Category Archives for Year in Review

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.

Preparing for Samhain
Camping on the Green River
Back at the Burn

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

2022

The year draws to an end, and I feel compelled to wrap it up like I always do…

Let’s start with Huck, this was a big year for him. He fell in love, got mono, went to prom, graduated from high school, turned 18, started freshman year at the University of Washington, and voted for the first time. He continued to do WW1 re-enactment with PNW Great War (you can find him in the photos because he is always the tallest in the bunch). He kept his job at Jack’s Fish Spot in the Pike Place Market throughout the school year and summer, and is still working there most Saturdays; stop by and say hi if you can brave the tourist throngs. Along with all of the excitement of big firsts came the pain of big transitions- his sweetie (Frankie) went to Japan for a gap year in September, all of his other friends scattered to the post-high-school winds, the University of Washington is a huge school and the workload is no joke. Even the job at the Market saw some big turnover as people moved on to other things, so he lost his connections at the surrounding shops. Having him at home instead of the dorms means we are present for those growing pains for better and for worse. We are happy to have him here with us where we can love him and support him every day, and try to balance the instinct to protect him from pain with the understanding that there is a lot to be learned in the struggle.

Here are some of my favorite photos of Huck this year.

Morgan’s big highlight this year was a trek from south to north through the Olympic National Park in August. I dropped him and our buddy Marc off at the North Fork Quinault River trailhead after a pleasant night spent at the historic Quinault Lodge, and they walked up that river into one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the world. They made their way out following the Elwha, a river restored to its wild self after dam removal in 2012 and 2014. Marc’s sweetie picked them up (after about 6 days of walking) at the Elwha ranger station and we had a nice bit of restoration ourselves at an AirBNB on Lake Sutherland before heading back home.

Morgan continues to keep busy building stuff for other people and then using that money to build stuff for us. Stay tuned, I swear there will be a glorious shed post coming soon…ish.

If you follow my Instagram or FaceBook accounts you will have seen photos from the various little jaunts we take- from Mt. Baker to Portland, Fort Columbia to San Juan Island and back again to the Long Beach Peninsula. This year’s camping picks included Kanaskat-Palmer and Rainbow Falls State Parks. We have been exploring our state parks for many years and are rarely disappointed with what we find, especially if it’s in good company.

A couple of our favorite summer festivals fired up again in a mid-Covid mellow way.
We returned to Critical NW in July, the annual mini-burn held these days at a private campground in Granite Falls. We were this year’s keepers of the event’s much-loved Critical Costume Closet. Having never worked retail, I enjoyed playing “shop” with thousands of garments donated from the community it serves. Morgan and I have given many very choice items to the Closet over the years, and it’s always super fun to see people walking around wearing your old favorite things. This year, that feeling expanded to feel like ALL of the closet was ours; we hung each piece, sometimes styling it on a mannequin, only to see it later walking around on a happy customer, occasionally just as we styled it :). The best! Unfortunately, lots of our camp (including Morgan) came home from that event with the dreaded Covid, but as our buddy Andrew said, “At least we got it doing something fun and not just shopping at Fred Meyer.” Too true. At the end of the event I passed on the mantle of Closet Coordinator and kept a bunch of fun new memories and outfits.
In August we headed back to our friend Shelly’s Electric Sky art camp on the Skykomish River, an annual opportunity to find collaborators for future projects and experiment with integrating technology into art. It’s also an art show with projects installed and displayed for locals and travelers alike, and an opportunity to camp with friends by the river. This year’s theme was Midsummer Night’s Tempest, so we made fairy houses for the trees.

Over Halloween we took a not so little jaunt to New Orleans, LA with some friends. This was a belated 50th birthday celebration for me, a travel treat to somewhere we had never been. NOLA did not disappoint- the city is old and beautiful and the spirits there aren’t just from bottles. History and creativity abound, and if we are lucky we will go back to experience the many wonderful things we couldn’t fit into this trip.

My bodywork practice continues to feed my body and soul. It’s been 29 years and I am still learning. People ask me whether I get tired, and yes, of course I do. I need care and attention just like everyone else. I am writing this post from my bed, where I have basically been stuck for the past 5 days waiting out a not-terrible case (my first!) of the Coronavirus. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to do that now, with four vaccine doses in my system, in this big beautiful room that used to be our living room. I’m feeling better, got out today into the yard to move my body around and am allowed back out into the larger world with a mask on tomorrow.

This bedroom fills with light and has excellent views.

I don’t want to blithely skip over the hard parts for me and for Morgan and pretend that 2022 was nothing but sunshine and good times, because it definitely was not. It’s tough being a human! We have big feelings, we get confused, frustrated, angry, lost, caught in our stories, we land in places where our coping strategies don’t seem to work. We are happy to have each other here, where we can love and support each other every day, and try to balance the instinct to protect ourselves from pain with the understanding that there is a lot to be learned in the struggle.

Happy New Year!