Dear Somebody: I am not a machine.

A page from my sketchbook (September 5, 2024)

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

MONDAY 

N and F both started school this week. For N, it was after 18 weeks at home; for F, it was for the very first time, after nearly 18 months at home with me. I’ve missed my work, time, and space immensely, but a sense of overwhelm still lingers. I’m working on a few projects that I’m really excited about—illustrating a beautiful picture book manuscript, developing a few other proposals, and beginning a new accordion book—but nothing much has gotten done this week.

I sink into my ennui, hoping it will lead somewhere. Almost entirely present, I shop for groceries, enjoying the quiet of the empty early morning aisles. I go on a walk around my neighborhood and adopt a leisurely pace. I catch up with an old friend and marvel at how wonderful conversations are without a toddler shouting in my unattached ear. Sometimes I miss the girls, and sometimes I don’t. At 10:30 in the morning, I sit on the couch and read my book because I want to. I say nothing aloud for hours. I answer to no one. 

I think about what I want, and how it isn’t to be an artist on demand. It’s to be an interesting person, one who reads books and poetry, who speaks when it’s necessary and not only to fill the absence of something, even if the absence is a place inside myself. I think about what I need, and how it isn’t to be lauded for what I do or do not make. It’s to breathe air and have space. To move my body. To let that be enough.

Instead of starting on my next round of picture book sketches, I make a very messy painting in my sketchbook. I write my needs down so the pages can remind me when my mind cannot. The painting is garish, even to me, but something about it—perhaps the honesty—feels sweet, and I like it. 

Everything I make doesn’t come out beautifully—mostly, I make mistakes. When something works out, it’s usually because I worked hard at it. I am tough, but I am not a machine. 

TUESDAY

Thanks to the internet, I am painfully aware of what others are accomplishing, and it’s often a constant reminder of what I’m not. When I feel guilty for not working—for relaxing, pursuing hobbies, or simply feeling content (!), I ask myself the following questions.

• What is the source of my self-worth? My insecurity is at its highest when my self-worth is linked to something outside of myself: career success or achievements. I feel guilty if I haven't worked a certain number of hours because I believe my worth is intrinsically linked to my productivity. I believe I must earn my value as a human being.

• What if that source disappears? There is always the possibility of losing your job, being unable to pursue your goals for, say, health reasons, or simply being unable to meet your own expectations. Ensuring that your self-worth is internally rooted is necessary for enjoying yourself and your life, guilt-free.

• What do you value about yourself? For me, it is my discipline, my thoughtfulness, and my ability to empathize with other, helping them feel seen. Valuing myself for existing as a unique being in the world allows me to seek validation and self-worth from myself, rather than from others.

Society is designed to feed off our output; feeling content despite my fluctuating productivity is a continuous work in progress. I regularly remind myself of my inherent value, finding that when I do, I no longer need to frantically goal-seek to feel worthy.

—Excerpted from How it Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life’s Changes with Clarity, Purpose, and Heart, my book of illustrated essays

WEDNESDAY

We spend a few days in Kansas City doing the same thing we do wherever we go—finding the best playgrounds and taco shops. 

Among my personal highlights was visiting The Rabbit hOle, an immersive museum celebrating children’s literature. I’ve been wanting to go for a few years now, since I learned of the initial idea for it, and it was just lovely to experience so many beloved books brought to life.

Every exhibit we saw was beautiful, but I was especially taken by the Strega Nonaexhibit, one of the stories I read most repeatedly as a little girl. 

Outside Strega Nona’s house at The Rabbit hOle museum

Inside Strega Nona’s house, saying hello to Tomie dePaola

These photos are just less than, but inside Strega Nona’s house were several dioramas built into the wall, each one—complete with working mechanics—playing out a scene from the story, from the time Strega Nona hires Big Anthony to work for her to the very end, where the never ending pasta overthrows the entire town. N was mesmerized, watching each scene on repeat until I pulled her away to explore other exhibits. I am married to books, but I'd love to create sets for plays and exhibits one day, too. 

Related: Phoebe wrote about the depiction of Strega Nona in her Fat in Picture Books section of her newsletter last week. 

Related: one of my favorite Tomie dePaola books for artists (and their self-doubt), is The Art Lesson, gifted to me by T a few years ago. 

THURSDAY

F & N, entirely too comfortable in someone else’s studio (2024)

I also had the chance to finally visit fellow artist Sarah Walsh at her lovely studio! Sarah was gracious enough to accomodate my two tiny monsters and gifted N some gorgeous puzzles from her line with Eeboo. I haven’t been able to meet very many artists over the last few years, and it was a breath of fresh air to talk to another working mama about the mechanics of building a creative life and staying honest with ourselves, in our work and in our lives. 

If you aren’t familiar with Sarah’s work, I recommend checking out her latest zine, Horse Girl, and her latest book, Rainbow Science. 

FRIDAY

Bring me all of your dreams, 
You dreamers. 
Bring me all of your 
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them 
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too rough fingers
Of the world. 

—The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: When I change my perspective.

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

MONDAY 

I’m agitated, disappointed in myself; I thought I’d be further along by now. I need to send my final illustrations to the client by this evening, but I’m still working on the first round of sketches. The day is mapped out between daycare pick-ups and drop-offs, graduate school classes, my job, and house chores. I have an exact amount of time slotted for each task; this is how I ensure everything gets done.

My expectations crowd me. They squeeze the life out of everything I do, making it impossible for me to be present. I focus on expectations (“Creating paintings that others will adore!” “I will be happy if I stick to my rigid schedule during these unprecedented times!”) that I have little control over. Expectations are unforgiving; they reduce our feelings of ease or imagination—two ingredients necessary for thriving creativity. It’s difficult to draw well with my brain in a vice, jammed between an increasingly long to-do list and a timer waiting to go off.

I decide to replace my expectations with intentions. I can’t control what happens, but I can choose how I want to feel, and quite frankly, I’m tired of feeling disappointment each day. I say it aloud: I intend to create work that meets others where they are. I intend to try my best with the time and limits I have. I intend to be kinder to myself.

I try this for a week and notice small shifts within. I’m able to recognize my progress and feel good about it, rather than obsessing over all I haven’t achieved. I feel calmer and in control. I’m less reliant on external circumstances for satisfaction or fulfillment, knowing that although I can’t always control what happens, I can control my intentions–what I choose to see, feel, and give—and that is enough.  

—from How it Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life’s Changes with Clarity, Purpose, and Heart, my book of illustrated essays

TUESDAY

It’s summer. I’m working, or trying to work, on two books currently—a new journal and a picture book. I care deeply about both. I’m knee deep in revisions for one and up to my nose in sketches for the other, and struggling to make progress on 12 hours of childcare a week. Some mornings I wake up empty—physically empty, like the engine in me has fallen out, and I know that emptiness will always find a place inside a body that is overtired. 

My work is solitary, which I love, but in this particular phase of life feels dangerously isolating. Isolation breeds self-doubt and discouragement—both are part of the territory, I know, of being an artist, but this year feels particularly prickly. It’s alarming just how negative the negative self-talk can get. How ugly can one’s self critic be? Pretty ugly. 

I’m lucky enough to recognize it, mostly, when it happens, and this week I deliberately pulled myself out from inside myself and showed up for 

Andy J. Pizza

 online pep rally, a virtual meeting of creatives, and I’m just so happy I did. Spending an hour with him and his supportive community reminded me that I’m a person, not simply a pair of hands, and I left the call feeling more human, which is what I really needed.

Right now, it’s an evening in late June. The house is quiet. I hear the crickets and wasps outside my studio window. I watch the sun fade, leisurely, to make way for moonlight. I think of myself decades from now, and wonder what future me will think of the life I live: with work that challenges and fulfills me, and a family who does the same; with a home that feels like home inside a city that doesn’t, but could, someday; with an overtired body that insists on keeping on; with a life that promises the same it does for everyone else—some constant, some change. 

I wonder if future me will miss the exhaustion and the noise: the constant running behind tiny feet, the incessant stream of questions, the tugging behind my knees when I’m cooking or working or attempting to form a thought. I wonder if future me will miss being this tired—not because it’s glamorous, but because it’s still beautiful— because it’s from giving my all, each day, to building a life that is richly, unbearably full. 

WEDNESDAY

A few things that are giving me inspiration right now:

The work of Bernadette Watts, which feels very classic. 

I am tired of Earth. These people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives. 

Sophie Blackall talks with Roger. 

THURSDAY

“The most important thing is the doing—integrating your life and your work and everything together.”

—Ruth Asawa

FRIDAY

As I turned over the last page, after many nights, a wave of sorrow enveloped me. Where had they all gone, these people who had seemed so real? To distract myself, I walked out into the night; instinctively, I lit a cigarette. In the dark, the cigarette glowed, like a fire lit by a survivor. But who would see this light, this small dot among the infinite stars? I stood a while in the dark, the cigarette glowing and growing small, each breath patiently destroying me. How small it was, how brief. Brief, brief, but inside me now, which the stars could never be.

—A Work of Fiction by Louise Glück

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A tiny hand in mine.

A tiny glimpse of my current project.

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

MONDAY 

The clouds are in fine form today, puffs of thick white acrylic smears. Occasionally, the sun pierces through. I don’t see the birds as I shuffle along with my head down, but I listen to their music. Morning walks are like this: the sky bobbing over me while I retreat further into myself. We moved to St. Louis in June. It’s October now and I haven’t made a single friend. 

I turn the stroller onto Des Peres and navigate the cracked sidewalk towards the playground. Up ahead is a young woman with her baby. I slow down, hoping she’ll leave before I get closer. No such luck.

Hello! Do you live nearby?  She asks me. My heart turns clockwise, tightening.

Yes, I say politely, just down the street. I unstrap N and watch her toddle over to the slide. I feel resistant. I’ve met many people in this city, but none that I connected with. I’m tired of trying.

My heart spins, quietly reminding me that it is there. There are many people to love, it says, but you have stopped looking for them. 

The children play together. I ask the woman questions and listen intently to her voice. I engage my curiosity, studying her face: her long eyelashes and curly hair, the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles, her soft laugh. She looks at N with the love only a mother can feel for a stranger’s child. Opening your heart is like learning a foreign language—it feels self-conscious and clumsy until it doesn’t.

Stepping outside of yourself, that’s what an open heart is. A story that invites you to first look and then listen. A morning at the playground, an unexpected conversation, smears of cloud, a tiny hand in mine.

—from How it Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life’s Changes with Clarity, Purpose, and Heart, my book of illustrated essays

TUESDAY

I love it when it’s just you and me, mom, N says once, and then again. She doesn’t smile, just looks at me with her serious, thoughtful face, and I know she means it. 

We’re having a picnic at the little playground near our home. She eats a peanut butter and honey sandwich, I have peanut butter and jelly. It’s the perfect weather—not a lick above 74 degrees, breezy, our picnic blanket dappled with sunlight under an old playground tree. 

A few days later, she’s reading with T in her room before bed. Dad, I love it when it’s just you and me, she says and though I can’t see her thoughtful face, I know she means it. 

WEDNESDAY

Several weeks ago, T and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary at Bulrush, a truly incredible reparative restaurant that explores Ozark cuisine through the values and vision of Chef Rob Connoley. With their menu, 80% of which is radically foraged locally, Chef Connoley explores the late 18th and early 19th century—”the moment in time when the indigenous people first encountered the settlers, who often brought enslaved individuals. These three cultures came together at one particular time to create what has evolved into the food that we eat today.” 

I find myself still thinking about this night. It encourages me to see a person with strong core values actively living in accordance with them—and building his business and community deeply around them. In a world where fitting in and being well-liked is valued more than critical thought, it’s comforting to see someone deliberately go their own way.

THURSDAY

I am: discovering free zines for a free Palestine, donating to the perinatal project, learning more about Rod Serling, wondering if I have enough self-compassion?, and listening to poems as teachers. 

FRIDAY

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I

—from In Those Years by Adrienne Rich

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A lesson in unconditional love.

A Lesson in Unconditional Love from How it Feels to Find Yourself

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

MONDAY 

I wake up tired. 

It’s 4:35 am and the baby is crying. I sit up, swing my legs over to the edge of the bed, and stumble towards the door. Jack has been up for some time now, waiting for us to wake. He dances around my feet, tip-tapping excitedly, wanting me to sit down and play with him. “I need a minute, Jackie,” I mumble, stepping over him and into the bathroom. He watches as I brush my teeth and splash cold water on my face. I feel irritated for no reason. After a few minutes, I close the door.

By 6:00 am, the baby has been changed and fed and cried a few more times. We’re sitting on the floor playing peek-a-boo, waiting for the sun to show her face. Jack sits by the bedroom door, waiting. Every so often, he looks over to see how we’re doing.

Around 6:45, I get dressed. Jack bounces around my heels as I pull on pants and a hoodie. “Jack. Jackie. I need some space,” I say, more gently than I have before. When we reach the back door, he’s there, waiting. I let him out and he races around the yard, joyfully feeling the cool air on his face. The trees are dropping their leaves now, and the crinkle of each one fills my ears. The scent of morning dew after a long fall from the sky passes over us in waves. I breathe in deeply and will myself into feeling new. I want to be better—patient, kind, more appreciative of all the good I have. 

Jack walks over and sits down next to me, so closely that his body is on my feet. His head rests under my hands. He waits. 

—from How it Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life’s Changes with Clarity, Purpose, and Heart, my latest book of illustrated essays

TUESDAY

I loved this comic by Gavin Aung Than that illustrates an excerpt from Stephen King’s On Writing—namely, the difficult work/life balance of most artists, and the larger, more balanced perspective that’s only available to us in retrospect. 

Of course, that led me to Bill Watterson’s advice on inventing your own life’s meaningand Stanley Kubrick’s on life’s purposelessness—both encourage me to continue taking the road less traveled.

WEDNESDAY

I’ve always been reluctant to celebrate holidays, especially ones that make it easy to gloss over honest sentiment for sparkles and gifts. This changed when I became a mother. I want my children to experience the joy of thoughtfulness—to understand what a gift it is to know someone well, and to make them feel known. I also realize how much challenge life will give us—and what a strength it is to find reason, still, to celebrate. 

N made these seed packets for Valentine’s Day. She painted and glued each one. She filled them with Zinnia seeds. For over a week, she sat at the dining table and asked to decorate seed packets until she had one for each person in her world. In the end she made nearly 25. She’s three. 

She turned an ordinary Wednesday into something less ordinary—something special, perhaps—for so many. It had nothing to do with Valentine’s Day and everything to do with her heart—which, as I’ve suspected for awhile now, is far too big for her tiny body.

THURSDAY

I’m enjoying these paintings by Ulla Thynell, this book by Rashmi Sirdeshpande and Ruchi Mhasane, and these rules for a creative practice by Carolyn Yoo.

FRIDAY

Cook a large fish — choose one with many bones, a skeleton
you will need skill to expose, maybe the flying
silver carp that’s invaded the Great Lakes, tumbling
the others into oblivion. If you don’t live
near a lake, you’ll have to travel.
Walking is best and shows you mean it,
but you could take a train and let yourself
be soothed by the rocking
on the rails. It’s permitted
to receive solace for whatever you did
or didn’t do, pitiful, beautiful
human. When my mother was in the hospital,
my daughter and I had to clear out the home
she wouldn’t return to. Then she recovered
and asked, incredulous,
How could you have thrown out all my shoes?
So you’ll need a boat. You could rent or buy,
but, for the sake of repairing the world,
build your own. Thin strips
of Western red cedar are perfect,
but don’t cut a tree. There’ll be
a demolished barn or downed trunk
if you venture further.
And someone will have a mill.
And someone will loan you tools.
The perfume of sawdust and the curls
that fall from your plane
will sweeten the hours. Each night
we dream thirty-six billion dreams. In one night
we could dream back everything lost.
So grill the pale flesh.
Unharness yourself from your weary stories.
Then carry the oily, succulent fish to the one you hurt.
There is much to fear as a creature
caught in time, but this
is safe. You need no defense. This
is just another way to know
you are alive.

—How to Apologize by Ellen Bass

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: May all, should all.

A houseboat in London, banked along the Thames River.

Hi, friends. 

I missed writing to you while I was traveling for the last few weeks—but write I did, mostly in my head or in my Notes app or in the new Moomin journal I bought during our trip to London. 

I am home now and hoping to return to my weekly schedule. We’ll see. I’ll manage what I can and try to let go of what I can’t—I hope you are doing the same.

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

MONDAY 

Week of November 17, 2023

A blush of robins circle above our heads as F and I set out for our morning walk. They are quiet, save for the occasional call. I lose sight of them as I walk down the alley across the street from our own. It is my favorite alley because it’s made of St. Louis red brick, cobblestoned together, still, despite the hills and sinks that threaten to displace them. Another reminder of the earth’s uprising against man. The brick path rattles the stroller, creating a rhythm that soothes F and that she allows herself to succumb to. It makes me feel like I’m in New Orleans, or at least somewhere else. 

A single robin follows us along, hopping from brick to brick. I wonder where else she’s been.

Week of November 24, 2023

After three days in London, F wakes up in with a fever. Her breath is short and raspy, her tiny nose closed. I give her a bottle but she barely drinks, her eyes closing before they’re even really open. All day she sleeps, either on my chest or T’s shoulder. She is still small enough to be toted around on another’s giving body, the world moving unbeknownst around her. She is still small enough where a prolonged fever ignites fear, too small to understand why her passageways won’t allow air in—why a body or a friendship or a story that is meant to work sometimes will not.

The air in London is cold but bright. We walk along High Street to flush some cool air into F’s lungs. She sleeps on T while he walks, a tiny little Joey inside a quilted blue jumper and mint green beanie. Her breath comes slowly, labored. But still, it comes.

Week of December 1, 2023

A chatter of mint-green parakeets abandons the tree on our corner while we walk towards them. They swoop low, once, before returning to the sky and resuming formation. They are joyful and though they bring me joy, I can’t help but question their belonging. They are out of place. Lovely green jewels dotting an otherwise bleak November sky. 

Week of December 8, 2023

Croup rattled F’s body for nearly a week. I sleep sitting up, with her body on mine, so that if she stops breathing, I’ll know. I feed her every two hours, as if she was newborn, to keep her tiny body hydrated. The humidifier is on high. The entire guest room feels like a tropical sauna, wet and hot but also, somehow, cold. I wish we were at home so she could get the care she needs, I think to myself, not understanding that she is getting the care she needs.

I remember all of this now, but it is unclear. It takes effort to recall the climate, or the shoulder ache that persists from holding a baby upright for hours through the night. It takes effort to even remember the days-long headache, or how my eyes leaked from behind my glasses, not from sadness or fright, but sheer exhaustion. 

What I do remember is how much love existed within the white walls of our London guest room. What I remember is my two hands on F’s back, feeling for her breath through her spine. What I remember is studying her small mouth, tongue having fallen out, as it sought her next breath. What I remember is the slight of her frame, huddled close against mine. The light that climbed out of me to find its way to her. The deliberate care that this child received; the affection bestowed upon her; the comfort of complete observation. The respect of being valued as a human being—as decent and significant and with causes as great as any man grown, or with power. The love of her father and mother and sister and aunts and uncles, all hurtling towards her through touch and thought and mysterious language I am not privy to. 

What I remember are the wishes I made through each hour of the night. They are easy to remember because I wish them each night still. May all children feel their mothers’ two hands on their back. May all children feel the support of a community under their feet. May all children be given another’s light when they cannot find their own. May all, should all. But all are not. 

TUESDAY

The music in my ears, spotted in the London underground last week.

Cat Power singing Bob Dylan’s 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert has been on repeat in my house for weeks now. The few times I’m out in London on my own, I listen to her voice while I walk, singing along: She's got everything she needs. She's an artist. She don't look back.

WEDNESDAY

It was an actual joy to speak with Nicole Zhu last week about the process behind Go Your Own Way and How it Feels to Find Yourself for her newsletter. 

Nicole has supported my work for years now. She is an incredible writer and puts out one of my favorite newsletters. After the kids were settled in bed, I spoke to her about how motherhood propelled creative growth, my writing/illustration process, and cultivating quiet confidence. It was easily the most enjoyable hour of my day.

You can read the entire interview here!—and enter a giveaway for a chance to win my books.

THURSDAY

The Dutch edition of Go Your Own Way is now available through my publisher Unieboek! This is my fourth journal, but I still find it incredibly exciting to see my work translated into foreign languages, reaching more readers across the world. Feeling lucky; feeling grateful. 

FRIDAY

I won’t be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed—
and the short northern nights.

—I Won’t Be Able to Write From the Grave by Fanny Howe

xx,

M

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To sign up for my weekly newsletter, Dear Somebody, please subscribe here.

Dear Somebody: A lesson in unconditional love.

A paint palette from How it Feels to Find Yourself

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

MONDAY 

I wake up tired. It’s 4:35 am and our 5-month-old is crying. I sit up, swing my legs over to the edge of the bed, and stumble towards the door. Jack has been up for some time now, waiting for us to wake. He dances around my feet, tip-tapping excitedly, wanting me to sit down and play with him. “I need a minute, Jackie,” I mumble, stepping over him and into the bathroom. He watches as I brush my teeth and splash cold water on my face. I feel irritated for no reason. After a few minutes, I close the door.

By 6:00 am, the baby has been changed and fed and cried a few more times. We’re sitting on the floor playing peek-a-boo, waiting for the sun to show her face. Jack sits by the bedroom door, waiting. Every so often, he looks over to see how we’re doing.

Around 6:45, I get dressed. Jack bounces around my heels as I pull on pants and a hoodie. “Jack. Jackie. I need some space,” I say, more gently than I have before. When we reach the back door, he’s there, waiting. I let him out and he races around the yard, joyfully feeling the cool air on his face. The trees are dropping their leaves now, and the crinkle of each one fills my ears. The scent of morning dew after a long fall from the sky passes over us in waves. I breathe in deeply and will myself into feeling new. I want to be better—patient, kind, more appreciative of all the good I have. Jack walks over and sits down next to me, so closely that his body is on my feet. His head rests under my hands. He waits. 

—from ”A Lesson in Unconditional Love” in How it Feels to Find Yourself

TUESDAY

This interview with Blexbolex about The Magicians; this letter by Ruth Franklin of Ghost Stories about the purpose of art in dark times; this conversation on moving past your own self-doubt between Lizzy Stewart and Andy J. Pizza.

WEDNESDAY

Teared up reading today’s note from Courtney Martin, a letter about her daughter turning 10. I myself can hardly fathom a world in which my daughters are 10, or 11, or anything except so small. In it, she writes:

When we were driving home so slowly that day, I never could have predicted any of this—that, ironically, my firstborn would gift me with nourishing, companionable quiet, and return me to my love of solitude and art, and speak an emotional language so foreign to me it would humble me in all the right ways.

I think about this constantly—how N and F are their own mysterious beings, equipped with their own arsenal of language, philosophy, and thought. How they are not extensions of me. How I am humbled continually by how easily they find and hold onto anything good. How they do not dwell. How deeply they feel about their perceived injustices. How it’s not my job to tell them what they should think or feel, but help them find the words to articulate what they do think and feel. How it’s my job to guide them, yes, but how mostly it’s my job to stay out of their way—so they can show me, and the rest of the world, who they are. 

THURSDAY

In the very little time I have to make things, I have been trying, very hard, to make things. Sometimes this is during F’s nap. Often it is while we go on walks. I walk and write poems in my head, on my Notes app. I text lines of poems or this newsletter to myself. I try to capture what I feel in words, hoping that eventually, I’ll be able to translate it into a picture. I draw on the couch after the girls are in bed. I draw when I should be sleeping. Sometimes I draw instead of showering. 

I fret a lot—not about the time I’m losing, but about whether I’ll still want to make the things I want to make when I do have the time. Whether I’ll still feel the spark. Whether the making part of me will keep waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

Two pieces I made this year that I finally framed, ready to hang in our home.

I took the time to frame these two illustrations this week. We’re going to hang them up in our house. Each one took too long to make by any reasonable person’s standards. If I divide the amount of time it took to draw each one by the rate I was paid, it comes out to exactly nothing. If I add up the additional costs—time with my family, regular hygiene, a semblance of a social life, an earlier bedtime—things start to sound a little ridiculous. I start to feel ridiculous. I have written about this period of motherhood before.

But when I look at these two illustrations together, I see that the making part of myself is alive and well. That it is being tended to. That despite being obviously neglected, my creativity is climbing back into my life. Into where it belongs. That it is creating its own space in the places I have abandoned. That it refuses to be forgotten. That I have not left this very integral—perhaps the most integral part of myself, behind. That what’s good is slow in its making, but that the making part is very good, too. That, however slowly, my art is growing and changing, and I am, too—and that both are well worth the costs.

FRIDAY

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

—Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: How to stop feeling guilty about not being productive

A paint palette and accompanying essay from How it Feels to Find Yourself

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

MONDAY

When you know yourself well, it’s easier to locate the significance in every small moment. Your capacity to retain peace during difficult transitions increases. You understand that most situations have more than one correct answer. You feel freer.

The most important relationship we can spend our lives nurturing is the relationship we have with ourselves. The lens through which we view ourselves determines our connection to the world. If that lens is cracked or cloudy, each of our relationships begins to suffer. Building a strong internal compass that skillfully guides you through life’s uncertainties is possible only by developing an intimate, healthy relationship with yourself. Through this process of continued self-exploration, I began to learn who I am, what my purpose is, and how to intentionally shape my life into one I recognize with joy. Living well means adapting to life’s constant transition; evolving with purpose and clarity is a skill I now practice regularly. This is how I found myself—for the first time, and then again, every time after that.  

—An excerpt from the introduction of How it Feels to Find Yourself

TUESDAY

It’s 4:00 in the morning and How it Feels to Find Yourself will be published today. I feel sloppy and underprepared, like I’m about to take a test I haven’t studied for. In all the chaos of the last few months, I’ve barely been able to put much time into promoting this book. As fellow authors know, especially those who write for adults—your work isn’t over when you finish writing the book. The publicity and marketing aspect of publishing is overwhelming for those of us who prefer staying out of the limelight. I personally prefer being behind a desk than a camera; book promotion demands I summon the extrovert inside me, however well she may have hidden. 

Anyway. It’s 4:00 and we’re up to feed the baby, it being 2.5 hours since she’s last eaten. I stumble around in a haze, changing her diaper and tending to her spit-up, shoving a pacifier in her small. sweet mouth as her little lungs get ready to scream. I hand her to T who looks like a zombie but sits in the recliner to give her a bottle anyway. I gotta write my newsletter, I mumble sleepily, and he nods. 

Back in bed, it’s 4:30 am. I open my laptop and begin to write, promising myself that this is the last crazy thing I’ll do in a long while. I’m going to sleep instead of writing newsletters at 4:30 in the morning, I tell myself. I’m going to exercise instead of giving birth a few weeks prior to completing graduate school, I tell myself. I’m going to delight in healthier cooking and eating instead of working myself to the bone. 

I finish writing and close the laptop. I check on T and the baby, both of whom are asleep again, the steady rise and fall of their chests following each breath. I pull the covers up to my nose and exhale deeply. This is the last crazy thing I do, I repeat to myself. 

This is the summer of long walks and less running around. This is the summer of cookouts and lazy pool days and no homework. This is the summer of breathing in baby and being crazy with toddler. This is the summer of new recipes and friendships and sleep and smiles. This is the summer I see more and do less. This is the summer I read more and write less. This is the summer for rest and replenishing. This is the summer of silence. 

I will not feel guilty for not being productive. And maybe, months from now, when I feel good and ready—I will begin again. 

WEDNESDAY

Most of us who hit 40 have had enough experiences—winning and losing—to know that it is all actually “winning” and “losing.” The best job in the world can also cause you profound stress. Getting the promotion, raise, book deal that you always wanted, might feel like a hard-won achievement in certain ways, and in others, it is likely to be anti-climatic and send you spinning off into a moment of existential confusion. If you’ve experienced the texture of work long enough, you start to sober up about what really matters to you, what you are really made for, and what you want to spend your precious energy and time on. You understand that the deepest sense of self-realization doesn’t come through paychecks or titles, but through genuine, intrinsic pride that you have done something you are delighted by with people who delight you. Midlife is a moment to seek a more finely calibrated understanding of all of this and start advocating for yourself within work settings (whether that means joining a labor union or saying no more to freelance work or not tolerating assholes). Of course the most insecure your financial situation, and the less lucrative your life’s work, the more constraints you face on living into these truths. Which is why economic disparity is about so much more than “food on the table,” but people’s ability to give the world their best gifts and live their fullest, most realized lives.

—An excerpt from Grow Bigger Not Bitter by Courtney Martin 

THURSDAY

A simple photograph to celebrate this week, this book, and a vow to be less measurably productive:

FRIDAY

My shadow said to me:
what is the matter
Isn’t the moon warm
enough for you
why do you need
the blanket of another body
Whose kiss is moss
Around the picnic tables
The bright pink hands held sandwiches
crumbled by distance. Flies crawl
over the sweet instant
You know what is in these blankets
The trees outside are bending with
children shooting guns. Leave
them alone. They are playing
games of their own.
I give water, I give clean crusts
Aren’t there enough words
flowing in your veins
to keep you going. 

—The Shadow Voice by Margaret Atwood

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: It's publication day!

Hi, friends.

I’m sending out a special note today because it’s publication day for How it Feels to Find Yourself!

This book is a hard won piece of my heart. I wrote the proposal and sold the book to my publisher during my first, extremely difficult pregnancy, while isolated on our farm in Nashville during the beginning of the pandemic. I then wrote the book, while still isolated on our farm, throughout the pandemic—this time with a tiny, crying newborn by my side.

The various sunrises I captured from our Nashville farm, while writing before the baby (and the world) woke.

I often woke up at 4:30 am to write in the darkness before the baby woke, watching the sun creep up over the tree line. I wrote in the bathroom, my laptop balanced on the vanity, wearing the baby while the exhaust fan hummed her to sleep. I wrote in a room full of unpacked boxes and utter debris during our move from Nashville to St. Louis, desperate to finish the manuscript before beginning my first semester of graduate school—which I was unable to do. I wrote the book in the mornings before and the evenings after class, while T took N to the zoo or the playground. I wrote on the weekends, around my homework and N’s nap schedule, wishing I had a little less on my plate. Like all good things, the writing in this book grew from a combination of determination, persistence, many tears, and a lot of support. 

I could not have written this book without my husband, T, who helped make it a priority for me to write, even when it came at the cost of his own work and ambition. I could not have written this book without my parents, who put their lives on hold to live mine with me throughout graduate school. I could not have written this book without N, who was with me first in my belly and then in my arms, and about whom so many of these essays are written. 

Early mornings with N on the farm, after I’d spend a few hours writing while she slept.

Purchase HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

“The book that we all need…It reminds us that regardless of the day we’ve experienced, we are still beautifully and devastatingly hopeful and human.”

–Cyndie Spiegal, best-selling author of Microjoys

HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF is a collection of paint palettes and short essays. Together, they work harmoniously in offering guidance for navigating the most important relationship in our lives: the one we have with ourselves. The book is full of thoughtful reflections on parenthood, friendship, love (for others and ourselves), family dynamics, and the larger questions we carry about finding our place in the world. Each essay is accompanied by a vibrant paint palette designed to help you find your way through the moment you’re in. 

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, this book is for you.

Purchase HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

Because of the year I’ve had (pregnancy, graduate school, and now a newborn), I’ve decided not to commit to my usual book events, interviews, or in-person signings. Instead, I’m hoping those of you who are really interested in my work will choose to support this book—and I hope that it will help you find a part of yourself that’s been hidden.

Here’s how you can support How it Feels to Find Yourself:

• Order a copy (or like, five) of How it Feels to Find Yourself

• Forward this newsletter to someone who will appreciate this book!

• Ask your local library to carry the book if you can’t afford to purchase it—knowing that your entire neighborhood will now have access to it!

• Ask your local bookstore to carry the book. I love local bookstores and want to support them as much as possible throughout this launch. 

• Write a review on Amazon so more people can find this book

• If you want to review or write about How it Feels to Find Yourself (or know someone who might), feature it in your publication/podcast/etc., or interview me — just reply to this email to reach me. Every little bit helps.

Purchase HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

THANK YOU for reading and for all of your support and encouragement. It means the world to me. 

See you on Friday with a new edition of Dear Somebody, where I’ll go a little bit deeper into the making of this book.

xx,

M

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To sign up for my weekly newsletter, Dear Somebody, please subscribe here.

Dear Somebody: How it Feels to Find Yourself

The cover of my upcoming book of essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself!

Hi, friends.

Today’s newsletter is a departure from our usual while I reveal the cover for my upcoming book, HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF: Navigating Life’s Changes with Purpose, Clarity, and Heart, which will be published on May 23, 2023 by TarcherPerigee (Penguin Random House). 

HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF is a collection of paint palettes and short essays. Together, they work harmoniously in offering guidance for navigating the most important relationship in our lives: the one we have with ourselves. The book is full of thoughtful reflections on parenthood, friendship, love (for others and ourselves), family dynamics, and the larger questions we carry about finding our place in the world. Each essay is accompanied by a vibrant paint palette designed to help you find your way through the moment you’re in. 

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, this book is for you.

Pre-order HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

A spread from How it Feels to Find Yourself

Book promotion is not exciting for me. If I’m being honest, it fills me with a sense of existential dread. I don’t like asking people to buy things from me, and I don’t like to be pushy. Like most creatives, my heart and purpose lies in creating the work, not talking about it. The reality is that I support myself and my family with my work.

Pre-orders are vital to the success of any book. All publishers rely on pre-orders (and sales, in general) to see whether the books we write resonate with people and whether they should continue supporting us in creating them. Strong pre-orders for this book indicate strong interest. Strong interest encourages my publisher to buy my next book. 

More than that, pre-orders signal to my publisher—and the larger world of book publishing—that the work I’m making is important. That talking about emotions, vulnerability, and the complexity of the human condition is important. That raising our children with greater introspection and awareness is important. That creating books of value, with the intent of widening a reader’s mind and heart, is more important than a book designed to simply look good on Instagram.

Pre-order HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

So, how can you support me and this work?

• Pre-order a copy (or like, five) of How it Feels to Find Yourself

• Forward this newsletter to someone who will appreciate this book!

• Ask your local library to carry the book if you can’t afford to purchase it—knowing that your entire neighborhood will now have access to it!

• Ask your local bookstore to carry the book. I love local bookstores and want to support them as much as possible throughout this launch. 

• If you want to review or write about How it Feels to Find Yourself (or know someone who might), feature it in your publication/podcast/etc., or interview me — just reply to this email to reach me. Every little bit helps.

Pre-order HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

THANK YOU for reading and for all of your support and encouragement. It means the world to me. 

See you next week with a new edition of Dear Somebody! 

xx,

M

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To sign up for my weekly newsletter, Dear Somebody, please subscribe here.