Dear Somebody: When I change my perspective.

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

MONDAY 

I’m agitated, disappointed in myself; I thought I’d be further along by now. I need to send my final illustrations to the client by this evening, but I’m still working on the first round of sketches. The day is mapped out between daycare pick-ups and drop-offs, graduate school classes, my job, and house chores. I have an exact amount of time slotted for each task; this is how I ensure everything gets done.

My expectations crowd me. They squeeze the life out of everything I do, making it impossible for me to be present. I focus on expectations (“Creating paintings that others will adore!” “I will be happy if I stick to my rigid schedule during these unprecedented times!”) that I have little control over. Expectations are unforgiving; they reduce our feelings of ease or imagination—two ingredients necessary for thriving creativity. It’s difficult to draw well with my brain in a vice, jammed between an increasingly long to-do list and a timer waiting to go off.

I decide to replace my expectations with intentions. I can’t control what happens, but I can choose how I want to feel, and quite frankly, I’m tired of feeling disappointment each day. I say it aloud: I intend to create work that meets others where they are. I intend to try my best with the time and limits I have. I intend to be kinder to myself.

I try this for a week and notice small shifts within. I’m able to recognize my progress and feel good about it, rather than obsessing over all I haven’t achieved. I feel calmer and in control. I’m less reliant on external circumstances for satisfaction or fulfillment, knowing that although I can’t always control what happens, I can control my intentions–what I choose to see, feel, and give—and that is enough.  

—from How it Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life’s Changes with Clarity, Purpose, and Heart, my book of illustrated essays

TUESDAY

It’s summer. I’m working, or trying to work, on two books currently—a new journal and a picture book. I care deeply about both. I’m knee deep in revisions for one and up to my nose in sketches for the other, and struggling to make progress on 12 hours of childcare a week. Some mornings I wake up empty—physically empty, like the engine in me has fallen out, and I know that emptiness will always find a place inside a body that is overtired. 

My work is solitary, which I love, but in this particular phase of life feels dangerously isolating. Isolation breeds self-doubt and discouragement—both are part of the territory, I know, of being an artist, but this year feels particularly prickly. It’s alarming just how negative the negative self-talk can get. How ugly can one’s self critic be? Pretty ugly. 

I’m lucky enough to recognize it, mostly, when it happens, and this week I deliberately pulled myself out from inside myself and showed up for 

Andy J. Pizza

 online pep rally, a virtual meeting of creatives, and I’m just so happy I did. Spending an hour with him and his supportive community reminded me that I’m a person, not simply a pair of hands, and I left the call feeling more human, which is what I really needed.

Right now, it’s an evening in late June. The house is quiet. I hear the crickets and wasps outside my studio window. I watch the sun fade, leisurely, to make way for moonlight. I think of myself decades from now, and wonder what future me will think of the life I live: with work that challenges and fulfills me, and a family who does the same; with a home that feels like home inside a city that doesn’t, but could, someday; with an overtired body that insists on keeping on; with a life that promises the same it does for everyone else—some constant, some change. 

I wonder if future me will miss the exhaustion and the noise: the constant running behind tiny feet, the incessant stream of questions, the tugging behind my knees when I’m cooking or working or attempting to form a thought. I wonder if future me will miss being this tired—not because it’s glamorous, but because it’s still beautiful— because it’s from giving my all, each day, to building a life that is richly, unbearably full. 

WEDNESDAY

A few things that are giving me inspiration right now:

The work of Bernadette Watts, which feels very classic. 

I am tired of Earth. These people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives. 

Sophie Blackall talks with Roger. 

THURSDAY

“The most important thing is the doing—integrating your life and your work and everything together.”

—Ruth Asawa

FRIDAY

As I turned over the last page, after many nights, a wave of sorrow enveloped me. Where had they all gone, these people who had seemed so real? To distract myself, I walked out into the night; instinctively, I lit a cigarette. In the dark, the cigarette glowed, like a fire lit by a survivor. But who would see this light, this small dot among the infinite stars? I stood a while in the dark, the cigarette glowing and growing small, each breath patiently destroying me. How small it was, how brief. Brief, brief, but inside me now, which the stars could never be.

—A Work of Fiction by Louise Glück

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: It's publication day!

Hi, friends.

I’m sending out a special note today because it’s publication day for How it Feels to Find Yourself!

This book is a hard won piece of my heart. I wrote the proposal and sold the book to my publisher during my first, extremely difficult pregnancy, while isolated on our farm in Nashville during the beginning of the pandemic. I then wrote the book, while still isolated on our farm, throughout the pandemic—this time with a tiny, crying newborn by my side.

The various sunrises I captured from our Nashville farm, while writing before the baby (and the world) woke.

I often woke up at 4:30 am to write in the darkness before the baby woke, watching the sun creep up over the tree line. I wrote in the bathroom, my laptop balanced on the vanity, wearing the baby while the exhaust fan hummed her to sleep. I wrote in a room full of unpacked boxes and utter debris during our move from Nashville to St. Louis, desperate to finish the manuscript before beginning my first semester of graduate school—which I was unable to do. I wrote the book in the mornings before and the evenings after class, while T took N to the zoo or the playground. I wrote on the weekends, around my homework and N’s nap schedule, wishing I had a little less on my plate. Like all good things, the writing in this book grew from a combination of determination, persistence, many tears, and a lot of support. 

I could not have written this book without my husband, T, who helped make it a priority for me to write, even when it came at the cost of his own work and ambition. I could not have written this book without my parents, who put their lives on hold to live mine with me throughout graduate school. I could not have written this book without N, who was with me first in my belly and then in my arms, and about whom so many of these essays are written. 

Early mornings with N on the farm, after I’d spend a few hours writing while she slept.

Purchase HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

“The book that we all need…It reminds us that regardless of the day we’ve experienced, we are still beautifully and devastatingly hopeful and human.”

–Cyndie Spiegal, best-selling author of Microjoys

HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF is a collection of paint palettes and short essays. Together, they work harmoniously in offering guidance for navigating the most important relationship in our lives: the one we have with ourselves. The book is full of thoughtful reflections on parenthood, friendship, love (for others and ourselves), family dynamics, and the larger questions we carry about finding our place in the world. Each essay is accompanied by a vibrant paint palette designed to help you find your way through the moment you’re in. 

If you enjoy reading this newsletter, this book is for you.

Purchase HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

Because of the year I’ve had (pregnancy, graduate school, and now a newborn), I’ve decided not to commit to my usual book events, interviews, or in-person signings. Instead, I’m hoping those of you who are really interested in my work will choose to support this book—and I hope that it will help you find a part of yourself that’s been hidden.

Here’s how you can support How it Feels to Find Yourself:

• Order a copy (or like, five) of How it Feels to Find Yourself

• Forward this newsletter to someone who will appreciate this book!

• Ask your local library to carry the book if you can’t afford to purchase it—knowing that your entire neighborhood will now have access to it!

• Ask your local bookstore to carry the book. I love local bookstores and want to support them as much as possible throughout this launch. 

• Write a review on Amazon so more people can find this book

• If you want to review or write about How it Feels to Find Yourself (or know someone who might), feature it in your publication/podcast/etc., or interview me — just reply to this email to reach me. Every little bit helps.

Purchase HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

THANK YOU for reading and for all of your support and encouragement. It means the world to me. 

See you on Friday with a new edition of Dear Somebody, where I’ll go a little bit deeper into the making of this book.

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A simple photograph

On my desk this week: a few in-progress illustrations for my thesis project.

Hi, friends.

Thanks so much for all of the support towards my accordion book, elegy/a crow/Baand for the warm reception to the Craft series! Most of you enjoyed a look into the process behind my work, so I’ll plan on continuing that series. I’m excited to. 

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

MONDAY

This simple photograph that T took of me and N a few weeks ago, newly clad in my third-generation hand-me-down from B, and before her, J. Prior to this photograph I was living my slovenly existence in too-big sweats and T’s old tees, since nothing fits and I have no time (or desire) to shop. 

Nothing makes me feel quite as cozy or cared for as a hand-me-down. I think of all each garment has seen: the laughter and tears housed inside the body it hugged, the hands that carefully held and washed it, the wear-and-tear that adorns only the most well-loved. Like a heart, a hand-me-down shows the signs and strengths of all it’s been through—and all it’s willing to take on.

There haven’t been many photos taken of me since N was born over 2 years ago. I’m still uncertain of my own appearance, and now with baby #2, I know it’ll still be some time yet before I feel comfortable in my body again. But this photo, taken randomly by afternoon sunlight in my parents’ temporary apartment, captures much of what I’d like to remember: the walls that sheltered the people who cared for me and my family during this pregnancy, the littlest heart who is so excited to become a big sister, and the hands that insisted on capturing this moment—because he believed it was important to. 

TUESDAY

“My daughters have pulled back the curtain to see that I am the false wizard, that I can offer no promises to them other than to point out the courage and wisdom and heart they already possess. All parents face this moment at some point, but I would have hoped to wait.

My worries hover in the back of my mind, keeping me awake in the dark hours poetically called madrugada in Spanish — the time before the dawn, when the world is quiet. I try not to share those worries with my daughters. That is not the honesty they need. Instead, they bubble up when I break a glass or burn dinner or stumble in any one of a million ways; then I am the kettle screaming to be removed from the heat.”

—My Child Is in an Impossible Place, and I am There With Her by Sarah Wildman, a beautifully-written and heartbreaking read about life, impossibility, and parenting

WEDNESDAY

“If you take a moment to really look at any of the ‘State of Children’ studies, it can be overwhelming. You could easily be thrown into spirals of hopelessness or “overwhelming I’m just not-enoughness”. Heck, just look at your local school and it’s easy to feel the weight of the work there is to be done right in your own backyard.

There’s so much work to be done. There’s so many kids. There’s just one you. There’s just one me. This is a great place to start.

Our best hope forward is not in using our imaginations to escape reality, but using our imaginations to create a better reality. There’s the world that is and there’s the world that could be. There’s also a you. There’s also a me.”

—State of the Children Address from Brad Montague’s newsletter, The Enthusiast

THURSDAY

“Part of it is observing oneself more impersonally… When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, “You’re too this, or I’m too this.” That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

—How to Be Less Harsh with Yourself (and Others) by Ram Dass, via The Marginalian

FRIDAY

On Earth, just a teaspoon of neutron star
would weigh six billion tons. Six billion tons.
The equivalent weight of how much railway
it would take to get a third of the way to the sun.
It’s the collective weight of every animal
on earth. Times three.

Six billion tons sounds impossible
until I consider how it is to swallow grief—
just a teaspoon and one might as well have consumed
a neutron star. How dense it is,
how it carries inside it the memory of collapse.
How difficult it is to move then.
How impossible to believe that anything
could lift that weight.

There are many reasons to treat each other
with great tenderness. One is
the sheer miracle that we are here together
on a planet surrounded by dying stars.
One is that we cannot see what
anyone else has swallowed.

—Watching My Friend Pretend Her Heart Isn’t Breaking by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The National Network of Abortion Funds helps ensure the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights for all people. Please consider donating if you can.

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. Limited edition prints and original paintings are available in my shop. 

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Life is infinitely inventive

One of the panels from elegy/a crow/Ba, my 8-page illustrated poem, now available as a hand-assembled accordion book

Hi, friends.

Once a month or so, I’ll be sending out a newsletter focusing on craft. These posts will highlight the inner workings of specific projects I’ve made or am working on. It’ll be an opportunity for you to ask questions about my process and for me to share the thoughts and inspirations behind certain decisions. 

A process post detailing the behind-the-scenes making of elegy/a crow/Ba, my accordion book (highlighted below, in Monday’s section of today’s post) will go out to all subscribers on Monday, March 6.

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

MONDAY

View fullsize

View fullsize

elegy/a crow/Ba is an 8-page accordion book based on an illustrated poem I wrote about the memories, passing, and recollection of my grandmother. This poem was inspired by the Hindu tradition of Shradhha, in which we feed crows, the symbols of our ancestors and the carriers of our lineage. 

A limited edition of the book, assembled, signed, and numbered by hand, is now available in my shop.

TUESDAY

I grew up listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s version of Blues Run the Game, but when Laura Marling’s version came on the radio today, T reminded me that this beautiful song was originally written and recorded by Jackson C. Frank. 

Of course, that sent me reading, and I was excited to learn that Paul Simon produced Frank’s first (and only) album, and that Frank used to live with both Simon & Garfunkel in England for some time. Can you imagine having these people as your roommates?I’ve got a lovely husband and toddler as my own, personally speaking, but geez louise the envy has taken hold.

I’ve been listening to Frank’s eponymous album on repeat all day, and of course, the original Blues Run the Game has already played more than a dozen times.

WEDNESDAY

“I grew up mostly happy, in relative poverty, using colorful paper food stamps to buy salty potato chips and sugary twenty- five- cent juice from the corner store and then trekking up to our second- floor apartment, belly satiated and heart full. And. As an adult, I’ve flown business class across the world (many times) and enjoyed meals that cost more than a month’s rent at that childhood apartment. This and that. Both true. As a kid, I spent rainy summer days climbing inside of plastic milk crates so that my brothers could push me alongside the curb on our city street, my tiny vessel floating along the current of backed- up rainwater that would quickly take me down the hill on Smith Street. It was glorious and exhilarating. And. As an adult, I’ve spent lush sunny days on a steep hillside in Italy, enjoying a private pool overlooking a vast vineyard, wine in one hand and a laptop in the other. This and that. Both true.

With full clarity, I understand the uniqueness of my position, which exists because of, rather than in spite of, how I grew up. Living both sides of the same coin has gifted me the insight to never take my experiences for granted. And to be certain, all of these experiences are etched into the happiest places deep inside of my soul. I can still instinctively feel the delight of simpler times floating down rainwater on a city street, just as much as I can feel the deep exhale and warmth of an afternoon in the Tuscan sun.

Though some may perceive poverty as bad and prosperity as good, I know that neither is absolutely true. That clarity has taught me to accept life as it is and still find joy wherever I am.”

—For Richer or Poorer, excerpted from Cyndie Spiegel’s MICROJOYS: Finding Hope (Especially) When Life is Not Okay

THURSDAY

“Sitting in a windowless room in Times Square, scrolling from library to library, state to state, we were unexpectedly moved by the color, light and joy at our fingertips. These glimpses into lives of strangers were a reminder that copies of the books piled on our desks at the Book Review will soon land on shelves in libraries across the country and, eventually, in the hands of readers. You’ll pass them to other people, and on and on.

We all know that books connect us, that language has quiet power. To see the concentration, curiosity and peace on faces lit by words is to know — beyond a shadow of a doubt, in a time rife with shadows — that libraries are the beating hearts of our communities. What we borrow from them pales in comparison to what we keep. How often we pause to appreciate their bounty is up to us.”

—A Love Letter to Libraries, Long Overdue by Elisabeth Egan and Erica Ackerberg 

FRIDAY

More amazed than anything 
I took the perfectly black 
stillborn kitten 
with the one large eye 
in the center of its small forehead 
from the house cat's bed 
and buried it in a field 
behind the house. 

I suppose I could have given it 
to a museum, 
I could have called the local 
newspaper. 

But instead I took it out into the field 
and opened the earth 
and put it back 
saying, it was real, 
saying, life is infinitely inventive, 
saying, what other amazements 
lie in the dark seed of the earth, yes, 

I think I did right to go out alone 
and give it back peacefully, and cover the place 
with the reckless blossoms of weeds.

—The Kitten by Mary Oliver

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Holding onto the proof.

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

MONDAY

The past few weeks have been a series of can-we-make-it-to-the-next-day? days. Days full of class-and-homework, my looming book deadline, and the last dregs of winter; weeks that all seem the same.

I sit on the edge of our bed talking to T, whose eyes are worn with sickness. We have food poisoning, and it's the first time we've both been sick, at the same time, since having N. I rake the carpet with my toes, listening to her shout No! over and over again, her tiny voice permeating through the walls and ringing in my ears. She should've been asleep a long time ago. This weekend has been hard. I am tired. But something in me feels new.

Somewhere between the hours of school and hours of work, between the food poisoning and the exhaustion, between the constant cleaning and meal-planning and piles of neglected laundry, I'd found the proof. I didn't even know I was looking for it, but here it was, hanging in the mundanity: proof of a life well-lived.

Even the most disappointing of experiences hold meaning. I try to remember that even though I'm not always successful. But when I stop rushing through them to get to the “good” part of life, the value is too great to miss. The good part is here––in the illness, the deadlines, and the round, giddy baby who watched an entire hour of Daniel Tiger while her mother lay, utterly exhausted, beside her.

The good part is here: I'm holding onto the proof.

TUESDAY

"But how does one keep an imagination fresh in a world that works double-time to suck it away? How does one keep an imagination firing off when we live in a nation that is constantly vacuuming it from them? And I think that the answer is, one must live a curious life. One must have stacks and stacks and stacks of books on the inside of their bodies. And those books don’t have to be the things that you’ve read. I mean, that’s good, too, but those books could be the conversations that you’ve had with your friends that are unlike the conversations you were having last week. It could be about this time taking the long way home and seeing what’s around you that you’ve never seen, because most of us, especially city folk, we stay in our little quadrants.

But what if you were to walk the other way? What if you were to explore the places around you? What if you were to speak to your neighbor and to figure out how to strike a conversation with a person you’ve never met? What if you were to try to walk into a situation, free of preconceived notion, just once? Once a day, just walk in and say, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and let’s see. Let me give this person the benefit of the doubt — to be a human.” ––Jason Reynolds on Imagination and Fortitude (via On Being)

*For those with pre-teens, I recently listened to When I Was the Greatest and recommend it for many reasons, but especially for what it teaches about non-traditional friendships, families, and building inner confidence.

WEDNESDAY

I'm continuing my experiments in collage (see above for my latest). This process has brought forth several questions within me: Whose voice is lost when an existing work is combined with something new? Does an artist have the right to illustrate someone else's words? What does it mean to be inspired?

For now, I'm enjoying the exercise collage brings. It attracts me to a wider range of ephemera, opens up my compositions, encourages me to combine textures, and forces me to relax. It's also been a really surprising exercise in letting go: I cut and paste without really knowing why or how, propelled further by intuition than my thinking brain, and in the end, I find that I'm somewhere unexpected––and that it is good.

THURSDAY

As far as kisses go, N's way of giving them has been to smush her cheek next to yours. This is all she's ever done in her 17 months of life. Tonight, after dinner and bath time, she climbed into T's lap and gave him her first real kiss: her mouth against his cheek, followed by a great big cozy hug. The first kiss she's ever given anyone! I watched the whole thing from a front-row seat, extremely wide-eyed, only 20% of my body angry with envy.

FRIDAY

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested

but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was

in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month

of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,

our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.

–from Ilya Kaminsky's We Lived Happily During the War

xo,

M

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