*Sketchbook from the week of April 6th (2025)*

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

It’s been almost a year since F regularly slept through the night. Once a duck, quietly quacking to herself, her brain has blossomed in the months since—skyrocketed even, awakened by the world and the possibility in each moment. Even her sleep has sensorial needs, and at all hours of the night she asks for more: more engagement, more stimulation, more.

At 12:30 am, she begins chanting her own name. Refusing to look at the camera monitor, I instead imagine the early birthday party she’s throwing for herself: moonlight streamers, a parade of stuffies rolling around with her—a celebration of the spectacular wonder she is, gate kept only by her boring diurnal parents and a few wooden crib bars.

At 2:30 am F screams for coconut water, her one true source of solace, and when none of her sleeping family responds, she screams louder. For now, it’s only sleep, but all the same, it’s painful to watch your child do something that hurts herself, that will contribute to a more difficult tomorrow. At 3:30 am, she demands a new diaper, then a story, then a song. I give in to the diaper, but not the story, and pause at the request for a song. It’s 4:00 am; I have to be up in two hours.

Twinkle song, F pleads, her eyes bleary. Her perfect mouth is a perfect rainbow, quivering slightly, worn from midnight chanting. I know she hopes for acquiesce: a soft win, just something to get her through this endless night. She is tired of being awake for so long, of being alone for so long.

Not having slept well for nearly five years now, I am also tired of being awake—but F’s sweetness is too sweet, her longing too clarified, her needs far more reasonable than my own. I hold her in my arms and begin singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Her small body rests against mine. I’m fully here, in this moment. Next week, F will turn two; I don’t have many more years of this ahead.

Halfway through the song, F straightens up. She looks me in the eye. With all the solemnity of a funeral attendee, she raises two hands to cover my mouth and says: Stop. The End. Then she climbs into her crib without looking at me, and closes her eyes.

TUESDAY

The cover of *Bystander*, a comics anthology edited by Kadak Collective

I am slowly making my way through Bystander, a comics anthology edited by Kadak Collective, a group of South Asian womxn, non-binary and queer folk who believe making art is “inherently political and can be an intentional, radical act of communication and change.”

I’m unsurprised in reading so many personal stories that are byproducts of sweeping political and social narratives—stories that were incubated inside a society that forgets community in favor of oneself. The actions of any bystander—one who observes but does not participate, will always transgress the walls of an individual life and seep into the fabric of our larger societies and worlds, whether or not one intends for it to. Every action has a consequence; every inaction does, too.

WEDNESDAY

I am pleased to share that my 2026 calendars with Amber Lotus Publishing are now available for pre-order!

*Start Where You Are* 2026 weekly planner

*You Are Made of Stars* 2026 wall calendar

Pre-orders do make a huge difference for artists. Now, especially, it will help my publisher give me the opportunity to create calendars for the 2027 year, too.

Start Where You Are 2026 weekly planner: Available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

You Are Made of Stars 2026 wall calendar: Available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

If you’re planning on grabbing a few for yourself or a friend, please do! I am, as always, grateful.

THURSDAY

What if every subway stop was named after a woman? the latest project by Rebecca Solnit; America’s brightest minds will walk away by Neel Patel.

I read Big Swiss by Jen Beagin, which felt far too gratuitous for me to maintain interest in—but I did finish it.

I finished The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, which I enjoyed, mostly, for the introduction to rural Alaskan living, but it didn’t choke me the way Hannah’s work usually does.

I’m beginning Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin and drawing my way through Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India by Rakesh Khanna and J. Furcifer Bhairav.

FRIDAY

Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake,
up to my neck in that most precious element of all,

I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather
floating on the tension of the water

at the very instant when a dragonfly,
like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,

hovered over it, then lit, and rested.
That’s all.

I mention this in the same way
that I fold the corner of a page

in certain library books,
so that the next reader will know

where to look for the good parts.

—Field Guide by Tony Hoagland

See you next week!

xx,

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*From* *The Worst Boss I've Ever Had*, *a comic about confronting your inner critic.*

Hello, everyone! I know it's been awhile. I'm navigating some unexpected personal news and health changes, but things are finally beginning to finally shift to a manageable place. Though it's freezing here in St. Louis, I'm enjoying the seasons' transition; I hope brisk air is sweeping you into its arms wherever you are.

A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:

MONDAY

I don't often feel like a mother. Two years into being one, the title continues to feel like a pair of too-big shoes I'm eagerly waiting to grow into. What does a mother feel like? I have my suspicions, certainly. A mother is calm. A mother is well-assembled. Someone that knows what to do. Someone who has answers, and a medicine cabinet full of tried-and-true remedies. A mother knows their way around the kitchen, and a new city, and the inner workings of their own mind. A mother is someone who knows. Someone whose heart has been split open, as I hear so often, by their child––a heart that's now grown so large there's barely enough space for it left in their chest. Is this me? I don't know. My heart seems well-adjusted to its cavity.

N wakes up sobbing lately. Her cries are like a siren; she sits up and wails with such alarm that I wonder what terrors visited her young mind. When the crying doesn't stop, I go in and pick her up. We move to the light that slips in between the closed blinds. I sing Carole King until she says Mama, no, putting her hand to my mouth. We sit in the big chair, her face buried in my chest, my cheek resting on her head. Already she's so tall, legs like a ballerina jutting out from my either side. Her breath becomes deeper, steady. She is asleep and my arms are full of her. She is asleep and I feel strangely settled. She is asleep and I am someone who knows how to soothe. For her, I figured out how. My medicine cabinet is empty, but my heart is full. I am a mother––this I have known, but for these few minutes, I begin to believe it, too.

TUESDAY

For the WORK issue of The Nib, I made a comic about the worst boss I've ever worked for: myself. You can read the comic here on my blog and order a print issue of the The Nib – please help support this wonderful indie publication!

My 2023 calendar and planners are also now available, through Buyoly and Amber Lotus Publishing. These are excellent gifts for the upcoming season, and a great way to encourage my little business.

*Support more BIPOC makers this year! I love these hand-poured candles by Golden Hour Co. in rainier and oakmoss.

WEDNESDAY

“You have consented to time and it is winter. The country seems bigger, for you can see through the bare trees. There are times when the woods is absolutely still and quiet. The house holds warmth. A wet snow comes in the night and covers the ground and clings to the trees, making the whole world white. For a while in the morning the world is perfect and beautiful. You think you will never forget. You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can’t remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise.”

––Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry

THURSDAY

All through autumn I wish for my body to become something new. I want my body to be stronger, less sensitive to these invisible, internal changes. I want it to be stoic, indifferent to the weight of its responsibility. I want it to perform flawlessly. I disregard the fact that it completes thousands of tasks to keep my heart beating and lungs full of air, without my knowing when or how. I am grateful, I think, but I ask it for more. I want my body to be decent. I want it to look beautiful though I know it is doing too much. It is tired and needs rest, but there are books to write and school to attend and so many to care for.

For months, I offer my body no grace. I shroud it in resentment. I criticize it and wonder why that doesn't amount to change. Why it won't simply be better, the way I imagine other people's bodies to be. I speak to it like I would never speak to another; I allow my imagination to make me even more cruel. After months of sickness, when I finally come to my senses, when I remember how love actually works, it strikes me that I have never taken my body into both arms, never voiced the words buried beneath my anger: Yes, it is you. It is you that I choose over and over again.

FRIDAY

she told me then
that they
"the slaves who were ourselves"
searched for one another
tried to get back
to places they had been before
to them that they had known
needed and loved
to them that knew

she told me then
that this searching
was hard journeying
harder even than
moving over water
than finding strange language
and people with nothing under their skin
hard journeying she told me
this way back to ourselves

––exiles return by bell hooks

xo,

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