reasonably priced and has more subtle flair. It looks pretty boring in the big photo, but when you get close there’s depth and glamour in it. It picks up the speckle of our ground concrete floor and the colors of the cabinets and the quartz. It’s pretty cool.

I then successfully lobbied Morgan to make that choice with me- perhaps the greatest feat of this particular project.

He wanted that top slab that makes your eyes go 👀

We got our new full strength counter complete with waterfall edge on Friday. We can now put our knees under the bar and eat. Hooray! Now to finish that wall underneath it…

2021 Year In Review

Welcome to the Hammershack Report 2021 year in review. Here’s what it looked like for us:

The year started on a hopeful note. Due to the nature of my work I was able to get my first dose of the Moderna vaccine in early January, which added immunization to my pre-screening, masking, and cleaning protocols and made me feel much safer about working, especially as the pandemic raged around us. After my second dose I was able to hug my nephew Gus for the first time– truly a moment of great joy!

Huck and Morgan got their jabs in April, shortly after we returned from our humble spring break road trip to Fields Spring State Park in the far southeastern corner of the state. We had the entire park to ourselves, as we were in a shoulder season between cross country skiing and summer blooms, so it was us, the kind and earnest rangers, and a thousand woodpeckers.

Morgan and I got out on some little camping trips and adventures with friends to other spots over the summer, leaving Huck behind. He was working, but honestly, his attitude at Fields Spring would have made me want to leave him at home anyway. I get it-16/17-year-olds don’t love hanging out with their parents all the time. The feeling can be mutual.

Big news around the house is the new roof, which you can check out in a previous post. The rains are changing here (as they are all over the planet) and it feels good to have gotten a new lid before our record-breaking fall precipitation. Speaking of record-breaking, you will certainly have heard of or experienced the insane heat dome we experienced in June. It was unpleasant and disconcerting. We got past it, but did we really get past it? I did what I could to help our plants, but some got burnt and one wonders what will thrive here in the coming decades.

Chickens used to fertilize the garden beds.

We gave our chickens away this year. They were fun, we had them for about a dozen years (not the same birds) and enjoyed their weird company and their eggs. But they took up a lot of space, and our yard has gotten crowded in that time with everything getting big and filling in. They attract rats, require food even when they don’t lay, and we had a lot of issues last winter with our automated systems, so Morgan consented to letting them go. I missed them for a hot minute, but I do not miss them anymore. We found some folks excited to take the equipment, and another person happy to have the hens. Everybody wins! For more photos of home and garden life, go here.

Huck’s junior year was entirely online. He did… fine? I mean, he got good grades, kept a virtual social life, kept working out either zooming with kung fu buddies or in-person as the pandemic allowed. His re-enactment hobby continued to bloom.

The lack of actual social contact with humans concerned us. A friend of ours helped him get a job at the Pike Place Market this summer which was just the ticket- a lot of social skills needed to work at a busy fishmonger’s stall in the peak of tourist season. He has continued to work there on the weekends through the school year, which makes him a very busy guy. In-person school started in August, and it is an obvious relief to Huck and his peers to see each other again. He is applying to universities but not fully committed to the idea of going to one just yet. Who knows what the future holds? The world is his oyster! More photos of Huck in 2021 here.

Morgan’s work fixing up other people’s homes in order to fix up ours continues. He did a bit of backpacking this summer with friends, getting to one of the peaks of The Brothers of the Olympic Mountain range this fall. His new hammock system was a success, and he is now preparing himself for snow adventure by taking avalanche safety classes. His guitar repertoire grew, and most recently he’s been taking himself through an online course in beginning banjo, thanks to the gift of said instrument by his cousin, Noelle.

My business was a big focus for me this year. After 28 years I decided it was time to share the bounty and try to help a newer massage therapist jump start their career. Bevin Keely, LMP became Thrive Together Healing Arts, PLLC and I invited Jennifer Keller to join me in my office as a mentee and renter. She uses the space when I am not there, I help her with her marketing and with bodywork questions and generally support her growth and well-being as a massage therapist. This transition took countless hours of invisible-to-you multilayered tasks, but I have a shiny new website and tax structure and am pleased with how it is going. My own work continues to deepen and I remain grateful to have found something I love to do that challenges and sustains me.

There were things this year that rocked us hard- the sudden loss of a dear friend and then a family member, scary medical events for people we care about. I may take some time to write about the feelings of 2021, but in the interest of keeping this “newsy”, I will do that in a different post. For now, just know that our connection with you brings meaning and joy into our lives, and we look forward to fostering that connection in the new year.

Be well, and with love, Bevin, Morgan and Huck

Covering our assets

Rain is falling steadily this morning on our new roof. I wish I could say that we had it all buttoned up before we had any rain at all, considering the long and rainless summer we had, but there were a few days of stress and tarp management as Morgan got the last bits done last week.

Rain on the metal roof (sound way up to hear it!).

For whatever reasons, the metal order was hard to get placed and then took many weeks to deliver. Subsequent orders for replacement parts followed the same slow path, and other people’s jobs (for Morgan) got squeezed in while we were waiting.

New sheathing, gable repairs, bunch of stuff you will never see that will keep this roof strong for another 50 years.

There is a bit more yet to do- mainly crimping, which requires the supplier to respond about their fancy tool- but we are waterproof and looking sharp. Feeling very relieved, as that roof had needed replacement the entire time we have lived here, and should now be all set for the rest of our lives. Thank you, Morgan!!!