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

---

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

Dear Somebody: Paying attention.

An illustration for Issue #60 of Uppercase Magazine

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

MONDAY 

I bundle F up into a navy blue sweater onesie with a giant yellow smiley face on it, Mulan socks that are too big for her tiny rabbit feet, and a white snowsuit. She’s wailing, already, and we haven’t yet left the house. 

After a leisurely fall season, which is, hands-down, my favorite part about living in St. Louis, it’s finally cold. Uncomfortably so. I remind myself that the discomforts in life refresh us in all the ways a new year only promises to, and zip my coat up to the throat. 

It’s 8:30 in the morning and I haven’t had coffee, but as soon as the icy wind smacks me in the face, I feel invigorated, even giddy. To me, the most beautiful part about nature is that she doesn’t coddle. She can’t wait for us to keep up; she has far greater things to do. She thrashes and stomps and lingers. She doesn’t stop to think or wait for a better time. She heals herself the best she can. She considers the larger picture. She goes on.

F’s protests have quieted, subdued by all there is to digest. She looks at the bare arms of maples, dogwoods, and elms; she stretching her own. Branches scrape against buildings and the sky. The wind whistles as it passes through our clothes and hair, searching. Birds rummage against the wind, finding their way towards food or home. We listen to them sing while they work or play. Song is something that has a place almost anywhere. I want more of it. 

When I turn the corner towards our little free library, I feel a bolt of panic. Sharp and quiet. Since the first of January, I’ve noticed it more and more: the way the years are running away from me. The way they look back at me and laugh, remembering that I once worried that things would never change. 

N rides a bicycle and takes showers. She strips off her coat and sweaters to be closer to Sister Winter. She’s learning how to manage her own temper; I’m learning, too. She’s not in any rush; she takes a long time. She is quiet, observant—but now and then, she steps outside of herself to dance and laugh maniacally. In these moments, she is so uninhibited that my heart splinters. 

In the fall, she’ll start at a new school, maybe, and F will, too. They will reach for each other; I will have more time for myself. I know that this is what I’ve looked forward to, but it doesn’t feel satisfying. Raising children is such a mournful affair—a rush of head and heart, a constant coming up for air. Other than affection, what I’ve felt most over the past few years is internal conflict and a desire for solitude. Now, for the first time since becoming a mother, I feel a little lonely. 

The robins sing. F waves at them, then becomes distracted by her own hand. I see the miracle of song and wave. I see the miracle of ten tiny fingers on two tiny hands. I see the old years and the new years chasing each other, faster now, and then a blur.

I see the entire world standing before me. She says the same thing she always says, the same thing I know she’ll always say: I hope you’re paying attention.

TUESDAY

View fullsize

View fullsize

“This practice of rewriting my personal color story is useful in a few ways. I am more intimately privy to the inner workings of my own mind, able to discern why an individual shade, or an entire spectrum of a single hue—affects me in the way it does. I am able to pair and detach certain colors with specific memories, and therefore, emotions. I also find myself largely immune to the effects of commercial color marketing. Rather than feeling agitated by the color red, for example, which is routinely found in conjunction with extreme feelings of stress and urgency (stop signs, red lights, sirens, and all combinations of warnings), I feel interested, almost eager. All three of these emotional states—agitation, interest, and eagerness—are based in excitement, but only agitation (which is the combination of excitement and anxiety), has a negative effect on my body and mind.”

—An excerpt from “Emotional Color,” my latest Being column for Issue #60 of Uppercase Magazine

WEDNESDAY

I had the joy of speaking to Andrea Scher on the School of Wonder podcast, where we discussed confidence, creativity, and courage. This episode is available for streaming here. 

THURSDAY

I am: re-reading A Separate Peace, enjoying this artwork—especially as N learns her letters, watching Reservation Dogs, and thinking about love. 

I can’t stop thinking about this cover artwork, created by Tolkien to accompany a series of letters he wrote for his children. 

F and I listen to Joni Mitchell during breakfast. 

FRIDAY

The world is not simple.
Anyone will tell you.
But have you ever washed a person’s hair
over a tin bucket,
gently twisting the rope of it
to wring the water out?
At the end of everything,
dancers just use air as their material.
A voice keeps singing even
without an instrument.
You make your fingers into a comb.

—Tin Bucket by Jenny George

xx,

M

---

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

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

---

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

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

---

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