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: 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: A wish.

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

MONDAY 

For N’s third birthday, I tell her we can have a sleepover in her room. She’s been begging me to sleep in her bed for weeks, informing me each night that if she had it her way, I would stay in her room forever.

We brush our teeth and get ready for our slumber party. We drag her grass-green nuggets onto the floor and cover each with a blanket: hers, a rainbow; mine, rainbow-colored. We each get a stuffy: her, Daniel Tiger; me, a bunny. We each get a book: her, High-Flying Helicopters; me, Madeline and the Bad Hat. We turn on her color-changing Little Prince starlight, turn the bedroom lights off, and climb under the covers. N is jubilant, excited for her first sleepover; I am just as jubilant, excited to be in bed at 6:45 pm. 

N kicks off the covers and then asks me to tuck her back in. We do this four times before my spirit begins to blur. She gets several drinks of water, marveling at the autonomy that a life outside crib bars can offer. She asks if we can share a blanket. We do and she closes her eyes. “I am asleep,” she announces, her entire body still as stone. I close my own eyes for a moment, opening them again when I feel her gaze on me. “Hi,” she says, through a small smile. Her face is an entire field of wildflowers, quiet and soft among the evening stars. 

She tells me she had a good birthday. While she talks about her cake and friends and wonders if it’ll still be her birthday tomorrow, I think about her very existence—how quickly it came to be, and how each day, I realize it’s a miracle that she still is. 

It’s been three whole years since she was nothing but a seed in my belly, a small-nothing-speck no different from the small-nothing-specks floating in the air or trapped in the lint catch or orbiting the stars—no different at all except she happened to become, and now, oddly, I watch her become more of herself each day.

Under the covers, while staring into my child’s small face, I admit to myself I am not entirely present. My mind is occupied, so crowded with thought that the thoughts themselves have surely become visible—by ongoing violence, both here and overseas. I bake banana bread muffins for N’s birthday breakfast and feel strange, disconnected by the compartmentalization required to complete ordinary tasks. I search online for balloons, tensely, avoiding photo and video coverage of the ongoing bombings. My stomach is no longer able to digest the violence it could before I became a mother. I have that privilege—the luxury of avoidance. I feel strange about that, too. 

By now, N has abandoned her side of our makeshift bed and slid over to mine. She asks if we can hold hands and I say yes. She scoots closer to me, her breath on my neck, her small hand in mine. I think about all the children who have been killed before my mind reminds me that these are only the ones I know of. For each one I see, there are a dozen more that no one writes about, that I don’t read about, that I don’t think about or stop in my day to wonder about: the faceless and the voiceless, invisible lives and invisible deaths. I see them all in the faces of my children, in the face of this child who, more than anything else, wants only to sleep next to her mother. 

What is there to do, I wonder, except love her more? What is there to do, except teach her how to love more deliberately—to open her heart wider, to not let it become calloused or closed by injustice and unfairness? What else is there to do, except teach her how to love herself fiercely, so that loving others comes more easily? What else is there to do but tell her not to let someone else’s indifference douse or dampen her inner flame, to show her how hard I work at lighting my own? 

I pry myself from my own thoughts, all too aware that as far as motherhood goes, years one through three have swept through me—long in each moment but still, too quick to even recall. The years flicker by without my knowing, like my life is a long spell I’ve been cast under. If I’m not careful, year four will slip by, too, a stockinged shadow I can’t catch.

I am not a praying person, but I hold N’s hand and make a wish: a feeble utterance to the universe to absorb some of this world’s hatred so our children do not have to. 

Then I turn my mind off. There are little hands touching my face, little hands that I can still hold, little hands that have not been taken from me.

*Please read more about a ceasefire resolution and ask Congress to protect the children in Gaza and Israel.

TUESDAY

Each year I have magnificent birthday cake plans and each year, I scramble to actually execute—but I’m quite thrilled that I managed to continue my tradition of baking a birthday cake for my kid!

For N’s third birthday, I made this pumpkin birthday cake inspired by her beautiful paintings. I loved making it; she loved eating it. Joy hides inside the little things. Joy waits for us to find it. 

WEDNESDAY

“Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face… Love your mouth… This is flesh… Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms… Love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver — love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts… love your heart. For this is the prize.”

—from Beloved by Toni Morrison

THURSDAY

Kena of All You Are was one of the first people who gave me a chance when I was beginning my creative career. She started BRIKA, a beautiful shop in Toronto which sold my books and products, and truly sang my praises to whoever would listen. She believed in me when I didn’t know why I should believe in myself. Over the years, she has turned into a trusted friend and wise, older sister. This unfolding—from a stranger to a sister—is, in itself, so special. 

As you can imagine, it was especially fulfilling to talk to her last week on her podcast, Be All You Are, about listening to yourself, the discomfort necessary for growth and personal expansion, and, of course, how it feels to find yourself. 

You can listen to our episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

FRIDAY

Leo Cruz makes the most beautiful white bowls;
I think I must get some to you
but how is the question
in these times

He is teaching me
the names of the desert grasses;
I have a book
since to see the grasses is impossible

Leo thinks the things man makes
are more beautiful
than what exists in nature

and I say no.
And Leo says
wait and see.

We make plans
to walk the trails together.
When, I ask him,
when? Never again:
that is what we do not say.

He is teaching me
to live in imagination:

a cold wind
blows as I cross the desert;
I can see his house in the distance;
smoke is coming from the chimney

That is the kiln, I think;
only Leo makes porcelain in the desert

Ah, he says, you are dreaming again

And I say then I’m glad I dream
the fire is still alive

—Song by Louise Glück, who died a week ago today. RIP. 

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Time is strange

A glimpse of Maja, the painting I’ve spent my mornings working on.

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

MONDAY

Time is strange. It is both urgent and painstakingly slow. 

Today, it strikes me that I have less than 3 months to finish my thesis picture book, my dissertation, and my final exhibition. Less than 3 months to prepare a nursery. Less than 3 months until my next book is released. At the same time, I have almost 3 more months of medication, of uncomfortable sleep, of monitoring my blood sugar, of remembering to take half a dozen pills. 3 more months of sharing my body with another person. 

Time is strange. It is what I govern my days by, despite knowing that it is entirely made up. It is both urgent and painstakingly slow. 

I read Otis Kidwell Burger’s diary entry and something about her experience, so familiar and unlike mine at the same time, eases the restless in me:

But surely everyone, at one time or another, has awakened thinking himself in some other place or in some earlier time. The conception of time depends, then, I suppose, upon the perception of continuity, and for this reason a woman's sense of time must be quite different from a man's. Her sense of continuity is internal and natural, not the external and easily interrupted continuity of clocks and calendars. She connects directly to the source of time, and the moon that pulls the tides around the world also pulls the hormone tide within her; her months are marked off without need of calendar. She carries her months, her years, her spring and winter within herself.

TUESDAY

I’m very excited by Violeta Lopez’s work, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting her latest picture book, At the Drop of a Cat (Enchanted Lion Books) ever since I first caught glimpses of it last year. I’m someone who becomes easily trapped in thinking rather than doing: I mull over my process. I think through ideas and experiments without actually just…trying them. This is rooted in fear of failure—I’m aware of that, yes, but having the awareness hasn’t made it any easier to change. 

Watching Violeta’s process of creating this book is eye-opening. Instantly, it becomes clear that there are particular perspectives that are attainable only through our hands, that can only be conjured by the grit of paper and pencil on our fingers, inaccessible entirely to our minds. 

In my own thesis project, I’ve finally finished re-writing the manuscript to my picture book. It took me over a dozen rewrites, 3 entirely different storylines, and many months to finally hear my own voice throughout the book. As I begin to paginate and create thumbnail artwork for the book, I find myself leaning forward, excited and nervously, by Violeta’s method for putting together a story. Rather than our own thoughts or ideas or even the stirring of our own hearts, it is the doing that continues to surprise us the most. 

WEDNESDAY

“I also have a full life outside. I work from home, but I travel a lot. Those two things mean I have to be very routine based, which sometimes means knowing when to stop writing. Every day, if I’m not done working by like five or six, I give myself a hard stop and I step away from my computer and usually don’t return to it. I call it quits for the day and any emails can wait until the next day. For me, knowing when to stop writing was a problem a couple years ago. I would work late into the night. I was telling myself I did my best writing at half ‘til midnight and then work deep until like 2am, and that wasn’t really serving anything. I’m much more excited about the idea of waking up and getting to writing now. The fact that I can wake up and know that I can put words on a blank page is more exciting to me than feeling like I have to put words on a blank page in order to earn the right to sleep.”

—Hanif Abdurraqib on avoiding burnout in creative work

THURSDAY

“…While we wait we must remain prepared and alert, and one way to do so is to write things down, in order to advance the idea, as this indicates a readiness to receive. Beware, however, of the idea that comes too easily, as this is often a residual idea and only compelling because it reminds us of something we have already done. We don’t want an idea that is like something we have done before. We don’t want a second-hand idea. We want the new idea. We want the beautiful idea.

One day, you will write a line that feels wrong, but at the same time provides you with a jolt of dissonance, a quickening of the nervous system. You will shake your head and write on, only to find that you come back to it, shake your head again, and carry on writing — yet back you come, again and again. This is the idea to pay attention to, the difficult idea, the disturbing idea, shimmering softly among all the deficient, dead ideas, gently but persistently tugging at your sleeve.”

—Nick Cave on how to recognize when something you’ve written is worthwhile

FRIDAY

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
                             except the Sea of Azov
or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois
strikes me
I like it

I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my
   heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop
   and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved
   rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting
   by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty
   to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
   watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

—from Things I Didn’t Know I Loved by Nâzim Hikmet

(This poem was sent to me by Stephanie, a subscriber. My favorite gift to receive is a poem. If you’d like to share your favorites, please do so in the comments below for us all to enjoy.)

If you'd like to support me, you can pre-order my upcoming book of illustrated essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself, for yourself, a loved one, or both! My art prints, stationery, and books are available through BuyOlympia.

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: The perfect day.

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

MONDAY

I climb into the car after a long day of classes and J, who's visiting for the weekend, tells me she's brought along a bottle of The Perfect Day all the way from New York, having socked it away in the airplane's belly, along with dozens of bagels.

We do the perfect day exercise, the one where you imagine your perfect day 10 years from now. In it, I live in a house with a separate studio and a family that looks just like mine. In it, I write stories and help other people share theirs. In it, a friend comes by to hang on the porch and share in laughter. In it, I feel good, with a body less stressed, with a mind less stretched. In it, there is time for me.

Between J and me are 19 years of memories. My 15-year old self never imagined friendships this old, but here we are: still friends. I know time goes on, but where does it go? Time becomes the ease, I think––the natural laughter, the conversations about bodies, and babies, and home. Time becomes the tears in my throat. A swift catch when I slip on the ice, all the words we don't say, her hand in mine.

We're sitting outside in the fifty-something warm-wash weather, the sunshine glinting in our eyes, legs draped over the porch walls. I can tell it's happening right now––the meaningful part of life, the part you remember years later, the part that wakes the sleeping bird in your heart.

I'm going to remember this, I say aloud. You and me on the porch, this orange wine, this moment in time. The perfect day.

TUESDAY

In an effort to understand what direction I'd like to take my illustration work in, I've been making collages. Here is one, and another, and another.

Collage opens up the way I think about composition and layout, by providing more air between my subjects and their environment. Everything in the picture breathes.

WEDNESDAY

"Does working so much fulfill you?” a skeptical writer friend asked; I’d opened up to him a bit about my other lives, then regretted it. I wasn’t trying to show off. I was just trying to explain why I’d been tired for an entire month. He seemed annoyed by how much I worked and, after expressing concern for my general health, suggested that, because I wasn’t giving the M.F.A. my full attention, I wasn’t taking my writing seriously. I was taking my writing seriously, but I also needed to make rent. He, on the other hand, was fine financially, and would continue to be fine, even if he never made money from his writing. I brushed off his judgment and, for a while longer, we continued to be good friends. The obvious but tedious fact is that some of us are conditioned to work much harder than others because some of us have a lot more to prove. Had I mentioned this to my friend, he would have rolled his eyes.

–from Weike Wang's Notes on Work

THURSDAY

Factories at Clichy: might be my favorite Van Gogh? I stared at it not-long-enough, while N ran amuck, her tiny feet slamming echos through the museum. Next time, we'll look at this painting first.

FRIDAY

It has begun: they climb the trolleys

at the thief market, breaking

all their moments in half. And the army officers

in the clanging trolleys shoot at our neighbors’ faces

and in their ears. And the army officer says: Boys! Girls!

take your partner two steps. Shoot.

It has begun: I saw how the blue canary of my country

picks breadcrumbs from each soldier’s hair

picks breadcrumbs from each soldier’s eyes.

Rain leaves the earth and falls straight up as it should.

To have a country, so important,

to run into walls, into streetlights, into loved ones, as one should.

Watch their legs as they run and fall.

I have seen the blue canary of my country

watch their legs as they run and fall.

–from Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic: 2. 9AM Bombardment

xo,

M

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