A Window Into My Life
How I'm getting along in 2025
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Hello, friends!
I’m trying something new.
The majority of my creative energy is being funneled into writing a science fiction novel, and applying to a nine-month writing program that would ideally help me finish said novel. Thus, instead of laboring over a prose-heavy piece, and in an effort to stay in touch with you, I am experimenting with something a little… lighter… a “life update” so to speak.
Looking Back…
I developed my first roll of Super 8 film at the end of 2024. I expected the majority of the footage to be over- or under-developed, but it turns out the camera is a true “point and shoot”, and the footage turned out beautiful, not due in any way to my own skill. The two and a half minutes documents a few 2024 summer experiences, like a trip to Tarpon Springs, Florida, and another to Chicago and the neighboring Lauderdale Lakes in Wisconsin.
Surprise! I started a podcast! Promoting is not my strength, as I am just announcing this now when A Podcast at The End of Everything launched in 2023. We are also not prompt, because my cohost Anna and I are still releasing episodes recorded in 2024 - including our most recent release entitled Nihilism. In this episode, we meander verbally through incoherent plains to verbalize what it feels like to be nihilistic, how modern nihilism arose out of the “death of God” and modernism, and ways to construct meaning in a world that tells us meaning can be found in ….all the wrong places.
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for strange video clips from our lives paired with audio clips from the most recent episode.
The Present…
The snow is melting. In alignment with their typical over-zealous character, the daffodils are emerging from soil. They are anticipating warmer weather, and so are we humans. Each day at the dog park, I talk to the other dog parents about how much we hate the cold, and how we are ready for warmer weather. I daydream about the grass being green again, lying on a blanket, and digging my toes into soil. I laugh to myself as I think about how six months from now we will be saying how much we dread the hot weather and anticipate it getting cooler again. This fact helps me appreciate the here and now.
It is Lent! And this year, I am participating. My faith walk undulates. Sometimes I am devoted, walking the path towards joining a nunnery, and sometimes I have the devotion of but a tiny seed. The latter has been true most recently.
The hope is that with this Lenten springtime devotion, I can climb my way back towards the countenance of God again. I am following the Orthodox Lent calendar that began March 3, extends through Holy Friday on April 18th, and all leads up towards the death and resurrection of Christ.
Here is a prayer shared by the local Orthodox priest, to be said throughout the course of Lent: The Prayer of St. Ephraim
Favorite Music: T H E N E W is on repeat… It’s a playlist I’ve been constructing over the course of the new year. I’d recommend listening on shuffle, as it wasn’t designed to be listened to in the present order. How best to describe it? A little folk. A little love. A little heartbreak. Feels good.
Favorite Words:
Penultimate just has an inherently epic sound. Perhaps science-fiction, dare I say. It means “next to last”. I find it interesting that a word was created to facilitate this meaning. Let’s see when and how I can use it naturally, in the wild, in an actual sentence. The thought of me saying it naturally is laughable.
As for crux, it’s not the sound that I am interested in, but the meaning. The crux is the pivotal point. It’s the thesis. The thing that all else points to. I’d like to keep an eye out for the crux more often… In conversation and in my actions. What’s the point? And allowing the crux to direct my course.
I love palliative because it’s the perfect adjective for so much about society that bothers me today! According to the Oxford dictionary it means, “relieving symptoms without dealing with the cause...” And don’t we just do this everyday?! Or at least I do. Instead of having the conversation, or dealing with an issue or feeling head on, I scroll on social media. I watch TV. I have a drink. Let me not seek palliative actions, but look under the rug, sweep out the dirt, and move forward.
Lastly, there’s myopic. Merriam-Webster’s etymology of the word is that it “comes from Greek myōps, which is based on myein (to close) and ōps (eye).” Myopic is to have closed eyes, be shortsighted, and not see the big picture. Before I share an opinion, let me not be myopic and do my research first.
Favorite Books:
The prose of Yasunari Kawabata and Niall Williams astounds me.
Kawabata is, in true Japanese form, a perfect minimalist. No extraneous words. Only the essentials. A great teacher for any writer. His book, Palm of The Hand, is a collection of short, digestible stories.
Williams’ prose is equally as beautiful, but a lot thicker, and contains glimmers of magical realism. This is Happiness is a lovely story that takes place the first day rain ever ceased in a little country village in Ireland. It’s a story about generations of families who have yet to have electricity delivered to their small town, travel on trains with nuns and take in visitors who travel from village to village selling encyclopedias.
As I attend the Orthodox Church, I am baffled by the images collaged across walls and inside of frames. Images were never what I saw in my Evangelical churches growing up. The Open Door by Frederica Mathewes-Green is an easily accessible explanation of iconography, and how powerful religions images can be and why.
Favorite Movie: Don’t be intimidated by the film that is so long it has a literal intermission. It is worth the time commitment. The Brutalist by Brady Corbet is a true experimental masterpiece. I had the joy of seeing it on film at the local Nashville independent theater. It’s about a Jewish architect that migrates to America post-WWII, and the obstacles he overcomes to start a new life in a strange country.
Favorite Artist: Katherine Bradford’s paintings are strangely nostalgic. Why images of swimming pools meeting the cosmos connects to me on a soul-level is a mystery. Perhaps it’s because it brings me back to Indonesia, swimming in pools scattered across rice fields, listening to the geckos chirping in the distance, and laying on my back, admiring the Milky Way.
The Future…
Oh, also.. I forgot to mention it’s 2025 now.
I am still correcting myself when dating journal entries or writing rent checks by crossing out a habitually written “2024” and scribbling above it “2025”. How we are already one-sixth of the way through the year is beyond me. I’ve just now settled into the idea a new year has come, and developed my goals and a mood board for the year.
A portion of said mood board is devoted to my plans to swim an open water race in the Caribbean. As you may know from my 2024 post, On Hope and Love, I swam my first open water, long distance last year. Well, this year I’d like to do it again …but with other people.
This mood board also contains fragments of not being myopic (the high-sighted hawk), sailing (learning to sail a catamaran or hobie cat is in my sights), finishing my book, and taking care of my mind and body.
Until next time, I’ll be constructing my own personal authoritarian, technocratic nightmare: A world where humans have microchips in their brains, and through their own thoughts talk to an AI who relieves them from feeling “difficult emotions” and thinking about “unsafe topics” …and of course, the rebellion who hack the tech to jump into the minds those with the chip to save them from their own palliative existence.
Here’s my mood board for the project, as well as my really, really weird playlist. What’s the theme song? Volunteered Slavery by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, of course!
Until next time,
Emily
Thanks for opening up your window to us!
Beautiful insights on multiple levels✨🪽