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: We must supply our own light.

A recent screenprint with gold leaf applied by hand, 18”x24” on Arches paper

Dear Somebody,

Welcome to the first edition of this newsletter hosted on Substack! Thanks for bearing with me while I migrated. While this weekly letter will always be free, I’m considering adding a paid tier to this newsletter, likely this upcoming May.

If you’re interested in seeing more from me, please let me know what excites you most. Thank you to those who have already written to me. 

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

MONDAY

After a year of working on it, between projects and books and school work, I finally completed this large screen print as a belated gift for T. After years of promising to do so, it was important for me to make something for him using my hands—something that had the full imprint of me embedded within it. The print is hand-pulled using black Speedball ink on Arches paper, and then gilded with gold leaf. My gold leaf application is imperfect but deliberate, and the child in the drawing is modeled after N. Both of these elements contribute meaning to this piece of work. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The print is inspired by one of T’s favorite quotes by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, originally said in his 1968 interview with Playboy Magazine: 

Playboy: If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living?

Kubrick: Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism—and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in faith and in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong—and lucky—he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death—however mutable man may be able to make them—our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

TUESDAY

I’ve found the following encouraging as I work on rewriting my picture book manuscript:

• Picture books, drawing, and storytelling: Emma Carlisle on The Good Ship Illustration podcast

• Watercress by Andrea Wang and Jason Chin, one of the most perfect picture books I’ve read. Poignantly written and beautifully illustrated, and never saying too much.

• Three pages a day by Oliver Burkeman (originally inspired by Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages)

WEDNESDAY

“I seem to live on moods, ups and downs. And I seem to be repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Some mistakes are beautiful. There is a beauty in mistakes that you can’t find anywhere else, maybe that’s why. And I keep avoiding any definite ties with anything and anybody. There are places and moments during which I feel that I would like to always remain there. But no: next moment I am gone. I seem to enjoy only brief glimpses of intimacy, happiness. Short concentrated glimpses. I do not believe that they could be extended, prolonged. So I keep moving ahead, looking ahead for other moments. Is it in my nature or did the war do that to me? The question is: was I born a Displaced Person, or did the war make me into one? Displacement, as a way of living and thinking and feeling. Never home. Always on the move.” 

—The diary entry of Jonas Mekas, a Lithuanian refugee who escaped his Nazi-occupied country for New York City in 1949

THURSDAY

When I wake up this morning, everything is wet. The roof, the windows, the earth. I look outside at my favorite sky, which is white and streaked with nothing. I look outside at my favorite sky, which is cold and the color of nothing. I smile. I slept all right. I feel strangely alive.

N puts her rain boots on and we go puddle jumping for a few minutes. We look closely at the water covering our feet, at the gasoline that pools on the surface, the leaves and debris swirling underneath. Want me to put on the rain song? I ask her as we get into the car. Yeah, she says, and waits as Nina Simone’s version of I Think It’s Going to Rain Today climbs out of the speakers. Is this the rain song? N asks before requesting the ABC song instead. I pretend not to hear her and play Claudine Longet’s version next and by now, no one is listening to the music except for me. 

There is rain on the windshield, rain drizzling through the speakers, rain running through the streets. In my heart, human kindness is overflowing. 

FRIDAY

Ocean, don’t be afraid.
The end of the road is so far ahead 
it is already behind us. 
Don’t worry. Your father is only your father
until one of you forgets. Like how the spine
won’t remember its wings
no matter how many times our knees
kiss the pavement. Ocean,
are you listening? The most beautiful part
of your body is wherever
your mother's shadow falls.
Here's the house with childhood
whittled down to a single red trip wire.
Don't worry. Just call it horizon
& you'll never reach it.
Here's today. Jump. I promise it's not
a lifeboat. Here's the man
whose arms are wide enough to gather
your leaving. & here the moment,
just after the lights go out, when you can still see
the faint torch between his legs.
How you use it again & again
to find your own hands.
You asked for a second chance
& are given a mouth to empty out of.
Don't be afraid, the gunfire
is only the sound of people
trying to live a little longer
& failing. Ocean. Ocean —
get up. The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world. Here's
the room with everyone in it.
Your dead friends passing
through you like wind
through a wind chime. Here's a desk
with the gimp leg & a brick
to make it last. Yes, here's a room
so warm & blood-close,
I swear, you will wake —
& mistake these walls
for skin.
—Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong by Ocean Vuong

xx,

M

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