2025 in four themes

Writing, travel, connection, and change

It’s December, cold and dark and wet in the Pacific Northwest—good conditions for reading and planning, mapping out what the new year might bring. At the same time, I’m taking a pause from all the forward momentum, reflecting back on the year and what it’s taught me. Four themes come to mind that characterize life in 2025: writing, travel, connection, and change. Today, I want to explore and revisit the year through these words, and share what I’ve learned.

From top left: Olympia reading, Bronson McKinley (audiobook narrator)

Writing

If I were to describe the mindset I adopted for those months of writing and revising, editing and rewriting, I find many contradictions and opposing forces:

• strident dedication with openness to criticism

• rigid timelines belying measured expectations

• vulnerability alongside distance

• the story separated from storyteller

There were moments when I could not locate any good reason for writing a memoir and then others when I was impressed with myself, convinced I had something worthy of print. I don’t know how you do something like this without, occasionally, feeling batshit insane. And the pace, the relentless context shifting back to my day job… on the other side of this effort, I am more resilient, and aware of the effort involved in producing a book-length work.

I walked into the project with intention, with modest goals—to write a book to prove that I could, to share my story, and to have a reference point for another, more complex writing project. Pointing my attention at something for 20-30 hours a week for six-some months yielded a respectable first book—what if I had 40-50 hours a week for a year? More time coupled with experience.

The ambitious writer in me is pretty sure the result would be an award winning patient/physician meta story on par with Gawande and Mukherjee (and certainly Fogg). The skeptic in me, cautious and risk-averse, wonders if the lifestyle changes required to take on a project of this magnitude make sense at 42. I will be weighing all of this in 2026, taking intermediary steps, seeking advice; it is reassuring to know that you are capable, that you can do something because look, I’ve already done it, I can do it again.

This theme, using language in written form to tell stories, is the common thread for 2025. I love this work and feel compelled to do it, even as I don’t quite know why.

Anton, Maddy, Josh, Jeremy; Victor and Steven; Anton and I flying; Austin preparing to launch Chelan Butte

Travel

I went to Colombia in February with Anton and Jeremy, but it feels like the trip occurred well over a year ago. So many events have taken place in the intervening time that it’s difficult to imagine them all fitting within the past 12 months. We went there—via Miami—and flew with old friends and new, rode motor scooters around town, bounced in trucks up mountains, and soared the sky with birds of prey.

The Colombian people were warm, curious about us gringos, but usually the sort of curiosity that gives way to a smile. I tried learning some Spanish beforehand but my hearing loss (pre-hearing aid at this point) made communicating challenging. Gestures and smartphones were our aids when a more fluent friend wasn’t nearby.

Colombia, confidence

I did some writing on this trip, but mostly I took notes. I filled my little pocket notebook with sights and sounds from the prior day, usually in the morning over coffee at the little cafe down the street from our hotel. If you’ve read the book, you know that the final chapter is entitled Colombia—I wrote the first version of it shortly after returning home. I was re-energized, having just lived the story, and then I immersed myself.

The trip to France came at the end of an eight month long sprint—writing, revising, rewriting, proofing, then submitting for publication. I needed space from the book before I started promoting it, and a break from all writing-related work. The flights in and around the Alps were a welcome reprieve, and I was surrounded by familiar faces, flying friends and mentors. The French people may have been amused by our boisterous group, but we were generally ignored.

Pride and baguettes

I finished Percival Everett’s Erasure on the flight home, which was a welcome distraction from the cramped space I inhabited for nine hours. In my 30’s, didn’t travel much, but in 2025 I ventured to South America and Europe. My perspective on the world shifted ever so slightly—the aperture widened, I learned new words. I was awestruck, standing on or below mountains, flying around and above them.

Lindsay; Hakan; Timothy, baby Abe, Aaron, and James; Austin

Connection

The process of combing through the interiors of my life over 10+ years was intense, and often an exercise in sitting alone. The creative work was decoupled from the collaborative—produce the drafts, share them, receive input and guidance, and then ideate and create again. To finally have the story done, published, printed, in hand, and connect with people who read it, was deeply rewarding. I understand now something I didn’t before—I am legitimate now, a real writer, for having done this. Does that also make me an artist? Perhaps, and I have felt what it’s like to be in front of people reacting one’s work, sharing a piece of one’s self, using a skill not everyone possesses, with a wholly unique voice. What a gift.

I reveled in this form of connection—I felt stronger, confident, more certain that I’d made the right choice. I had a new reason to gather groups of friends together (I’m always looking for reasons to organize events), to share and celebrate, and marvel at our lives. Putting this book out has led to many life-affirming conversations—and I’ve also been reminded of past connections: old friends from decades past, names that stir emotions and memories. I also happened to reconnect with someone who was an important figure in my college years, a professor during the my time in Oregon.

Zoom in and see if you can spot a Jonathan from 20+ years ago 🔎

Just a few sentences in the book cover this period, but it’s fair to say that Doug Frank and the cohort at our little campus outside Ashland helped shape the trajectory of my intellectual life. Recently I opened an email about Doug’s second book, which has been in print for fifteen years. Right away, I sent him a note. I was surprised to learn that, for the past 6-7 years, he’s been living not too far away, up north. We reconnected over pints after a recent appointment with Dr. Barber.

I am working my way, slowly, through Doug’s book, A Gentler God. By the time we met, he’d already finished my book. I told him I was surprised to be an author. I thought about the other kids in the 2005 group, how I’ve lost touch with all but one. I remembered the feelings of deep antipathy and then estrangement when it came to the Christian faith, how I was exploring other ways of thinking, charting a philosophical course towards atheism. I had permission to explore ideas there, without judgment—a stark contrast to the home campus at the University of Least Resistance. I can think about that time with more equanimity now, but for many years, I was angry, deeply hurt, defensive.

There’s another person I connected with this year, a name you’ll find familiar if you’ve been keeping up with our recent posts—Jacob. I don’t really believe in fate or destiny or any of that—astrology and woo-woo the universe stuff is not my gambit—but sometimes the timing of when you meet someone feels like intelligent design (it’s not of course, because that’s hogwash). I’d been looking for someone to partner with creatively for two years, someone to write alongside, to share ideas and stories with, a person who writes with purpose and intention. I knew they were out there but I didn’t know how to find them. I did know that I wouldn’t have the time or patience to network my way through writing groups where fiction dominates and matters of identity are sacrosanct. Thankfully, Jacob found me. We have not met in person just yet but we write and work together, between the margins of our day jobs. My intuition tells me this is just the beginning.

Parawaiting and Patience

Writing and travel, my book, and random chance have yielded new connections, and I am deeply grateful.

Selling beads, building shelves, designing a new kitchen

Change

I just finished Octavia Butler’s prescient, apocalyptic sci-fi saga—The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents. In the story, a new, forward-looking religion is formed around the idea that change, unavoidable and impersonal, must be embraced so humanity can survive. The narrator and protagonist builds a belief system from a single phrase, a piece of poem she writes in her youth. She’s not entirely sure where it will lead, but knows it to be true: God is change.

I try to live and write with this adage in mind: hold ideas above identity. I’m still figuring out exactly what it means, but having spent much time reflecting on the changes I’ve undergone over the past decade or so, I know that identity is a moving target. I am not the same now, having written this book, as I was before I started. Indeed, in the story, I wrestle with the concepts of identity and self—I defined who I was, attached my sense of value to an identity (career person, boyfriend, homeowner) and an image, a notion of a face (an ideal form, something changeless). That attachment caused me a fair amount of suffering when life changed.

This year, Lindsay made a decision that requires large-scale change: she is closing her primary online store, liquidating the inventory, and stepping away from work for a while. I am proud of her for making a big difficult decision, for setting a new direction, and prioritizing her needs. It’s been thrilling to help her navigate the complex and occasionally infuriating landscape of small business ownership, and see her excel as a soloprenuer. Bringing this business into our home involved a lot of change, as will scaling it down and selling it off.

One of the reasons I set out to write the book was because I wanted to understand how I’d changed. I knew I had—ten years living through cancer and reconstructive surgeries had shaped my life in profound ways—but how exactly was I different now compared to before? What was that process like? What did I learn along the way? How did I grow?

There will be more change in 2026 and thinking about it is exciting—new business ideas, new places to visit and sites to fly, new friends and stories and things to learn. Maybe the start of a second book. This year has been full of so much life and color; I am grateful for the time, the people who have ventured with me, if only through the stories I’ve written.

Writing, travel, connection, and change are my words for 2025. What are yours? Please share in the comments below.