Dear Somebody: The sound of my creativity.

Combing through the paintings from my picture book and starting all over again

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

MONDAY 

It’s harder to wake up this week but I do it anyhow—to exercise, to sit, to write. I take on an essay assignment I could’ve (should’ve?) passed on—and now the question of it lingers, imploring when I’m going to write it, how I’m going to illustrate it, if it’ll be good enough, as if anything we make ever feels good enough. 

It’s harder to keep my eyes open this week, the tug towards bed so great after the girls are tucked in and quiet, but I do it anyhow—curled up on the couch, typing away, striking out my thoughts, rewriting clumsy sentences multiple times. Far past the hour of sleep, I paint the faces of my family. Our skins are too orangey-red or peachy and our shadows reach all the wrong places for I need light to gauge color correctly, and the sun has long said goodnight. 

T keeps me company. He looks over every now and then, silently measuring progress, wondering why I took on an assignment that doesn’t pay my rate and that I don’t have time for. I could be sleeping. I could be reading. If I choose to work, I should be working on my upcoming book deadline, and if I wanted to do something for me, there are plenty of poems waiting to be written—for myself and for Margaux Kent. I could’ve; I should’ve; I did not. 

One at a time, the poems are written. How? Slowly, that’s how. The essay, long fleshed out in my mind, is finally typed out for unknown eyes to read. How? One sentence at a time. This newsletter, which I’d almost abandoned for next week—because surely, something has to go—is, too, written, and with care. How? In the early hours of the morning, when F just begins to stir and the mourning doves mourn so loudly that I stop every few minutes to listen. 

It’s harder to find time this week, but I find it because there is a picture in my heart that wants to be drawn. At first it is nothing—a blank page that frightens me. But line by line, I begin to build and slowly, it takes shape. I correct skin color, I draw in each crumbling brick, I draw and redraw faces until they come alive, until they come into their own. I take more than one hour I don’t have to figure out how to draw my mother’s hand. This used to be a slog, but now it’s just fun. 

I didn’t have to take this assignment, it’s true, but I heard the sound of my creativity and chose to follow. I’ve lost her before, almost completely to the pressure of achievement, the demands of paid work, the tangle of self-worth. I’d lost her so deeply that it took me years to quiet the sound of everything around me so I could hear her once again. 

The sound of a picture in my heart is the sound of an essay in my head. The sound of my creativity is the sound of my own voice. When she speaks, I listen. 

TUESDAY

I’m currently listening to Dave Eggers’ The Eyes and the Impossible audiobook while drawing or doing my chores. The book is read by Ethan Hawke, who reads it like a very good actor in a very good performance. At first I was put off by the listening—it almost seemed like too much, a sensory overload, but after I read Taylor Sterling’s thoughts on picture books as performances, I started listening again, and now each time I listen, I am alone in an auditorium watching Ethan Hawke perform in a play as Johannes, a free dog. It is bewildering, encompassing, joyful.

“I don’t know if the love of a friend is more powerful than that of a family member, but it’s definitely less talked about. That’s why, in art, depictions of committed friendships hit us so hard. Johannes and his friends show up, and don’t ever question whether any of their group will show up. It’s a given that they will be there. A lot of friendship is just a matter of presence over time. Being there year after year, showing up at good times, at banal times, and times of great struggle. The animals in the book are all adults, alone but for each other, and best of all, they’re united by a common purpose. Nothing is better than that—having something urgent to do, and doing it with the people you love.”

—Dave Eggers on The Eyes and The Impossible

WEDNESDAY

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

—from the preface of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, filed many years ago under List of Quotes I’d Like to One Day Paint and Preserve

THURSDAY

Last November, N and T planted tulips in the cold, hard ground and hoped for the best; this is a photo of the second bloom that pushed her way through the earth. 

Each day, N comes home from school and counts how many new faces are showing. Like her, it is always a surprise.

FRIDAY

I have spent a year mostly alone.
Walking a lot.
With a poetic attachment
to street drawings.
Staring at concrete.
My shoes.
And going over my life.
Situations.
Walking
and sitting in my room.
Or movies.
Or reading.
Working. Practicing the 
new patience.
The year has been good.
With long thoughts.
Care to myself.

—from Six Poems by Aram Saroyan

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Letting go.

Page 150 from my book of essays, 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’m reading more middle grade these days, both because it’s good reading (for the most part) and because I’d like to write a middle grade novel one day. I just finished Pax: Journey Home by Sarah Pennypacker.

On recommendation from Margaux Kent, I started reading Martyr! this week. So far, so good. I also enjoyed watching this interview with author Kaveh Akbar and Arian Moayed, where Kaveh speaks generously about how he crafted the book and what it feels like to live in the in-between, a topic I am perpetually interested in.

I pre-ordered Montana Poet Laureate Chris La Tray’s Becoming Little Shell and honestly can’t wait to receive it. I love Chris’s writing. It’s very clean. It’s precise. Something about it feels warm, alive. Maybe because he lives in accordance with the earth? Maybe because he writes with all of his senses? Maybe because he has a wonderful grasp on language and rhythm? Maybe because his thoughts appeal to me and give me something to reach for? Likely, all of the above. Give it a try. 

TUESDAY

Three years into motherhood, I’m just now beginning to understand why many parents are unable to separate themselves from their children. After swimming in your child’s vomit and tears for the better part of 20-something years, becoming ridiculously invested in even the most benign of their milestones (F and I are currently working on her wave), and using the better part of your brain and heart to shape theirs? After all that, it’s difficult to let go. 

As research for my own well-being, I’m reading a lot about letting go. In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle talks about how our only true reality is whatever we’re experience at this very moment. He says, “…to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner resistance to what is.” 

My brain knows all this but it still likes to live in the future, in a place that has never existed and never will—a place where my current grievance has disappeared and no new complaint has arrived to replace it. I want to change my brain, so I practice living in the now.

When N wakes up with the worst toddler stomach illness going around, I try to be present. Nothing I want to get done is going to happen, I say and open my arms to the now. This resignation sets me up for success. I find myself present through the tears, the laundry, the crackers, and the soup. T vacuums N’s room; I open a window and light a candle. When I walk in a few hours later, I’m overwhelmed by how beautifully clean it smells. Like a field of watered flowers ready for bloom. Not only is my nose working, but I’m paying attention to it. 

When F goes for her morning nap, I set N in front of the television and sit next to her to take notes for the essay I’m writing. After a few minutes, N announces that she’s done watching and wants to play. Right, I say, putting down my book and pen. Let’s play. We play Zingo and Genius Square. I study N’s strategy through the moves she makes. I see her concentration through her brows, but only the left one. She’s getting better at placing pieces without knocking others over. 

The day continues. F wakes up and N goes for her nap; N wakes up and F goes for her second nap. I drink a little coffee, I eat a cookie for comfort, I ask my editor for an extension on my deadline. The coffee is good, the cookie too sweet. I know my interest in sugar is emotional, so I only have one. Only occasionally do I find myself frustrated with all that is out of my control. I work on letting go.

By all measures, it’s been an ordinary Tuesday: a sick toddler, a restless baby, and two parents struggling to work from home. But as I make dinner for my family, it starts to feel a little special. It’s true that I didn’t get time to work on my assignments or keep up with my daily poem practice. It’s true that my book deadline is growing closer and closer. It’s true that there was no moment of quiet or solitude. But I did practice something notoriously difficult for me: I practiced letting go. 

Ooowee N, what a Tuesday!, I say, pouring myself a glass of wine. I read about tortoises aloud to her while smashing chickpeas and carrots for F’s screaming mouth. I don’t remember what the wine tasted like, only that it was perfect. The day is, finally, almost over. 

Mom, N says, looking at me with her big, serious eyes. I loved spending this Tuesday with you.

WEDNESDAY

I was interviewed by Avani Patel for Sahaj Kaur Kohli, MA, LGPC’s Culturally Enough, where we spoke about confidence being a skill you can build, the magic of poetry, and how so much of parenting our children is re-parenting ourselves. You can listen here. 

I haven’t shared too much about the Little Revolutions podcast episode I recorded with Freeda in London this past November, but only because I feel so many things about it and want to write about the experience properly. I hope to do that next week. In the meantime, you can listen to me and Masuma talk about redefining feminism as a mother. 

If you missed it last week, I talked with Andy J. Pizza of Creative Pep Talk about pushing through creative ruts and learning how to accept your own multiple (often competing) perspectives in Episode #438. 

THURSDAY

“HAVE FUN. I spent years focusing on skill development and losing the spark that made me feel so connected to my art. Remember that the joy is what will always drive you to make the best work—not money, success, or likes.”

—My advice to artists/my advice to myself, for Petya K. Grady’s How to Work Like An Artist. Lots of good advice from fellow artists and writers here. 

FRIDAY

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

—On Turning Ten by Billy Collins

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A poem a day.

Poem-writing at my messy, neglected desk: a longed-for part of each day.

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

MONDAY 

After F goes down for her first nap, I sit at my desk to write. Since November 7th, I’ve been in the business of writing poetry, a fact that continues to startle and amaze me. This practice happened into my life because of Margaux Kent, an old friend who has been writing and sharing poetry with two friends since April of this past year. The practice is simple. Each day, I write a poem, put it inside an envelope, and post it to Margaux. Each day she does the same, which means the amount of actual mail (ie: not a bill) that I receive has gone up exponentially. The amount of poetry I read has increased. My joy? It’s skyrocketed. 

I love poetry. I’ve always wanted to write poems. When I was younger and more daring, I actually did. As the years rolled on, the desire of being good—of being a “real” poet— became more important than the practice of writing poetry itself. This desire, which was actually a fear of failure, kept me from poetry. It placed a dividing line between me and the craft. It said: you are a reader, not a writer. In this way, this fear also kept me from myself. 

Creative life can be lonely; young-child life can be, too. I spend 90% of my time with my 7-month old, inside our home. It’s rare that I venture outside of our neighborhood. I haven’t been to a happy hour in years, and since F was born, I’ve taken a step back from my work and creative practice as well. My children are small and they require so much of me. I know the cliches are true: these years will evaporate much more quickly than each day feels. Also true: In this period of my life, there is less of me for myself. 

In November, I read about Margaux’s poetry project in her newsletter. Her dedication to this practice inspired me. To me, this practice isn’t a commitment to writing good poetry or becoming a good poet, but is, instead, a commitment to the oneself. It’s a commitment to internal listening, to writing for the sake of writing, to being in community with others. 

With hesitation, I comment on the post asking to join. A few minutes later, Margaux replies yes. With excitement. With open arms. Since early November, I’ve been writing a poem most every day. I write each by hand and place it inside a painted envelope. I walk to the blue post office box a couple of blocks away, usually with F in tow, and drop each one in. 

It’s December now. I’ve been writing daily poems for over a month. Here I am: a person who writes poetry. Like me, my poems are not good or bad; they just are. I am. A person. A poet. 

It’s difficult for me to put into words just how precious this practice is because it fulfills so many present needs: the need to write; the need for creative discipline; the need to capture small moments that otherwise go unnoticed or misremembered, swept into the wayside of magnificent-yet-ordinary detritus, like an orange peel or the sunlight’s hourly change. 

It fulfills a commitment to friendship; a need for knowing another more deeply; a need for vulnerability through craft. Each day, when I sit down to write, I think about how this creative practice gives me more than I thought it would: a change of intellectual scenery, a deeper affection for syllable-parsing and line breaks, the opportunity to rekindle a fractured creativity. Respite from a lonely few years. A coming up for air. Revival.

I write today’s poem and then place it in an envelope. I write Margaux’s name on the front and my own on the back. I don’t tell her this but I think about it now: that the beautiful part of this story isn’t in the poetry or the letters or the creative practice at all. It’s much more simple. It’s that when I saw a door and knocked, someone let me in. 

TUESDAY

“I can’t think of an act more generous than an atheist at prayer, who temporarily puts aside their disbelief in a god in order to bring comfort to a friend. Loosening your position for a moment, and doing something difficult because it has been asked of you by someone you care for, demonstrates a confidence in your beliefs, and shows that they are not so prideful or absolutist that they manifest into a smallness of being. 

Of course, to some this act will seem intellectually dishonest, a sham and a lie, but to others it will appear as the purest kindness, where heart eclipses mind, a true and complex gesture of what it means to love somebody. We show that in times of need we can do whatever is required of us, with a magnanimous heart, bending to the will of those we love. Understandably, it will be difficult for you to pray, but that is the very reason to do it. What is true friendship if we are not tested at times, if we are not prepared to soften our cherished ideals as an act of fidelity and commitment to those we love. In the end, this act of friendship may be the most eloquent prayer of all.”

—Nick Cave on praying as an atheist, which I interpreted as practical advice on being a human, a civilian, a friend. 

WEDNESDAY

John Hendrix, the chair of my MFA program in Illustration & Visual Culture, writes to ask if I’d consider sharing what I loved about our program. I’m nearly 8 months postpartum, which means it’s also been 8 months since I graduated from Washington University here in St. Louis. I live a stone’s throw from campus, so I think about school quite often. I miss being a student terribly; I knew that I would. 

Attending this program unlocked a lot for me, the most important being that it forced me to get out of my own way. I’ve always believed that if I could pick a vocation—either writing or drawing—I’d excel at one instead of chugging away, moderately, at both. This program gave me permission to not choose sides. It showed me the unique potential of being an artist who can share multiple perspectives of a story, through written and visual language. It gave me the strength—and the time—to begin working towards a new chapter of my career in children’s literature. 

I learned a lot about storytelling, developing a reliable creative practice, and creative discipline, but mostly, I learned more about myself: Who I am, what my values are, and the philosophy that will guide my work. I discovered what I want to make, why it matters, and who it is for. 

What you’ll get out of a graduate program is likely dependent on what you’re willing to put in. This program didn’t tell me what to think or believe or do—it didn’t give me a road map to follow, though I often wanted one. Instead, I was taught how to think: about storytelling, myself, and the impact this combination can have on the world. 

*If you have questions about this program or my experience at WashU, feel free to comment or email me.

THURSDAY

We watched Minari, finally, after the kids were asleep and the house was quiet and it was every bit as beautiful as we’d heard it was. An immigrant story can never not be beautiful, I think, because it always contains the full breadth of human experience: perspiration and heartbreak, incalculable risk; a heart now split in two, half of which can never be recovered from the country it was left in.

I watched most of Minari with my hands covering my eyes, which is how I watch any film worth watching these days. When it was over, I felt emptied, disappointed that life is so arduous for so many. T was mystified by my reaction. He beamed as the credits rolled, exhilarated by watching a family nearly broken by life’s difficult choices sew themselves back together. 

Willingly, I changed my perspective. 

FRIDAY

Suppose I say summer,
write the word “hummingbird,”
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

—Hummingbird by Raymond Carver

xx,

M

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