Moon Man and the five children (sketchbook, 2025)
A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:
MONDAY
For the second time since N was born, I board a plane and travel with my children alone. We embark on a surprise trip to my sister’s, and none of us can wait. For N, it’s her cousins and all of the treats she doesn’t receive at home—but mostly, it’s her cousins. For F, it’s her cousins and the acrobatics—three flights of stairs to climb up and down on—but mostly, it’s her cousins. For me, it’s all of it: me and my sister and our five children, all corralled under one roof, a tangle of limbs and tears and, of course, indoor hide-and-seek.
Now and then, it pokes at me that the places most comforting to me are the ones where I’ve spent my formative years: by the water, on the east coast, near my sibling. Will I always turn towards the anchors of my childhood? Will I always feel the tug, known deeply by younger siblings—of reaching, wanting more? Of forever feeling two steps behind?
The thoughts tumble in my mind while I stand at the kitchen island, watching my nephews play Madden on the living room floor. The oldest offers to teach me, but I love him too much to disappoint him by actually playing. N and Z are in the playroom, concocting meals out of pretend ingredients. They feed their dollies, they feed each other. They yell to see if anyone else is hungry; we all yell back that we aren’t. Only F feels out of sorts, clinging to my legs, wailing for something she doesn’t have the language to express. My sister scoops her up and carries her outside.
I smell the snow before I sense it, before I see the soft clumps accumulate on the back steps. The kitchen window isn’t cracked but the sharp, dampened scent of winter leaks in anyhow. I’m going to watch the snow, I announce. No one responds.
In my sister’s arms, F is quiet. She’s listening to the snow, or maybe it’s very arrival is the world’s simple way of listening to her. Such is the strength of a young child’s heart.
One by one, the rest of our band files onto the porch: first Z, who wants to see; then N, who wonders what Z is up to; then both boys, curious as to where everyone went. For this moment, Madden is on pause.
The snowdrifts sort my thoughts and I know what I know: I don’t have an affinity for New Jersey or the east coast—or any particular nostalgia for the past. The only anchor I carry from childhood is my sibling, an anchor I’ll carry from house to house, shore to shore.
Our five children are cousins: together and sweet. The snow is the snow: always a pleasure. And I, so far removed from the roof, roads, and city that I call my own, feel perfectly at home.
TUESDAY
“There’s one ceramic piece, by my daughter — my wife and I are super sad that we lost that. It’s an image of her as a 12-year-old holding a globe with the world on fire on top of her head. And it’s her in her overalls with her striped shirt on and brown hair. It’s an interpretation of an image I made after the fires in Malibu. She was becoming this awesome artist, interpreting the world through her art just like I do. To me it was an image of uncontrollable powerlessness — that feeling you know everyone shares, but through a kid’s eyes. My daughter’s sculpture was a symbol of someone becoming who they are in a moment of time we’ll never get back to.” —Cleon Peterson on what they grabbed.
I found these resources for LA from Nicole Cardoza’s Reimagined to be really helpful. Included are links to help organize, volunteer, and donate to aid those impacted by the wildfires.
WEDNESDAY
The Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on wood
The Census at Bethlehem (1566), oil on wood panel
These world landscapes by painter Pieter Bruegel which simultaneously evoke in me a sense of war and peace, storm and calm, winter and the first day of spring.
THURSDAY
“Consciousness lives on. The body is like a car, and the driver is the spirit, the bit of consciousness, the atom, the soul, you could say. And so the car gets old and rusted and falls apart and the driver gets out and continues on.” —David Lynch, rest in peace.
“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.
The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it’s a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw in other fish, and they’ll hook onto it. Then you’re on your way. Soon there are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thing emerges. But it starts with desire.”
—from Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch
FRIDAY
So after weeks of rain
at night the winter stars
that much farther in heaven
without our having seen them
in far light are still forming
the heavy elements
that when the stars are gone
fly up as dust finer
by many times than a hair
and recognize each other
in the dark traveling
at great speed and becoming
our bodies in our time
looking up after rain
in the cold night together
—January by W. S. Merwin
See you next week!
xx,
M
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