Sketchbook page from January 9, 2025
A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:
MONDAY
When the first snow of the new year falls, I wake up to the syrupy hours of early morning and slope down the stairs. My cold nose presses against the iced windows while drifts stream down, soft ribbons sparkling against the dark night. A lone car whistles. An enormous moon watches.
Last year felt like a loss, a piling up of all I didn’t get to. The days moved slowly: a never-ending trail of meal-making and playing catch up, of falling farther and farther behind, of willing my mind to be present and my temper further restrained, of tempering my expectations while motioning for my spirit to remain untethered, unfettered, dancing before me.
Last year felt like a loss, a blur of all I was too overwhelmed to see. The days turned quickly: a whirl of cake-making and playing dress up, of celebrations and wishes, of willing myself to be a better mother than the ones I’ve been before, of one step forward and several steps back, of choosing—again and again—to tear it all down and rebuild, rather than simply walking away.
Last year felt like a loss, a constant pinging of everything beyond my control. A year of reaching: where the person I am followed the person I want to be, of days that marked death and deaths that marked each day, of choosing to remind and remember, of chilling loneliness and bitter stagnation, of seeding and searching for new growth, and still—the gratitude for each new morning, evening, star.
Now the days are gathered up behind me, three hundred-and-some in all. Looking back, I see a few neatly washed, some fed and watered, some treasured—but all worn through well, all loved and wanted.
Last year felt like a loss, but it also brought me back to myself. I sit here and write, the most honest form of loving I know, and feel the presence of someone I haven’t been before. Someone who tries, in the ways she knows how, to leave a change in the people and places she comes across.
I love making resolutions. I love big, lofty lists of vows and ambitious goals, but in this new year, I have only one: to love myself the way I love life—in acceptance of all it is, in awe of all it can be. And I wish the same for you.
TUESDAY
I’ve been under Chihiro Iwasaki’s spell for years now, long before I visited the Chihiro Art Museum in Nerima, Tokyo in 2019 and took in the full breadth of her work.
Chihiro Iwasaki, Tyltyl and Mytyl Running after the Blue Bird from Aoi Tori (The Blue Bird), Kodansha, 1969 | Courtesy of the Chihiro Art Museum Tokyo
Source: Jama’s Alphabet Soup
It’s been five years since I visited that museum, which was previously the home she shared with her husband and son, but her work continues to influence the paintings I make and the shape I’d like my life to take.
Rarely do I spent a day in my studio without considering the war-struck life she lived, the ethereal nature of her paintings, the sensibility in her line work, or the philosophy steadily strung throughout her paintings: to live a simple and modest life, to listen for laughing voices, and to protect our children at all costs.
WEDNESDAY
An image of Richard Brautigan’s Karma Repair Kit
THURSDAY
I kept my more/less list extremely minimal and to-the-point this year, with the understanding that improvement on this one core item will greatly impact the rest of my world and everything inside it:
“The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb. I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word "love," and was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck's classic self-help book The Road Less Traveled, first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Explaining further, he continues, "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will-namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love." Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.” —from bell hooks’ All About Love
For archival purposes, here’s last year’s more/less list.
FRIDAY
The day feels put together hastily
like a gift for grateful beggars
being better than no time at all
but the bells are ringing
in cities I have never visited
and my name is printed over doorways
I have never seen
While extracting a bone
or whatever is tender or fruitful
from the core of indifferent days
I have forgotten
the touch of sun
cutting through uncommitted mornings
The night is full of messages
I cannot read
I am too busy forgetting
air like fur on my tongue
and these tears
which do not come from sadness
but from grit in a sometimes wind
Rain falls like tar on my skin
my son picks up a chicken heart at dinner
asking
does this thing love?
Deft unmalicious fingers of ghosts
pluck over my dreaming
hiding whatever it is of sorrow
that would profit me
I am deliberate
and afraid
of nothing.
—New Year’s Day by Audre Lorde
See you next week!
xx,
M
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