Dear Somebody: Like a cloud.

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

MONDAY 

T and I voted early last week, with N in tow. We talked about the election and voting process, but mostly we talked about why your voice matters—why you must believe it does, and act as though it does—even when it feels inaudible. Even when you feel invisible. So much of life is comprised of pretending, of doing before believing. Of doing the thing your future self would do so that one day, eventually, you become your future self.

As I cast my ballot, I thought about all the things that can go wrong between my filling out a very paper ballot and it actually counting: so many things. Elections are fragile. Ours are increasingly so, bitten through with voter restriction and misinformation, but the fact that no one other than me wants my vote to count just makes me want it more. 

This morning, I read about Craig Mod’s experience of casting his ballot from Japan: 

I slammed my ballot down and shoved it into an EMS international airmail envelope and gleefully paid thirty freggin’ bucks or so to get that sucker to my utterly blue state knowing damn well that that vote won’t tip the scales in any meaningful way. And yet. And yet — AND. YET. — I wanna be on that ledger. Goddamn, you bet I want to be on that ledger. What else is there but the ledger in a moment like this? Pull the lever, cast your tiny pebble into it all and hope things add up. De minimis? Hell no. At the very least, you’ll be present on the cosmic scale, a little number at the end of a bigger number — one that wouldn’t have been quite as big without you. That’s not nothing, and when your grandkids asked what you did right now — in this mythic time of madness and infinite resources all seemingly used in the wrong ways, facing the wrong directions, directed at the wrong people — you can at least say you were present, doing the smallest of things you could in whatever way you could.

Freedom doesn’t usually feel like freedom until it’s taken away. In 2024, I’m still allowed to vote in an American presidential election. I did, and I will, until I can’t. There were many things my family did last Thursday that were meaningless, that genuinely did not matter—but casting a vote and reminding myself and my kid that what we domatters, that who we are matters—was not one of them. 

TUESDAY

“In the past, I’ve been perplexed by artists who work intuitively–artists who say they simply knew to use a certain color or to make a specific mark. A fear of failure, compounded by a mountain of self-doubt, led me to believe these artists possessed an innate talent I didn’t have. For years, I attempted to use logic and reason to convince myself of this self-sabotaging belief because it relieved me from the responsibility of accepting the truth: that intuition in craft develops through years of regular practice. 

In Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, authors David Bayles and Ted Orland address this very idea: ‘For every artist who has developed a mature vision with grace and speed, countless others have laboriously nurtured their art through fertile periods and dry spells, through false starts and breakaway bursts, through successive and significant changes of direction, medium, and subject matter. Talent may get someone off the starting blocks faster, but without a sense of direction or a goal to strive for, it won’t count for much.’” 

—An excerpt from my latest essay, Intuition and Your Creative Voice: One Leads to the Other, for Issue #63 of Uppercase Magazine

WEDNESDAY

“There’s no shortcut. I’m no accident. People like to say it’s natural. It’s not so. You have to practice and you have to study.” —Miles Davis

“…I personally have been focused on changing my own negativity bias. And because our brains have plasticity, we can actually change this. I’ve spent the past two years trying to unlearn a focus on the negative all the time as the main thing. And because a focus on all our problems is draining, and it is super depressing and sometimes actually is debilitating. And something that organizing campaigns taught me early on was to focus less on problems, but to turn those problems into issues that people could maybe actually find a way to engage in to transform and change. And this has really kept me going over the years. I think oftentimes about, if I hadn’t been involved in organizing campaigns, what my life would have looked like, how much I probably would have been so depressed, you know, more depressed. Because I just think having a way to be able to see a way forward to transform and change my conditions is such a huge part for me of being able to live in the world.” —Mariame Kabe, in conversation with Kelly Hayes, on their book, Let This Radicalize You

THURSDAY

As a longtime reader of Modern Love essays, I enjoyed learning a little more about how illustrating the column for so long has affected Brian Rea. 

As a longtime admirer of printmaking techniques, I’m working up the courage to make some Tetrapak prints—has anyone done this? Does anyone still have or use their Gocco printer? 

As a longtime fan of all sky-related matters, I was initially perplexed (“…a cloud?”) and ultimately renewed (“…a cloud!”) by N’s request to be a cloud for Halloween this year. I made two costumes out of paper mache, but when they didn’t work out, I turned to newspaper print and cotton batting. 

N as the perfect cloud (2024)

I constantly use my voice to tell my children to be who they are—to go against the grain if the grain doesn’t suit them, and to listen to themselves, even if it’s a little lonelier when they do. 

On Halloween, in a sea of glitter and color and power, there was only one cloud. Steady and sweet, if a little unassuming. Flying under the radar, certainly, but unreplicable. Irreplaceable. Like a cloud. Like freedom. And I was proud. 

FRIDAY

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

—The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab Nye

See you next week!

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A song for myself

The final painting and exercise from my latest journal, Go Your Own Way

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

MONDAY 

Tomorrow I’m going to celebrate myself, I say. It’s publication day for my fourth (!) journal, Go Your Own Way, and I want to commemorate the occasion. I am notorious for sweeping my own accomplishments under the rug: a byproduct of living with an overt stress on humility, which is common for immigrants and their children—and my own, ever-rising expectations of myself. 

More complicated, though, is my relationship with success. Like most working artists, I desire validation for my work—yes. Of course. I also realize how necessary quantitative success (in the shape of sales/awards/reviews/engagement) is to sustain my work, and I hope, above all else, that my books will find readers. I don’t necessarily enjoy the limelight, though, or the pressures that accompany putting a finished work out into the world. I think a lot of artists feel this way. I’d much rather be at my desk, surrounded by words and pencils; I’d rather be working on my craft. 

My goal is to celebrate myself because what I really want—more than sales or accolades or other forms of external validation—is validation from myself. To believe that I’ve done a good thing—a great thing, regardless of how successful it is by industry metrics. To know that doing a good thing is, in itself, enough. I’ve worked hard to make a book that will help others help themselves. I’ve created a tool that can change how someone feels about themselves. I am proud of that. My brain knows this, and if I can get my heart to feel it? That’s worth celebrating.

After the morning rush and daily chores, I put F down for her first nap and respond to emails. I reply to those who write to me, who take the time to read my work, who spend their hard-earned dollars on my books. Each email is an invisible thread that connects me to someone else—often, a person on the other side of the world. The fact that something I wrote put me in dialogue with a person I’d otherwise never have met? This is a great victory, a sign that yes, vulnerability and dedicated craft can carry you to another place. I reply to each person and feel gratitude swell up inside me like a balloon. To be seen, to be read by someone else: A celebration.

Late morning, me and F go for our second walk. The trees are bloodshot and marigold, tiny maple leaves dancing around us, each one a tiny one-leaf parade. The air is brisk. A light breeze follows us. The fallen leaves, dead for weeks now, are starting to decay. A dampness fills the air, almost metallic in scent, and I can’t help but love autumn more. F watches the leaves fall, each descent a small wave from the earth. The world transforms in front of me; I let its evolution guide my own. Allowing myself to be changed? A celebration. 

T and I have lunch together. This is rare for us, though we both work from home. I have a sandwich that I didn’t make in a coffee shop that is not my house. This is, in itself, a celebration. I draw a little and he works a little, we talk when something needs to be said. I remember how often we used to do this, before children, of course—and how special it is: to work on something that fills your heart next to someone who does the same. A celebration. 

Later that afternoon, while F is still napping, I look in the mirror. I don’t have to search for very long before I see her—the person I am next to the person I am becoming. Someone who is more than a mother, a wife, a daughter, and an artist—someone who is all of those things, and perhaps, even more. Behind the person I am and the person I’ll become, I see shadows of all the people inside me that I’ve yet to recognize. I feel my ingrained need to be more finally hush, as the feeling of being enough finally settles in. 

Quietly, the heart sings. A celebration. A song for myself. 

TUESDAY

I’d be remiss not to chronicle here, in my little ol’ newsletter, that Go Your Own Waycame out today! 

I’m planning on working through this journal, alongside a dear friend, beginning next week. A year after I wrote this book, I’m excited to revisit it: to have accountability, to see what I unearth. 

If you haven’t gotten a copy, you can get one here. The UK edition is available here. 

WEDNESDAY

"Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity—audience, critics, economics, trivia—in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear.” 

—from David Bayles’ Art and Fear

THURSDAY

A book I finished, a book I’m starting, a book I pre-ordered, a book I’m eagerly waiting for. 

FRIDAY

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches. And they call again, “It's simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

—When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver

xx,

M

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