While some people are chronically online, my mom is usually chronically outside, climbing real craggy rocks or frozen waterfalls. This spring is the first time I’ve even seen her play a video game. But it’s a good fit…
I spent the year before proposing to Trye declaring loudly, and often, that I’d figured out what I wanted: another queer, asexual person committed to staying in Ellensburg and providing a space for kids. I wasn’t asking for too much. Specific, maybe, but not too much.
For a while it felt that way, until one day I looked over at trivia and that exact person had materialized from—of all places—Arkansas.
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.