2025: A Year in Motion
a year end reflection of being in the field, and at home
This year, we moved. Not just our things, but our lives.
We moved through seasons and stories in our new place.
Winter blizzards sent us out to play in the snow - on sleds, cross country skis, and our backs, making snow angels.
We boiled maple syrup in early spring and hunted Easter eggs among blooming crocuses.
We swam in rivers and creeks all summer long, picked our own pumpkins and bowled butternut squash in the fall, and cut down our Christmas tree in the icy national forest.
We got sick - too many times. Antibiotics, steroids, sniffles, and an ER visit I hope never to repeat.
Still, there were so many gifts. This year was made possible by the generosity of family and friends (new and old).
Their care made it possible for Curren and I to do our work, for which I’m endlessly grateful.
We filmed for over 20 days across 7 states for our current documentary. We captured protests, solar farms, race cars, nuclear control rooms, wind turbines, the electrical grid, the lithium extraction process, a Sikh temple—and so much more.
These moments remind me why I love this work: I get to step inside other people’s lives, into places I have no business being, except the camera grants me permission. And then I come home and spend countless hours in the edit, stitching it all together.
Some other things we did…
I made a music video for S.G. Goodman
I spoke at Ole Miss and Dickinson College.
While in Mississippi, I visited William Faulkner’s home and I admired the handwritten storyboards on his walls.
I mentored fellow storytellers in-person and virtually.
I purged: toys, clothes, and old stuff.
I sold my CRV and got a Tacoma.
I started baking bread weekly - honestly, the best use of time I’ve found.
If you live local and want a sourdough starter, holler.
I grew a garden from seed.
We ate a cast-iron dinners, had porch conversations with neighbors and visitors from afar.
I backpacked through Cranberry backcountry with new friends.
We stressed over tick bites…so many ticks.
We gazed at full moons…so many full moons.
We attended weddings, funerals, Fasnacht, and too many parades to count.
We celebrated birthdays—40, 4, 2, 38.
I watched family start a regenerative farm.
I cried through Sigur Rós at the Orpheum Theatre.
I felt chills while singing canticles during an Advent service, incense thick in the air.
I lost my temper. I found my patience again.
I said goodbye to people I loved - David Isham, my Great Uncle Roy.
On Substack this year:
I wrote about moving away from industry validation and learning to trust the work more deeply.
I wrote about the quiet power of imagination, and why nurturing our inner dream machine might be the most human thing we do.
I wrote about what it really means to direct; how it’s less about control, and more about caring enough to decide in the unknown.
I wrote about raising kids who notice, and why choosing to care is a radical, hopeful act.
I wrote about why storytelling needs more soul, and how tension alone can never tell the whole truth of a life.
I’m grateful to everyone who walked alongside us in 2025. Here’s to another lap around the sun.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to all.
With love,
Elaine