Dear Somebody: New beginnings.

A completed exercise from LEARN TO LET GO: A JOURNAL FOR NEW BEGINNINGS (2026)

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

MONDAY 

This year, I didn’t do any sort of round-up: no list of achievements to close out 2025, no more/less lists to begin 2026, no resolutions, no catalog of what went right or wrong. This is a break from my usual tradition: I love taking inventory, assessing which path led to where, considering how to build a different future than the one hurtling straight towards me. 

Despite all of the good reflection does, I feel tired of, and from, looking back. I want to look forward, I only want the light of what can be…to be. 

A few days ago I received Issue #68 of Uppercase Magazine in the mail. I love writing and illustrating for this magazine, and year after year, I feel lucky that I get to. When I opened the pages, a smile rang in me. This illustration is one of my favorite drawings I made last year, to accompany an essay I wrote titled More Than Machine: Guidance for Creative Resistance. It might not be the best thing I made, but it is the most meaningful because it is proof of self-doubt and personal growth. It is a sharp claw towards hard change; it is finding a light in dark times. I am deeply connected to it, and by making it, I processed tough experiences and saw myself more clearly. 

“More Than Machine” for Issue #68 of Uppercase Magazine (2025)

I love that art can help us chronicle, understand, and heal. For me, it is a medicine I take as often as I can. It requires no skill or prescription, and asks nothing of us other than our willingness to take a look inside. For this, I am grateful. 

TUESDAY

This week, through Nicole Cardoza’s newsletter REIMAGINED, I learned that in 1980, Stevie Wonder wrote Happy Birthday to promote the establishing of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. The song became the anthem of the movement led by Coretta Scott King, and Wonder joined her at rallies across the nation. 

WEDNESDAY

Sometimes I forget the magic of it all. 

My mind is on the pink soccer jersey we’re searching for. While T tries them on, I keep the girls occupied, pushing the red Target cart down the shiny white aisles. No, we have enough toys, I say; No, we have enough clothes, I say; No, no no. The girls are whiny. I am, too. 

We turn the corner and there it is: the new Wellbeing Reads display, and there I am—or a little part of me, at least—on the bottom left row. I beam, wishing I looked more human. The girls squeal and pick up copies, they attempt to take selfies. T arrives a few minutes later—nothing having fit correctly—and takes photos of a wintering me, and then a few more with the girls. 

Me kneeling in front of Target’s WELLBEING READS display, holding a copy of LEARN TO LET GO (2026)

The Ladies in front of Target’s WELLBEING READS display; N holding a copy of LEARN TO LET GO (2026)

I sit at my desk for hours on end, painting or writing or throwing drafts in the trash. The days turn into weeks, then months. The years peel by. A book comes into the world years after I’ve first sat down to write it, years after I’ve learned enough to put the words to paper. A book comes out into the world and slowly, caught up in the details of everyday life, I forget the magic of it all. 

A book comes out into the world, and months later, as I shop with my small family, we run right into it—and I remember, once again, how magical it is to make something that someone else can hold. To make something that my own children can hold, and read, and one day write in. 

One of my completed exercises from LEARN TO LET GO (2026)

I’m working through my own copy of LEARN TO LET GO at the moment. I haven’t worked through one of my own journals in a very long time, and I’m eager to plant new seeds for change in the pages of this book. 

One of the reasons I make these journals is because there is no end point for personal growth. It is with humility that I complete the exercises that I long ago wrote, seeing how far I have come—and how much further I still have to go. 

“Helped are those who are content to be themselves,” Alice Walker said. “They will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.”

Each day, when I open a new page, I’m reminded by the magic of it all. 

THURSDAY

Ruth Franklin writes about Paul Simon and the horrifying state of our country; my very favorite New Year’s poem; Judit Orosz makes paper poetry; I’ll Try Anything by The Strokes; Denny’s in Japan. 

FRIDAY

I remember all the different kinds of years.
Angry, or brokenhearted, or afraid.
I remember feeling like that
walking up the mountain along the dirt path
to my broken house on the island.
And long years of waiting in Massachusetts.
The winter walking and hot summer walking.
I finally fell in love with all of it:
dirt, night, rock and far views.
It’s strange that my heart is as full
now as my desire was then. 

—Arriving Again and Again Without Noticing by Linda Gregg

• Dear Somebody: Should I Be Doing More? (January 24, 2025)

Of all the things you can put in front of your eyes, I’m grateful that my little letter is one of them. 

If you’d like to support me, please buy my books. My art prints and line of greeting cards make excellent gifts for yourself or a friend. You can also hire me for your next project—I’d love to work together. 

xx,
M

---

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

Dear Somebody: The car ride home.

A glimpse at some of the finished and in-process paintings on my desk (watercolor and ink, 2025)

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

MONDAY 

My new commute to pick both girls up from school closes in on an hour and forty minutes. I was sour the first week, grumbling about my shortened workday, grumbling about the traffic, grumbling about the other drivers. I worried about N sitting for such long car rides, I worried about her falling asleep, I worried about both of us surviving F’s relentless car screams. 

A couple of weeks in, N and I have settled into our new rhythm. She slowly climbs into her car seat and asks if I brought her a snack, knowing I did. I drive, she eats. Sometimes she tells me about her day and asks about mine; sometimes we call my sister and N chats with her cousins; sometimes we listen to whatever book I’m listening to until N asks me to turn it off. Nearly everyday, we call T and ask how long until he’ll be home. 

Today, N is quiet. I dodge drivers who shouldn’t be on the road, and N dodges the sunlight searching for her eyes. She asks for penny on the train tracks and we both sing to ourselves. I watch her eyes close in the rearview mirror, her head drooping like an overgrown flower. She falls asleep with a sigh of relief, soft and inviting, a strawberry still in her mouth.

I drive along the strip malls and sun-bleached strips of grass. I’m driving through the suburbs of St. Louis, my four-year-old daughter in tow, but all of a sudden I’m the four-year-old, nodding along to sounds of a rolled-down window while my dad drives, falling asleep the instant the key hits the ignition. I am filled with nostalgia for the feeling of absolute safety one feels as a child being driven around by someone who loves her most. 

On these drives, I feel solidly like a parent, able to give my daughter a feeling of security and trust. My past becomes my present, and my daughter’s future—and I find myself comforted by the continuous cycle of life, by the mundanity of parenting and all of its tedious chores—which gives me one long drive, every day, with someone I love most. 

TUESDAY

100% of sales from Little U, Uppercase Magazine’s books for the young at heart, are donated to UNICEF for humanitarian aid in the Gaza crisis; the new Asian American Literary Archive; risography for Gaza; the surprising ways siblings shape our lives; call it fate, call it karma. 

WEDNESDAY

“HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.

HELPED are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity.

HELPED are those who live in quietness, knowing neither brand name nor fad; they shall live every day as if in eternity, and each moment shall be as full as it is long.

HELPED are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception, and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.” —from Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar

THURSDAY

I originally bought Elizabeth Haidle’s Drawing is… as a fun book for me and N to work through together. After reading it on and off for the past few weeks, however, it’s found its way out of N’s room and into my studio, where it sits next to my drawing desk as a symbol of encouragement. 

I write about my experience as a working artist often: the process, the sound of my creativity, the small joys, the breakthroughs. The feeling of being forgotten. I’m not sure what I expected Drawing is…to be, but I’m surprised by what it actually is: a thoughtful meditation on discovering the creative, imaginative artist hiding inside you. It has plenty of technical information to help N (and me!) experiment and use different materials, which I expected, and plenty of prompts and exercises for thinking more deeply about your art-making, which I’m excited to try. 

What I was most surprised, however, is how Haidle corralled all of this information under the umbrella of a very healthy artist philosophy: that every step you take as an artist—however messy or seemingly insignificant, will lead you somewhere new—somewhere, certainly, worth going. 

You can purchase Drawing is… and learn more about Beth’s work. 

FRIDAY

I am pulling myself together.
Don’t want to go on a trip.
I have painted the living room white
and taken out most of my things.
The room has never been so empty.
Just now a banging thunder
and suddenly falling rain.
I leave the typewriter and run
outside in my nightgown and take
the cotton blanket off the line.
It is summer and I am in the middle
of my life. Alone and happy.

—Grinding the Lens by Linda Gregg

See you next week!

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: Cutting out the rot.

N’s 4th birthday cake: a rainbow cake! (2024)

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

MONDAY 

N’s 4th birthday cake: definitely a rainbow cake. (2024)

Over the past decade, my relationship with my work twisted itself into a rotting mass—one where I searched for the proof of my own self-worth in my work. When my ability to work very hard was the only thing I still liked about myself, I knew it was time for a change. So I cut the rot out.

Part of this excavation process involves consciously expanding my love for working into a broader love for everything outside of it. I know that my work will only be as thoughtful, as intelligent, and as full as my actual life is. I also know that I live in a country where no one really cares if a mother has a room or time of her own to put towards developing her mind, spirit, or craft. I live in a country with a supremely unhealthy work culture, where there’s little desire to separate a human being from their production value. I know the history and lineage behind my harmful admiration of debilitating independence and relentless hard work. And yet, I love my work. I am lucky to have found it, lucky to love it so. But I want to love myself more. 

So I cut away the rot. I take my need for external validation and wring it out. I want only what’s good: the creativity in being unobserved, the freedom that’s left behind. I love friendship and quilting and books and children and elaborate meals and I want more of myself to put towards these parts of life. I love the alchemy of it all—the ability to make something out of nothing. I want to be less focused on creating intelligent work and more focused on being an intelligent person. 

For her 4th birthday, N requests a rainbow cake. I put my work aside, and I plan out a rainbow cake—six separate layers, a homemade buttercream frosting, a boatload of rainbow sprinkles. I am slow—a slow learner, a cautious beginner, a creature of habit. It takes me two days to bake and assemble the cake, but the cake is good. It is spotty and uneven and it stands up on its own. It is imperfect. It is exactly what I hoped to make, and for once, my eyes lined up with my hands. It is good. 

Most days, I wander around my own life wondering why motherhood feels so difficult for me—why I carry the weight of it around, instead of sinking into it like the bizarre and bewildering dream it is. Most days, I am frustrated with myself for feeling so much, for wanting, so badly, to be naturally good at something, instead of working so hard to be mediocre at it all. I envy those for whom writing or mothering comes intuitively, comes evenly. I want to be good.

When we cut the cake, N sees all six colors stacked on top of each other and her mouth falls open in genuine awe—the awe only accessible to a fresh four-year old. Her face is worth a two-day bake; it always will be. We eat the cake and it is good. 

N tells me it’s her favorite cake. I don’t really know what I’m doing, in life or in my work, but I keep cutting the rot out. I want to feel the joy of making deep inside my bones. I want to like my work even when no one else does. I want to like myself when I don’t make anything at all. 

Slowly, I cut the rot out. I think this is the way to something good. 

P.S. For archival purposes, here are past birthday cakes: F’s first birthday, N’s third birthday.

TUESDAY

“The thing is that my brain is just as broken as it was before. Winning this award might have fixed my life on the outside, but it certainly didn’t fix my psychological issues or my sense of self. I am just as insecure as I was the day before I got the award, and just as scared as well, and that part has not changed. I really wish it had because I’m so sick of being afraid, afraid that my career will end, that I will never write anything again: all the fears that I’ve always had. Every time I write a story, I’m like, “I bet that was the last one.” I still feel that way. That part has not changed.” 

—Bruna Dantas Lobato on life after winning the 2023 National Book Award

“What’s real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you’ll get better. At times when you’re working, you’ll sit there feeling hung over and bored, and you may not be able to pull yourself up out of it that day. But it is fantasy to think that successful writers do not have these bored, defeated hours of deep insecurity when one feels as small and jumpy as a water bug. They do. But they also often feel a great sense of amazement that they get to write, and they know that this is what they want to do for the rest of their lives." 

—Anne Lamott on writing

“I tell you, if one wants to be active, one mustn’t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good, many people think that they’ll achieve it by doing no harm—and that’s a lie. That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity. Just slap something on it when you see a blank canvas staring at you.” 

—Vincent van Gogh in a letter to Theo

WEDNESDAY

I rediscovered Sandol Stoddard’s I Like You on N’s bookshelf a few days ago, and we read it together before bed. It’s just as endearing as it was 20 years ago, when I first discovered it—and one of the quirky books (like Ruth Krauss’ A Hole is to Dig) that encouraged me to make sweet little books of my own. 

THURSDAY

I’m reading: about how leaves change color in autumn and Past Tense by Sacha Mardou. 

I’m watching: Pachinko — I fell for this series hard and fast, and think about it all throughout the day and miss it even while I’m watching. 

I’m listening: to the Minari soundtrack, to anything composed by Joe Hisaishi, and The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath on tape. 

FRIDAY

Every evening, an hour before 
the sun goes down, I walk toward
its light, wanting to be altered.
Always in quiet, the air still.
Walking up the straight empty road
and then back. When the sun
is gone, the light continues
high up in the sky for a while.
When I return, the moon is there. 
Like a changing of the guard.
I don’t expect the light 
to save me, but I do believe
in the ritual. I believe
I am being born a second time
in this very plain way.

—The Light Continues by Linda Gregg

See you next week!

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: The things I'll miss.

From my illustrated version of William Bronk’s The Tell

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

MONDAY 

I wake up before dawn and listen to the smooth, velvet call of darkness. I wake up before the rest of my family and it feels like waking up before the rest of the world—there is only me and in the morning I see, quite clearly, myself as someone to love. I wake up to write, I wake up to ponder, I wake up from all the people I’m not. I wake up. 

My lower back cracks first, then my knees, then my neck. I see the bridge between ankle to leg, I see each weathered toe—evidence of a body that continues to show up, that does what’s asked of it and does not ask for much in return. These are the sounds of loyalty; these are the sounds of my oldest friendship. The mourning doves chatter outside my window and our tired 100-year old house invites their conversation in. I listen and I am lucky to listen and I feel the luck well deep inside me like a river. I wonder who these birds were before they were birds, I wonder who I was before I knew I was someone worth knowing. The radiators come to life, abruptly. They clang and hiss. The dog bristles in his sleep and occasionally, a car drives by.

Cutting the fruit, buttering the toast, making the lunches—even these chores are sweeter in the morning stillness. The creak of the stairs as T comes down, earlier these past few days, with all of his teeth and a smile. I put Tea for the Tillerman on and Stevens’ familiar voice washes through the kitchen and hovers above the island with mine. 

N turns away when I wake her, her body longing for more silence, more rest, more; the light streams into her bedroom in strings, beguiling. F’s generous smile—immediate upon waking, the way she finds me as soon as I leave the room, her small hands clinging to my knees. N singing along to the Frozen soundtrack, hoping she didn’t miss any let it go’s. I clean the floor, the walls, the cabinets after F eats, my hands and knees satisfied from use.

The first deep breath outside, the cold air rushing into my lungs; the crack of twig or tree branch, everything growing, everything going. The first sip of coffee, well-earned and deeply wanted, the changing light on my child’s tiny face, the agony of push and pull between too-much and never-enough: these are the things I’ll miss when they are gone. 

TUESDAY

“What do we want from our mothers when we are children? Complete submission. Oh, it's very nice and rational and respectable to say that a woman has every right to her life, to her ambitions, to her needs, and so on—it's what I've always demanded myself—but as a child, no, the truth is it's a war of attrition, rationality doesn't come into it, not one bit, all you want from your mother is that she once and for all admit that she is your mother and only your mother, and that her battle with the rest of life is over. She has to lay down arms and come to you. And if she doesn't do it, then it's really a war, and it was a war between my mother and me. Only as an adult did I come to truly admire her—especially in the last, painful years of her life—for all that she had done to claw some space in this world for herself.”

—from Swing Time by Zadie Smith

WEDNESDAY

I spent the last couple of weeks working on a new welcome illustration for Dear Somebody. I was inspired to do this by Adam Rex’s header, which I’ve loved ever since I saw it. This newsletter has been through several evolutions over the past few years, and I haven’t felt like it visually reflects where I am in my work, and who I am as a person, for awhile now. 

Mine’s not perfect but it does feel a lot more like me (perhaps for that very reason!). Also: I was able to experiment using mixed media (my dream is to work more like N—”a little bit of everything”), I learned a few things, and I showed myself, again, that doing something for no reason (other than I want to) is usually worth the effort—which is just plain ol’ nice. 

THURSDAY

View fullsize

View fullsize

As a longtime fan of Cal Newport’s work, I was pleased to provide a few words for his latest book, Slow Productivity. Here’s what I had to say about it:

The belief that the process of creating art should, and can, be completed quickly is the artist’s greatest source of discontent. It is the reason many artists develop imposter syndrome and become disillusioned with their work and their own abilities. Often, it is why artists stop creating work at all. In Slow Productivity, Cal Newport effectively charts the birth and growth of productivity culture, and explains how it led to the removal of personal values, deep focus, and deliberate care in our work and communities. His book is an opportunity to understand why we so often feel frustrated with the demands of the world we live in—and what we can do if we choose to turn inward, once again.

Slow Productivity was published this week and is available everywhere books are sold.

FRIDAY

Poetry is not made of words.
I can say it’s January when
it’s August. I can say, “The scent
of wisteria on the second floor
of my grandmother’s house
with the door open onto the porch
in Petaluma,” while I’m living
an hour’s drive from the Mexican
border town of Ojinaga.
It is possible to be with someone
who is gone. Like the silence which
continues here in the desert while
the night train passes through Marfa
louder and louder, like the dogs whining
and barking after the train is gone.

—The Presence in Absence by Linda Gregg

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: For the love of sisters

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

MONDAY 

I was able to speak with the wonderful Margo Tantau on her podcast Windowsill Chatsabout building a life of creativity and purpose. We also discuss living according to your values, being dedicated to your vision, and what I believe most holds us creatives back from success. You can listen to Episode 146 here. 

TUESDAY

My sister and her family visit for a couple days, a trip that comes and goes so quickly that it feels like a blur even while it’s happening. In tow are my two beautiful nephews and my niece, Z, who was born only a handful of weeks before N. The two girls are as different in personality and behavior as they are close in age: where N is cautious and meditative, Z is adventurous and impulsive. Together, though, there is some semblance of balance. 

Different doesn’t always attract. It was more than two decades before my sister and I discovered our own rhythm, mashed somewhere between college graduations, first apartments, and marriages. Each time I reached a life milestone she’d already passed through it brought us closer together. For awhile, we’d swim in the same waters, and then she’d go on ahead again. 

Our personalities follow traditional birth order to a certain degree. As the older child, my sister tends to be a bit of a perfectionist while I enjoy making a good mess with my hands. She’s conscientious and thoughtful, quick to say the right thing and mean it; I have learned how to be less judgmental, more vulnerable. I am confrontational, she likes keeping the peace. We’re both cripplingly self-aware. 

We take the kids to the City Museum, the emerald city of St. Louis. Z bounces off the industrial bridges and steel-roped ladders, climbing as quick as her agile little body allows. N clings to her dad hard. She doesn’t want to climb, she doesn’t want to run, she doesn’t want to try—or she does, but not now. I encourage her, and then fight the urge to continue. How often have I wanted the very same thing my parents have wanted for me, simply in my own time? 

Z and her brothers are out of sight, lost somewhere in the noise of Sabreliner 40 aircrafts and frighteningly oversized slides. Slowly, N begins to open. She walks across a four-foot-wide Slinkie and peers through each square window. She watches. She avoids the vertical tunnels, opting instead for the narrow stairs, and climbs to the top of a castle turret. I ask her what she’s thinking, as I often do, but she doesn’t answer. She watches. Eventually, she lets her dad’s hand go and climbs a half-dome gym on her own. Slowly, I see her unfurl. She’s a lily, blooming—not hesitantly, but with deliberation, the way someone who knows herself well does. 

After awhile, we all meet up and herd the kids inside for lunch. There, surrounded by half-eaten pretzels and hot dogs, ice cream cups and toddler water bottles, N and Z begin to run. They run back and forth across the 1870’s Vault Room, chasing each other with open arms. Z speeds across and N helps her up when she falls. N laughs hysterically, falling on purpose, and Z puts out her hand for the assist. They smile and hug, their faces full of childhood and joy. This is special, I think to myself, as I look at their eyes which are looking into each others’. 

I’ve spent my entire life counting the ways my sister and I are different, as if it matters, as if we’d allow the very things that make us who we are keep us apart. I know, with certainty, that this is driven by the fear that we one day will. 

I note this now, as I watch N and Z fall to the ground still hugging, still laughing, their arms braided together. At my age, it is obvious: the way sisters can fall apart if they’re not too careful, how all friendships—even those bound by blood—need nurturing, like young lilies waiting for bloom. 

To N and Z, it is far less complicated. As it should be. The afternoon sunlight streams through the second-story window. One child’s tiny hand prepares to reach out in anticipation, in knowing—before the other child falls. Slowly, my heart grounds itself. 

WEDNESDAY

On learning how to see in our creative work:

“I am astonished in my teaching to find how many poets are nearly blind to the physical world. They have ideas, memories, and feelings, but when they write their poems they often see them as similes. To break this habit, I have my students keep a journal in which they must write, very briefly, six things they have seen each day—not beautiful or remarkable things, just things. This seemingly simple task usually is hard for them. At the beginning, they typically "see" things in one of three ways: artistically, deliberately, or not at all. Those who see artistically instantly decorate their descriptions, turning them into something poetic: the winter trees immediately become "old men with snow on their shoulders," or the lake looks like a "giant eye." The ones who see deliberately go on and on describing a brass lamp by the bed with painful exactness. And the ones who see only what is forced on their attention: the grandmother in a bikini riding on a skateboard, or a bloody car wreck. But with practice, they begin to see carelessly and learn a kind of active passivity until after a month nearly all of them have learned to be available to seeing—and the physical world pours in. Their journals fill up with lovely things like, "the mirror with nothing reflected in it." This way of seeing is important, even vital to the poet, since it is crucial that a poet see when she or he is not looking—just as she must write when she is not writing. To write just because the poet wants to write is natural, but to learn to see is a blessing. The art of finding in poetry is the art of marrying the sacred to the world, the invisible to the human.” 

—The Art of Finding by Linda Gregg

THURSDAY

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

—George Bernard Shaw

FRIDAY

Old friend now there is no one alive
who remembers when you were young
it was high summer when I first saw you
in the blaze of day most of my life ago
with the dry grass whispering in your shade
and already you had lived through wars
and echoes of wars around your silence
through days of parting and seasons of absence
with the house emptying as the years went their way
until it was home to bats and swallows
and still when spring climbed toward summer
you opened once more the curled sleeping fingers
of newborn leaves as though nothing had happened
you and the seasons spoke the same language
and all these years I have looked through your limbs
to the river below and the roofs and the night
and you were the way I saw the world

—Elegy for a Walnut Tree by W. S. Merwin

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: Should I be doing more?

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

MONDAY

So many friends and peers have been sharing How it Feels to Find Yourself, which means a great deal to me. Some highlights are linked below:

• The May/June issue of Spirituality & Health features a palette from the book on the back page. It addresses an overwhelming dilemma for my generation: Should I Be Doing More?

• A beautiful excerpt and look into how I crafted the palettes in this book, featured in Issue #57 of Uppercase Magazine:

• A shout-out in The Daily Good, one of my favorite newsletters!

• My conversation with Julie Bogart of the Brave Writer Podcast, where we discuss confidence in parenting, adapting to new stages in life, and prioritizing what matters most.

• The Artist’s Life: my conversation with Tessa Tovar of Outside the Studio, where we discuss embracing fear to mitigate major life changes, a formula for finding inspiration in everyday life, and how to keep going. 

TUESDAY

Although How it Feels to Find Yourself just came out, I’ve been working on a new journal proposal for the past few months. Inspired by my sister, I’ve been focusing on the idea of letting go: how it’s only possible to change, grow, and blossom by leaving large swaths of ourselves—and our beliefs—behind. 

I’m really thrilled, and humbled, to say that this journal will be published with TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in 2025: 

I’m on maternity leave for the rest of this year—let’s see how long I last—but I’m excited to develop this journal come January. 

As you can probably imagine, not working is pretty hard for me. I’ve measured my self-worth in terms of accomplishment, productivity, and ladders climbed for decades now. I’m using my time off to unlearn these habits and thought patterns, though if I’m being honest, it’s slow going. Some of the questions I ask myself in the middle of the night sound irrational, but I wonder if we don’t all consider them from time to time. One in particular that I keep coming back to is: If I’m not in service of someone or something else, am I still of inherent value?

For now, I’m savoring where my work has brought me, appreciating those who have helped me, and learning to…let the rest go. 

WEDNESDAY

“As someone who thrives on receiving recognition for my work, the private daily work of intentional parenting has been challenging. Still, there are days when it sounds appealing to simplify life and settle solely into a singular role at home, especially knowing that this choice would be praised by at least one segment of society. But, if I were to completely exit the paid labor market, would I be supporting an ideology that I disagree with? Would I inadvertently be acting as an obedient pawn of the patriarchy if I fully embraced the role of stay-at-home mom?

Clinging to my space in the workforce isn’t necessarily the progressive conscience-liberating solution it masquerades as. It doesn’t absolve me from participation in a suppressive system; it simply shifts my actions to participate in the parallel system of capitalism. Any labor outside of the economy (housework, caretaking, etc.) cannot be recognized as valuable in a system dependent on the fallacy of financial achievement being the ultimate goal. This creates a lose-lose situation for those seeking a path of theoretical progressive purity. 

Naming the inability to win at this tug-of-war game might be just what overthinking mothers like myself need. Once we accept the impossibility of escaping perceived participation in either system, we mentally free ourselves to design lives that make sense based on our unique individual situations, partnerships, and desires.” 

—How One Mother is Reframing Her Relationship to “Work-Life Balance” by Ellie Hughes

THURSDAY

F has been sleeping fitfully for the past few nights, waking up every hour or two in tears, screaming for something I can’t provide. At five in the morning, I nurse and T rocks her; at six she wakes and I bolt straight up in bed; at seven she wakes and I again bolt straight up in bed; at seven-thirty we get N out of bed, brush our teeth and head straight for the coffee.

All morning F fusses. I try to do a load of laundry but she cries, I try to nurse her but she cries. I check for gas and boredom; I try tummy time and give her a tour of the house; I rock her, swaying side to side. She cries, stopping only to scream. She cries some more. I take all her clothes off and for a few minutes she holds onto relief, kicking the air like an acrobat, smiling broadly at the ceiling fan. When I finally exhale, heaving a sigh of relief, she opens her small bow of a mouth and again, begins to cry.

I’m not sure what else to do, and for once, my being at a loss doesn’t seem to matter: sometimes another person will feel hurt or angry no matter what you do. Instead, I choose not to panic; one can only do so much at the mercy of a six-week old. I put a diaper back on F, and then follow with her clothes. I pick her up slowly and put her on my chest. I sit down on the couch and put my feet up. I inhale deeply from my stomach and exhale audibly through my mouth. 

After a moment, I realize I’m being watched. I look down and see two large, brown eyes looking back up at me, like a fawn wandered into my arms. I wonder what F is thinking; I wonder how someone’s face can be so small and so sweet. She is quiet. I am quiet. For the next twenty minutes, we just sit—quietly, and listen to each other breathe. 

FRIDAY

I’m not feeling strong yet, but I am taking
good care of myself. The weather is perfect.
I read and walk all day and then walk to the sea.
I expect to swim soon. For now I am content.
I am not sure what I hope for. I feel I am
doing my best. It reminds me of when I was
sixteen dreaming of Lorca, the gentle trees outside
and the creek. Perhaps poetry replaces something
in me that others receive more naturally.
Perhaps my happiness proves a weakness in my life.
Even my failures in poetry please me.
Time is very different here. It is very good
to be away from public ambition.
I sweep and wash, cook and shop.
Sometimes I go into town in the evening
and have pastry with custard. Sometimes I sit
at a table by the harbor and drink half a beer.

—The Letter by Linda Gregg

xx,

M

---

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