For me, 2025 was a year of water in drought. As the reservoirs in my watershed stagnated at historic lows, I ventured with loved ones to dozens of waterfalls that scintillate over basalt cliffs in high deserts and thread temperate rainforest islands alike. It was a year of secret swim holes, cold plunges through every season, and the sweeping awe and destruction of atmospheric rivers, all set against policies stripping environmental protections and funding for restoration, aid, and food.

More happened than I could possibly summarize, contextualize, or offer some overarching analysis of. So I’m looking back on just my own year, and just the parts that brought me joy or grounded me in hope. I’ll warn you right now, by the end of this post, my sentences will collapse into rivulet-like lists. Even with the scope so narrowed, in every attempt to frame my year, I find the narrative evaporating, condensing, falling into another. The one constant is a stream of names—the friends that kept me afloat as I tried to return the favor.

My year began with Donkey Basketball and ended on the field of a Seattle Seahawks game with my dad.

Rather, my year began with Shen and a pebble-sore barefoot dash from a community sauna to the January waters of the Puget Sound. Later that day, they took me to a live Dungeons and Drag Queens show. The year ended with them loaning me their ghillie suit jacket to wear for the “Oscars of the Mountains to Sound Greenway” where we interviewed people on the Green Carpet and I was acknowledged for my work on the Resilience Film Festival in front of 500 people.

*August, Vincent, Shen, and Blanca at the Greenway Annual Dinner.*

*“Team of Champions” Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust (and friends) on the field for the Seahawks Vs. Vikings Halftime.*

I mean, my year began feral over a yellow house on Zillow I couldn’t possibly afford, proposing marriage in a group chat to Trye, the “Love of my Loan.” It ended arm in arm with Trye—partners—behind the townhouse we rent together as hundreds of migrating ducks swept overhead, then splashed into a twilight pond, sheltered from the barrage of two atmospheric rivers.

Or, I could say that my year began blurred in the heavy, wet snow of a midnight blizzard as Mitchi and I finished our no-sleep-sleepover to listen to the entire Edge of Sleep audiobook. It ended with her adding another tattoo to my bird sleeve–a snake eel bursting through the chest of a Great Blue Heron.

Mitchi gave me a California quail tattoo this summer, too, during one of our weekly hangouts. This year it became official–my longest running commitment, longer than my degree, longer than any place I’ve ever rented, longer than any job or other relationship, has been our five years of seeking each other out every week.

By date, my year began with cold-clumsied fingers on the snow-crusted hills of the Durr Road shooting range as August and Christian taught me to handle firearms. I fired one for the first time. It ended on August’s sofa, just a couple minute walk from my place, sipping a pour-over coffee they made me, as they so often do. We chased each other up trees this year, on our morning hikes before work or afternoon walks, hauling ourselves up their branches, startling birds, and plucking their flowers.

Spring began my year with flowers, harvesting magnolia petals with August, pinching the blossoms off lilacs and finding their mutant shapes with Vesper, and roaming the desert for wild Hooker’s onion flowers with Trye. I foraged more foods this year than I ever have before, making syrups and cooking foods for my roommate, my friends, parties, my family. It was a practice that grounded me in the seasons, the ecosystems around me, and in my relationships with other people.

Here are the foods I found, how they were prepared, and who I shared them with:

Magnolia petals. Picked with August and pickled or made to syrup with Trye. Served at the Mad Hatter Tea Party and shared with my parents and Mitchi. Magnolia milk (syrup and soy milk) became my favorite drink.
Sagebrush violet. Munched on during a hike with my Mom and her friend, Julie, where we saw a hairy scarab beetle and violet-green swallows. Shared with August in their mailbox.
Fiddlehead fern. Harvested after helping lead a field trip on Tiger Mountain. Battered and fried for me and Mitchi.
Lilac. Gifted by August, and prepared for syrup and sugar by Vesper and Trye. Served at the Mad Hatter Tea Party and for weeks afterward.
Stinging nettle. Scouted with Trye(‘s bare ankles) above a waterfall at Ancient Lakes. Prepared as blanched greens and nettle pesto for lasagna. Shared with Vesper, Mitchi, and my dad.
Hooker’s onion. Picked with Trye. Some served fresh on rice bowls or sandwiches, some pickled.
Dandelion flowers and greens. Picked with Trye (who asked “Is this a dandelion?). Served as battered flowers and blanched greens with flatbread for the Mad Hatter Tea Party.
Honeysuckle. Found along a beach trail with my family.
Stream violets, trailing blackberry, and clover plucked and eaten on hikes.
Salmon berries and thimble berries foraged with Mitchi on a walk.
Lobster mushroom. Spotted by me and Trye alongside the Ten Falls Trail. Served as a buttery lobster pasta to Trye, Ves, and Mitchi.
Huckleberry, red huckleberry, and trailing blackberry eaten fresh or stored in nalgene bottles to share on ice cream or pancakes. Gifted to my dad.
Chanterelles. Foraged during a camping trip with Mitchi and sauteed as a DnD table snack. More spotted by Katie in Latvia, but too waterlogged to take.
Oyster mushrooms. Gathered with Trye as we hiked to Bridal Veil Falls during the DnD retreat. Cooked in butter and garlic as a topping for our group meal of alfredo pasta. More found in Saugatuck, Michigan, with my parents and served with breakfast to our huge house of relatives and fellow wedding guests.

Mad Hatter Tea Party ft. sauteed dandelion greens, battered dandelion flowers, pickled magnolia petals, lilac sugar, and lilac and magnolia syrups.

Where I was fed, I fed in turn. My year began with the resolution to create where I saw destruction. I started writing poems again. Poems to channel rage, like Rainbow Connection, and poems to linger on hope, like Eggs Benedict Benediction. I began work on a novella and posted several personal essays. Now, I have a chapbook-sized collection to edit with my brother Kodjo. My year ends with a book.

My year began part way through two books: Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel and The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Both still now rank among my favorite stories encountered this year. Empty Spaces is a meditation on a landscape viewed beyond the human scope, a flutter and repetition of slowly changing descriptions hovering over a place as the sole character. This book reset my attention and challenged my narrative impulse, a welcome relief as breaking news broke like waves over us, incessant.

My year ended having read over 60 books and having caught up with–then kept up with–at least a dozen more podcasts, Substack blogs, and newsletters.

Here are some more of my favorite reads/listens this year:

the real folk blues: A Cowboy Bebop Fanbook with collected fan comics and criticism.
Saltwater Demands a Psalm by Kweku Abimbola, alchemizing poems into psalms that resurrect and honor those murdered in the trans-atlantic slave trade or who survive in its violent legacy today.
Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States written by Samantha Allen as a mosaic of queer lives and communities interviewed during a roadtrip across the US.
PLANTCRAFT, a space for interviews, criticism, and stories about human relationships with the natural world by Amirio Freeman.
Maintenance Phase podcast by Micheal Hobbs and Aubry Gordan about the science and cultural implications accompanying health and wellness fads. More about my recommendation here: Maintenance Phase — Soft Bones
Dinotopia by James Gurney, gorgeous illustrations and fictional diary entries written as if a 19th century naturalist has washed ashore on an island where dinosaurs and shipwrecked humans live in harmony.
Maurice by E.M. Forster and Landscapes by Christine Lai, both twists on the country novel, my love for which was first sparked by Jane Austen in high school. Maurice is a classic country novel written at the turn of the century, but this author in the early 1900s, like his main character, is gay. The book wasn’t published until the 1970s, posthumanously, when homosexuality was decriminalized. Landscapes turns from the past to the near future of climate crisis and displacement, following an art historian and archivist, who is hoping to catalog ephemera from the world we’re familiar with, which is dissolving even as our systems chug on. She lives in an old estate, converted into a shelter for climate refugees, and readers absorb the story through diary entries and archival descriptions.
Model Home by Rivers Solomon, a disorienting and terrifying exploration of the monsters invented to protect us when people invent themselves as monsters.
Poet Jesus, a poetry series by “Holy Ghostwriter” Tania Runyan from Jesus’s perspective.
Wandering Central Washington, a Yakima Herald-Republic column by J. Shah swirling science, whimsy, and local know-how.
Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls, an account of history and family history across three generations in one of the most compelling art styles I’ve seen in a graphic memoir.

In 2025, I loaned books, gave them away, read loaned books and gifted ones… I grasped for the long-form, the nuanced, the slow. In a year of accelerating uncertainty, I attempted to ground myself, root myself, in the people around me and histories, local and familial. For some connections, I traveled, but for most I made do at home.

What follows is a series of lists (a listicle!) of my year’s personal highlights, compiled mostly for myself (skim along for hidden embarrassing stories), but–in the case of the first few lists–they’re also compiled for the version of myself, who, when asked what there is to do in Ellensburg, confidently answered “nothing.”

Here are some of my favorite ways I passed time in Kittitas County:

Weekly trivia nights at Iron Horse Brewery with my team, “Kenough.”
Co-working at the Ellensburg Public Library or CWU Library with August and Trye.
Book club/crafting nights with Mitchi.
A Donkey Basketball tournament fundraiser with Thorp Schools.
Slacklining and practicing handstands with August and pals at Kiwanis Park.
Petrified logs at the Ginko Petrified Forest State Park with Trye.
Biweekly DnD sessions.
The Recovery Documentary screening and panel by Peers Rising with Trye.
Crashing my own Grief Party, by accidentally showing up early for surprise lasagna and movies.
Morel hunting by mountain bike and foot with Caralyn.
Memorial Day barbecuing with Asad, feeding a dozen people before Asad moved out of state.
Painting with watercolors, birding, and chasing frogs.
Tuning into a webinar hosted by Oregon Natural Desert Association with my dad to learn about “Fossils and the Future: Lessons from Oregon’s Ecological Past” from Samantha Hopkins.
Midsummer Night's Dream by the Ellensburg Shakespeare Project at Unity Park.
Driving Ves, Mitchi, and Trye up Lion Rock to see early wildflowers and elk.
Sharing dinners with my parents outside Cle Elum.
Treating dog sitting stints as mini-retreats and sharing the beauty of Cle Elum weekends with friends like Trye, Shen, Chris, and Alice.
Sipping seasonal specials at Kittitas Cafe, The Burg, and Wild Flora.
With Tristan and Trye at a CWU Music Program performance of “21st Century American One Act Operas.”
Connect Four tournament for August’s birthday.
Volunteering for the cash exchange at the Wild Wild Pride Drag Show with Mitchi while Trye (the Tip Kitten) flounced around collecting bills for the Queens after the Pride Parade.
Visiting PUNCH Gallery in Thorp with friends and later with my mom.
Lake nights at Carey Lake all summer long, floating and sunning as muskrats swam by and pelicans wheeled back toward the Yakima River Canyon.
On paddle boards in an Alpine Lake with family, then Trye.
Hiking in the Teanaway, around Salmon La Sac, and to Alpine Lakes with August, their friends, Mitchi, Ves, and Trye.
At the Kittitas Car Show with Trye.
In CWU’s Museum of Culture and Environment for J Shah’s “Plastic Runs Through It: Microplastics in the Yakima River” talk and window exhibit launch.
The Rodeo Parade, Ellensburg Rodeo, and Kittitas County Fair with Trye, Katie, and Kodjo.
Labor Day pontoon boat ride up the Columbia River with my family and my mom’s friends.
Showing coworkers the Umtanum Suspension Bridge, just as a baby rattlesnake slithered onto it.
Competition games at Central Axe Throwing.
On my front steps, watching the faint shimmer of Northern Lights.
At the public sessions of the second annual TransRural Elders Conference for their One Picture, One Story event, film fest, and collaging workshop.
Rocky Horror Picture (and Drag) Show at CWU with pals.
Watching a free screening of Fish Wars hosted by KCD and IOOF.

Where there wasn’t an event waiting for me, I made one, scheming with Mitchi all year long to host movie nights and themed get-togethers for our friends. We curated activities, costumes, and menus for each. We hosted: an Awards Show, Imbolc, The Last Unicorn fantasy night, Clue Murder Mystery, a Mad Hatter Tea Party, Sweatband Workouts at the park, a Garden Party for my birthday, PowerPoint Night (for which I presented on building an apocalypse survival team during a solar flare), Pumpkin Carving, Halloween parties, a Holiday Card Photoshoot, Ella Enchanted (aka “Arrive Submissive”) Night, Friends Feast, and a cozy Christmas pajamas and cocoa get together.

My capacity and energy grew throughout the year as I trained it on love for my friends and family. Though 2025 was one of the busiest years of my life, it felt like each thing I planned propelled me forward. Funding at my work was uncertain, and projects focused on conservation, public outreach, education, and equity were all targeted by the new administration. So I took the idea of “focus on the local” seriously.

I took pride in making use of my skills and gaining new ones:

A week of classes in Kittitas Town Hall got me my Hunter’s Education Certification.
I volunteered at the Cold Weather Shelter with my former middle school librarian.
Handbasket Zine published my words in a poem, an essay, and as an issue’s Featured Interview. I became a supporter, and became friends with the editor, Taylor. On occasion, I’m lucky enough to sit in the Ellensburg Community Radio booth as they host the Handbasket radio show.
Jesse Lee Kercheval led a free virtual graphic memoir workshop that inspired me to draw more.
As one of the free, accessible events I planned for the community this summer, T. Bambrick and I offered a River Poems Workshop in the Teanaway.
My dad gifted us a Fly Fishing 101 course for my birthday. We practiced casting with my mom, her cousin, and her cousin’s daughter and watched a juvenile golden eagle fly overhead.
Arianna and I planned the Ten-Year Reunion for our high school class.
In my work, I

Organized a Resilience Film Festival with CWU.
Led volunteers on National Public Lands Day in restoring an old Forest Service Cabin
Helped write a StoryMap about restoration work in Issaquah Creek: Restoring Issaquah Creek in Lake Sammamish State Park
Supported the Teanaway TrailFest and a clean up of ADA access to a Wild and Scenic River for National Trails Day.
Spoke at Manastash Media’s Ridge Hike.
Wore Shen’s ghillie suit jacket to our Annual Dinner.
Led a cheer for the Seattle Seahawks when the Greenway was recognized on the field as a “Team of Champions” (standing right between my dad, my colleagues, and the players).

I also took a Washington Housing Commission Homebuyer’s 101 class as I became more serious about building my life here in Ellensburg, making my commitment more permanent.

In the final hour, my application to the County’s Public Lands Advisory Committee–submitted last year–was accepted, and I was voted onto the PLAC for a three-year term beginning in January 2026! Kittitas County has always been my home, and I want to continue to shape this place that’s shaped me.

Beyond Kittitas County, here’s where my travels took me this year:

Bellingham for tidepooling, thrifting, and a hike up fog-logged Oyster Dome with Katie and Kodjo.
Wenatchee’s Apple Blossom Parade with Mitchi and Trye. Then a visit to Sunnyslope Church with Grandma Linda.
Birch Run, Michigan, with my parents for my Aunt Beth’s Celebration of Life. She’d arranged for everyone to share a meal at her favorite restaurant after leaving the funeral home, and pre-ordered us all shots of the drink she and her friend created there: the Pontoon Whore. It was electric blue and boozy, a perfect parting gift in how it made us all laugh together, slurping up Pontoon Whores.
Orcas Island with my family to camp, hike waterfall loops, go whale watching (orcas!!), and celebrate my parent’s 30th anniversary.
Tacoma for

Point Defiance Park fungi (cat’s tongue and reishi!), then an evening skill share.
A Dungeons and Drag Queens performance at Tacoma Comedy Club with Shen.
Seeing a harbor seal rookery and tidepooling during the negative tide with Ves, Trye, Shen, and Saint.
Shen’s birthday feast and celebration, pursued by the incoming tide.
LeMay: America’s Car Museum’s Super Car exhibit opening with Trye.
Museum of Glass: Field Notes exhibit and hotshop demonstration with Trye.

Port Townsend with my family and Fred to help my dad launch his rowboat for the WA360 Race. I saw so many parasitic plants at our campground: ghost pipe, spotted coral root, small ground cone, and Gnome plant.
Lemah Meadows with my family for an Independence Day backpacking trip, where we saw stunning red-haired carnivorous plants (round-leafed sundew!!), and parasitic plants like dutchman’s pipe, Pinesap, and Woodland Pinedrops.
Spokane for a Mon Rovîa concert with Claire.
Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, for a camping trip and the Ten Falls Loop hike with Trye.
Seattle for

Alki Beach’s mobile sauna, potluck, and polar plunge with Shen and Aisya.
The Waterfront and the Seattle Aquarium on Mother’s Day with family, then again with Trye.
An office field day including a trip to Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) and a tour–by boat!--of the Ballard Locks through Lake Union to downtown.
The Oddities and Curiosities Expo in the Seattle Convention Center with Mitchi and Trye.
The Exquisite Creatures Exhibit with Trye.
Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)’s sensory day with Trye to see the Horror, Fantasy, Asian Comics, and Sci-Fi exhibits.
Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB)’s Nutcracker show.

Snohomish for the Midsummer Renaissance Faire with Tristan, Mitchi, and Trye.
Leavenworth with my DnD group on our way to our DnD Retreat, then later with Trye and Mitchi to finish Christmas shopping.
Skykomish(ish) for the DnD retreat with Tristan, Mitchi, Trye, PJ, and Jules. We played a one-shot, lounged in the hottub, hiked to Bridal Veil Falls, sipped coffee at Espresso Chalet, and swam to an island in Lake Wenatchee.
Fish Lake to camp and go mushroom hunting with Mitchi.
Saugatuck, Michigan, with my family (immediate and extended) for my cousin Jenny’s gorgeous wedding.
The Kensington Nature Center, MI, with my parents to see Corey, Tiffany, Aunt Iris, and Grandma Sue. We were surprised to see a half dozen sandhill cranes strolling between the picnic tables where we sat.
Detroit, MI, to meet Kodjo’s family before flying home.

And I traveled to Latvia with my mom, dad, and Katie. I wrote a piece about that trip, titled “Ghost Country,” which, to my mortification, my mom then shared with the former ambassador of Latvia. She asked him for his response to my perspective. He replied “Seems like the work of a talented writer. On the substance–everyone has its own perspective.” How… diplomatic. What a cursed and wonderful gift to have someone who uplifts my work in every space. It reminds me of that Tim Kreider quote: “if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

*My family in Michigan, on our way home from Latvia.*

My year began with buzzed hair and teal dye rinsing off into the tub of my sunset-view apartment, where I lived with Ves and her two cats for four years. I grew out my hair for months into a crown of dark curls. My year ended sporting another buzzcut, living in another rental, surrounded by the people who know me, who love me–who sometimes mortify me–in a way I will cherish forever. In a year of scarcity, I’ve been drenched in more love and joy than I could ever deserve.

A Listicle of Friends as Water in Drought

Fishing Line