Good lord, 2025 has been a whopper. This year has laid me so low.
I really prefer to write my Deep Dives from an abundant energy, but the year is nearly over, I’m three essays behind, and abundant energy feels like a distant memory, maybe a myth?
Nevertheless, I’m sincerely moved by this season’s guests, and I know I’d regret not sharing my favorite bits of wisdom from each of these remarkable humans.
I met Kathryn through the loveliest happenstance at a coffee shop in Tucson. Her book “Stand: A Memoir of Activism. A Manual for Progress. What Really Happens When We Stand on the Front Lines of Change” about her work leading the coalition for women’s inclusion in the Tour de France felt like a warm blanket to me when I read it last year.
Kathryn’s story is inspiring in a million ways, but what hit me hardest was reading about all of the obstacles she’s faced, and how she’s been able to pick herself back up after each heartbreak, remaining focused on her goals.
One line in particular sticks in my brain: “Vision is ours alone until we generate proof.”
It’s crossed my mind dozens of times in the past year.
My first instinct was to apply the idea to art-focused creativity, but as I’ve sat with it over time, through the griefs of this year, I’m inclined to apply it more broadly to the life and self I’m trying to grow into.
I’m desperate to home in on a vision, and to generate proof.
Alas, at this point in time, the vision remains foggy. Or rather, heaps of many potentially disparate visions remain murky, if not entirely confounding. I catch glimpses of so many things, but I can’t exactly tell what’s what. And I sense that it’s all caked in old scripts, fears (real and imagined), and various data shortages.
But as you know if you’ve been following along, I’m busy searching for meaning and magic.
And boy have I been doing a lot of exploring.
I’ve had my heart allllll the way out on my sleeve in full radical courage and it has been frankly harrowing. I don’t think I have any regrets (still processing so many things), but my courage tank is maybe lower than it’s ever been.
Luckily, my brilliant guests have given me some beautiful food for thought…
I love the way Kathryn reframes failure.
“Trying something and having it not work out or not succeed does NOT mean that you’ve failed. It means that you explored whether [something] was a possibility. And if not, then it’s pivoting you to go down a different route…that’s not failure, that’s actually success, to reroute you to something that will be the right answer in the big picture…it can be rerouted and reimagined in so many ways.”
And my absolute favorite moment in our conversation, “the hallway of non-rejection is the one you must take.”
I love this so much.
I struggle immensely with rejection, having been unwanted and discarded by literally my entire family of origin, and so many others I’ve deeply loved. I get completely distracted by it. It feels so BIG to me. Monstrous.
But I’m comforted by the idea that we simply must take the path that’s open. We do not have the option to pass through closed doors, and we won’t do ourselves any good knocking and begging until our knuckles are bloody and our voices are hoarse.
Defining the path via the non-rejection is profoundly gentle. And while I’m still struggling to wrap my brain around it in actual practice, the idea soothes me and lights a little candle.
My conversation with Marcia absolutely delighted me. She felt like a long-lost aunt, so sincere and gracious.
Easily my favorite moment in the conversation was when I asked Marcia if she’d always been an explorer, and she gleefully (if timidly) reported that nobody had ever called her that before! So fun to be the first to tell her, but it’s abundantly clear that Marcia is an explorer through and through.
She says, “when we arrive in this world, it’s infinite, the things we could be interested in, the ideas we could follow.”
As we make choices, surround ourselves with different people, take ourselves to different places, that infiniteness “narrows until we become something of what we are.”
What a gorgeous perspective! Something of what we are. I love it. It feels so open.
It was wonderful hearing Marcia talk about venturing into a brand-new medium amidst a flourishing career as a classical cellist. As she puts it, there was “something in me that really yearned to be creative in a different way.”
She tells me she “finally felt whole” when she became a writer. 😭❤️
Marcia continues, “there are these pieces of yourself that you know if they had a little more time, more caressing or nurturing, that you would bring them together and make a delicious pie out of it.”
I find myself buoyed by this sweet analogy. I have been feeling so fragmented lately—less like a pie, and more like a puzzle that hasn’t come together. My pieces feel scattered, underdeveloped, altogether missing, even stolen…
Naturally, I’m thrilled by the way Marcia expands (or maybe focuses?) exploration into treasure-hunting, always hoping for “little epiphanies that you want to remember and return to…you never know when you’re gonna find these little gifts.”
I relate so hard. I’m also always looking for ways the universe might be winking at me. Little goodies, little synchronicities.
In this moment, my mind goes to something my therapist said recently about all of the “home” I’m still missing in my life. All of these tender empty spaces where family and belonging ought to be.
Maybe I’m collecting pieces, winks, and treasures hoping I can cobble them into something safe and verdant, something that can patch up those gaps and keep growing together until everything feels whole.
Or maybe, like Marcia pre-pen, I’m just on the cusp of a new adventure. Time will tell.
For now, I’m reminded that, of course, exploration won’t only lead to unexpected treasures and adventures. We’re bound to find lessons, too.
In Marcia’s words, “there is always value. There’s always something to be learned, and there’s something to be digested…I learned a lot in a lot of different realms.”
I see such creativity in this brand of bravery. And such bravery in this brand of creativity!
I’ve always known Katrina to create and learn and brave with similar openness. She has been impressing me since we met as wee little jazz studies lasses way back in 2009.
Like Kathryn, and like Marcia, Katrina loves to learn and explore. She says, “you’re always a student…I’ve tried to have a new hobby each year. And that has made my songwriting so much better. My career has seriously done better things because of me doing things that are unrelated to it.”
I’m so into this mindset. It’s tempting to imagine our path as a straight line. A to B. But…B is always, always an illusion. There are too many unknowns. And tunnel vision is so dangerous.
I think I’m especially intrigued by Kat’s perspective because ultimately, her path has been consistent. She knew as a tiny kid laying underneath the piano, moved by its enormous sounds, her little genes just vibrating in step with the long line of female vocalists who precede her, that singing and songwriting was the thing.
But Katrina doesn’t need a sea change to welcome a side quest. She knows her steady intention is strengthened, enriched by exploration.
Again, even within her chosen medium, Kat has learned to let the muse guide her through so many genres and iterations, none of them wasted time and energy, each of them a necessary step. She’s learned to ask herself, “if it’s not this, is it that?” She pivots, she moves forward, she searches for the right fit.
I think I’m going to be searching for the right fit for a long time, still. Things feel very, very blurry. And I’m very tired. This year has saddled me with more despair than I remember ever having felt before.
At this exact moment, my personal exploration muscle feels pretty burned out. My little glow is dimmer than it’s been.
But…
I do find myself wondering whether this utter grief pit exhaustion could be an indicator that I’m ready (or nearly ready?) to let certain voices go, and let some longings go with them.
One more bit of wisdom from Kat, “I had a lot of trouble finding my voice, and finding out who I was…to me, it was stripping away all the other things and all the feedback you let in, other people’s voices you let in. It’s actually stripping it away and trying to understand what naturally comes out.”
I’m not feeling very confident about anything (I really can’t emphasize enough how devastating this year has been), and I certainly do feel stripped way, way, way down. Utterly exposed.
It feels like I can either seal myself off and burrow myself into a numbed-out fear cocoon, or I can let the elements dissolve whatever defenses remain, and discover what naturally comes out.
Obviously, I’m hoping for the latter. I’m hoping my courage will return, that I’ll return to unfettered exploration, and that I’ll meet some fresh frontiers.
Regardless, 2025 can gtfo.
xoxo,
Em
P.S. Right now I’m at the Best Western in Dillon, MT. Wish me luck braving wind and snow for the VERY LAST WEDDING OF 2025 tomorrow. 😭
P.P.S. I owe you (and my Season 12 guests) two more Deep Dives before the month is over. I…will try my best.
P.P.P.S Here’s a photo I took at the Oregon coast with my true love Olivia. Our friendship continues to be one of the most treasured explorations of my life. She is so precious to me.
