Every Naked Twig

notes about being a tell-er

It’s late afternoon on one of the first days of December. The house is quiet. Both kids have tumbled out the back door to waller in the thick swaths of snow that fell last night. Every mailbox, every sidewalk, every naked twig is swaddled in white. The sky has turned pewter grey to match. The sun is up there somewhere, I guess. It’s the kind of winter day Norman Rockwell would paint.

Juniper participates in snow activities by NOT participating.

I didn’t mean to take a break from posting here. There was no planned sabbatical. This wasn’t a scheduled “artist’s retreat” where I’d disappear from the internet and return refreshed with bushels of work to offload onto your screen. I was just sick.

After 5 different trips to the lab to get blood drawn and tests run¹ from July to November, I (maybe?) have an answer to what’s going on with my body. The latest medical specialist I went to told me, “There doesn’t always have to be an underlying cause for your condition, as this can happen spontaneously as a result of genetics and various health and life stressors.”

Come to think of it, “various health and life stressors” is a pretty good summary of 2025.

I cope with medical anxiety by buying Éowyn sword earrings. I’ve had worse coping mechanisms.

I may not have been posting here, but elsewhere² I’ve been working so much—while navigating chronic health issues—that creative endeavors got placed in a box and shoved in the closet. Maybe I’ve been working too much. Maybe we need the money if we’re ever going to get out of this busted house. And so I’ve kept working. It’s good work. It’s work I’m grateful for. I miss writing just for me though. This post is me shuffling through the closet to pull out the box and shake out the contents.

Part of me believes that, in order to properly show up here, the first thing I have to do is talk about all the things that have happened—both nationally and personally—in 2025. I need to serve up a hot take that either riles you up or pushes you further away depending on if my “take” resonates with you or not. I need to publicly parse out some kind of meaning or theological lesson from the ongoing health issues I’m navigating. I need to splay out my struggles like a specimen in a lab for strangers to study. And…this isn’t that sort of post.

Continuing to advocate for analog journaling nothing but a pen and washi tape.

Maybe one day I’ll talk about how so much of this year has felt like watching the remaining bits of my faith get tossed in a blender and ground to particles. Maybe I’ll write about how politically, theologically, emotionally isolating it’s all been—especially when no one else in my proximity is also using tweezers to pluck out the thousand tiny shards of their faith from their soul this year. Maybe one day I’ll venture into those topics and we can wade through them together (or not! People tend to leave when I dare to write about such things).

But for now, the snow! Have you seen the snow? I walked my dog out in it before everyone else this morning. The sun had barely risen. The sky was rose-gold and close enough to touch. Towhees and cardinals flickered in the underbrush. Trees, arms laden with white, stood unmoving the way you do when you discover a delicate thing with wings has chosen you for a momentary perch—the stillness that comes when you recognize the sacred.

The kids are inside now. We filled their bellies with hot chocolate and pizza. I made them put on dry socks before they snuggled up on the couch. It’s dark out and still hours before bedtime. They’re playing video games. I’m writing, or attempting to write. I don’t know if I remember how. Maybe I was never a writer. Maybe I was just a tell-er. Maybe I’m here to tell you what I see in the hopes that you see it too. Because isn’t that all we ever want? To see and be seen and see things together?

And what do I see? A lot of pain. A lot of goodness and beauty too. I see the way the snow falls quietly, and how, for a moment, all the sharp edges are blunted and softened. I see that, after all this year took from me, I’m still here to see, to see, to see. There’s grace in that.

Do you see it too?

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1. Here’s the link to my coping earrings. We don’t gate keep ‘round here.

2. “Elsewhere” are my Tolkien spaces here on substack as well as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. I continue to be shocked that the special interest I’ve had since I was 12 is now bringing in enough income as a part time job that we’re able to consider a new house. What a weird, beautiful turn of events that I do not take for granted.