All the Good

It’s been a strange year, yeah?

And a long one, too. When I sat down to write this and began thinking back over the past twelve months, it was hard to believe that certain events I dragged from the depths of my memories had happened in 2025 rather than ten years before.

The news, both from the wider world and my own small town, has seemed, in the last few months, to be full of people committing act after act of terrible violence with apparent callousness. And on a personal level, the last few months have been full of loss: a close family member, a high school friend, an old teacher, a pet.

But looking back reminds me that, in this very long, strange year, there was a lot of good, too. For every friend who moved away, another new friend came into my life. For every moment of grief there were a dozen moments of sweetness with my kids. Moments of serenity in the woods. Notes from readers that reminded me why I write, and signs, everywhere, that people are capable of great kindness. When the government shutdown took away SNAP benefits, business after business in my community rallied to help—small, family-owned stores and restaurants that don’t necessarily have the wiggle room in their bottom lines to donate free food to so many people, but who did it anyway. A local food and clothing pantry, where my parents volunteer each week and where I filled in for a few months earlier this year, was overrun with donations. The company I work for, a local bakery and farm, gave away loaves of bread and bags of vegetables, and, when customers kept asking how they could help, set up a donation fund and used the money to bake dozens of pies for people who might not otherwise have had one to enjoy with their Thanksgiving meals.

Such generosity of heart and spirit, everywhere I looked.

In April, I flew down to Florida for my little brother’s wedding to a wonderful man. Surrounded by warmth, I met a cousin’s new baby and reunited with other family I hadn’t seen in years. When my aunt pulled me into the fray, I actually danced (I never dance, at least not where anyone can see!). Over the summer, my husband and kids and I explored parts of Michigan we hadn’t visited before, and re-visited those we love best—lakes and dunes and forests and waterfalls, all a reminder that the world can be very, very beautiful.

Weddings and births and separations and deaths. Feet in the sand, and the water, and the soil. Moments at once profound and mundane. It’s all the stuff of life; it just seemed like more of it was crammed into this particular calendar year than usual.

It’s also the stuff of stories, which is perhaps why my head has been so full of them lately. There were entire months this past year in which I didn’t write a single word, my head too full of the clamor of the world’s news and the needs of my family and the weight of my own grief to allow my characters any space.

Other months, I wrote nearly 50,000 words. I’m trying to hold more stories in my head today than I think I’ve ever had to at one time before—the best sort of overwhelm, an abundance of possibilities. Focusing on one at a time is my current challenge, and I’m grateful to have it.

I wrote in September about the death of my mother-in-law. She made the holidays so special for our kids, and it’s hard to think of facing them without her. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve begun to text in the last couple of months with an idea for a gift or a question about what we should bring for Thanksgiving or Christmas—only to remember, message half-composed.

But then I remember, too, not just the hard stuff, but all the good. And that’s the thing, really, isn’t it—what we choose to focus on defines our reality. And tonight, my reality is going to be filled with the scent of cinnamon and cloves as I make gingerbread cookie dough with my kids. Tomorrow, I’m taking my daughter and my mom to see Hamnet (and goodness, what a perfect story to illustrate the constant tension in our lives between grief and joy!) Saturday, we will shape and bake our cookies, and then some wonderful friends are coming over for dinner. On Monday, we’re traveling for the birthday party of someone very dear to me, where we’ll see family and friends we haven’t seen for months. I have a stack of books I’m excited to read, and another mental stack I’m excited to write.

In the coming year, I’m going to keep seeking out the good. And I hope for the same for every one of you.

I first read The Book of Longings a few years ago, and was drawn to re-read it after a discussion with a writer friend and editorial client about the tension between respecting theological traditions and exploring the history behind them in stories about religious figures.

The Book of Longings is the story of Ana, Jesus of Nazareth’s fictional wife, a woman struggling to find her voice in a society that is determined to keep her, and all women, silent and obedient to the wills of men. She begins, furtively, writing down the stories of silenced women, hoping that someday those stories will no longer have to be hidden.

Sue Monk Kidd depicts Ana’s marriage to Jesus with exceptional tenderness. Theirs is a union of deep love and respect between intellectual equals; it is also, for all that, still sometimes stifling for Ana, who must watch from her place inside the home as her husband—free, as a man, to travel and pursue his passions and interests—meets other like-minded men and eventually starts his ministry.

Though, in large part, this novel centers around one of the most famous historical and religious men of all time, it is really about women’s stories—how they have been shunted aside for so long, how we can honor them, and why, fundamentally, they matter.