Dear Somebody: New beginnings.

A completed exercise from LEARN TO LET GO: A JOURNAL FOR NEW BEGINNINGS (2026)

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

MONDAY 

This year, I didn’t do any sort of round-up: no list of achievements to close out 2025, no more/less lists to begin 2026, no resolutions, no catalog of what went right or wrong. This is a break from my usual tradition: I love taking inventory, assessing which path led to where, considering how to build a different future than the one hurtling straight towards me. 

Despite all of the good reflection does, I feel tired of, and from, looking back. I want to look forward, I only want the light of what can be…to be. 

A few days ago I received Issue #68 of Uppercase Magazine in the mail. I love writing and illustrating for this magazine, and year after year, I feel lucky that I get to. When I opened the pages, a smile rang in me. This illustration is one of my favorite drawings I made last year, to accompany an essay I wrote titled More Than Machine: Guidance for Creative Resistance. It might not be the best thing I made, but it is the most meaningful because it is proof of self-doubt and personal growth. It is a sharp claw towards hard change; it is finding a light in dark times. I am deeply connected to it, and by making it, I processed tough experiences and saw myself more clearly. 

“More Than Machine” for Issue #68 of Uppercase Magazine (2025)

I love that art can help us chronicle, understand, and heal. For me, it is a medicine I take as often as I can. It requires no skill or prescription, and asks nothing of us other than our willingness to take a look inside. For this, I am grateful. 

TUESDAY

This week, through Nicole Cardoza’s newsletter REIMAGINED, I learned that in 1980, Stevie Wonder wrote Happy Birthday to promote the establishing of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. The song became the anthem of the movement led by Coretta Scott King, and Wonder joined her at rallies across the nation. 

WEDNESDAY

Sometimes I forget the magic of it all. 

My mind is on the pink soccer jersey we’re searching for. While T tries them on, I keep the girls occupied, pushing the red Target cart down the shiny white aisles. No, we have enough toys, I say; No, we have enough clothes, I say; No, no no. The girls are whiny. I am, too. 

We turn the corner and there it is: the new Wellbeing Reads display, and there I am—or a little part of me, at least—on the bottom left row. I beam, wishing I looked more human. The girls squeal and pick up copies, they attempt to take selfies. T arrives a few minutes later—nothing having fit correctly—and takes photos of a wintering me, and then a few more with the girls. 

Me kneeling in front of Target’s WELLBEING READS display, holding a copy of LEARN TO LET GO (2026)

The Ladies in front of Target’s WELLBEING READS display; N holding a copy of LEARN TO LET GO (2026)

I sit at my desk for hours on end, painting or writing or throwing drafts in the trash. The days turn into weeks, then months. The years peel by. A book comes into the world years after I’ve first sat down to write it, years after I’ve learned enough to put the words to paper. A book comes out into the world and slowly, caught up in the details of everyday life, I forget the magic of it all. 

A book comes out into the world, and months later, as I shop with my small family, we run right into it—and I remember, once again, how magical it is to make something that someone else can hold. To make something that my own children can hold, and read, and one day write in. 

One of my completed exercises from LEARN TO LET GO (2026)

I’m working through my own copy of LEARN TO LET GO at the moment. I haven’t worked through one of my own journals in a very long time, and I’m eager to plant new seeds for change in the pages of this book. 

One of the reasons I make these journals is because there is no end point for personal growth. It is with humility that I complete the exercises that I long ago wrote, seeing how far I have come—and how much further I still have to go. 

“Helped are those who are content to be themselves,” Alice Walker said. “They will never lack mystery in their lives and the joys of self-discovery will be constant.”

Each day, when I open a new page, I’m reminded by the magic of it all. 

THURSDAY

Ruth Franklin writes about Paul Simon and the horrifying state of our country; my very favorite New Year’s poem; Judit Orosz makes paper poetry; I’ll Try Anything by The Strokes; Denny’s in Japan. 

FRIDAY

I remember all the different kinds of years.
Angry, or brokenhearted, or afraid.
I remember feeling like that
walking up the mountain along the dirt path
to my broken house on the island.
And long years of waiting in Massachusetts.
The winter walking and hot summer walking.
I finally fell in love with all of it:
dirt, night, rock and far views.
It’s strange that my heart is as full
now as my desire was then. 

—Arriving Again and Again Without Noticing by Linda Gregg

• Dear Somebody: Should I Be Doing More? (January 24, 2025)

Of all the things you can put in front of your eyes, I’m grateful that my little letter is one of them. 

If you’d like to support me, please buy my books. My art prints and line of greeting cards make excellent gifts for yourself or a friend. You can also hire me for your next project—I’d love to work together. 

xx,
M

---

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

Dear Somebody: A new friend.

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

MONDAY 

Last week welcomed our seventh snow day this year, so what was once novel and exciting quickly became an all-too-familiar slog of parenting-and-working or parenting-and-working-at-night, where both the quality of parenting and the quality of work suffers. I find myself dreaming of the hobbies I’ll one day adopt when my career fits more neatly into our lives, tucked into the corners of a regular school day. I wonder, regularly, how other parents manage it all; I imagine they get by with a little help from their friends. 

F is sick and has been, on and off, for a few weeks now. My relentlessly joyful kid has turned into a bundle of crank, screaming when I pick her up and screaming when I put her down. I find myself overwhelmed by everyone’s needs, not because their needs exist, but because I am responsible for them; the overwhelm persists despite the fact that this is a responsibility I both respect and take seriously. I find myself longing for the intimacy community brings, the ease of togetherness that transforms a simple snow day from a state of isolation into a festive celebration, full of joyful shrieks and snowy dogpiles. 

Each day, the city grows colder. The temperature dips from 16 degrees to 10, then six—but feels like six below. The days are full, and for that I am grateful, but there is a fierce restlessness that accumulates after spending so many days indoors. On day five, we pull on our cozy boots, our hats, our gloves. N zips her coat up to the throat and we stuff a screaming F into her snowsuit, transforming her into an incredibly puffy, even cuter version of herself. We traipse outside. 

The frigid winter air smacks my face and immediately, I feel exhilarated—thrilled by the snow white sky hovering above me, removed of all color or feeling. Such is the wonder of mother earth. We lay down on the sidewalk, backs against snow drifts. My palms face the clouds, empty, open.

A neighborhood girl wanders up to us, clad in a bright pink outfit. She doesn’t introduce herself, just shimmies right in, and lays down on the ground next to us. N stiffens, not ready for somebody new. The girl tends to F instead, helping her up when she falls over, holding her hand to help her jump. 

I am impressed by this child’s demeanor, her refusal to be ignored. She is sweet and hopeful; she is looking for a friend. We chit chat, wondering if N’s heart will open. Slowly, it does.

Over the course of 20 minutes, I watch parallel play turn into cooperative play. My role as facilitator shifts into unnecessary interference, and I remove myself to watch from the porch. N and her new friend imagine, run, stomp. They take their little sisters and spin them around. They shriek and find snowballs. There is joy. 

When I tuck N into bed that night, her voice shines with pride. Mama, she says, her eyes bright: Did you see? I made a new friend today. 

I think about the magic of friendship—how unlike so many other experiences, it never loses its particular thrill. A new friend at age 4 brings the same combination of unexpected love, surprise, and excitement that a new friend at age 34 does, and I suspect a new friend at age 40 will feel the same. 

This is the beauty of friendship. It doesn’t always last, and it doesn’t always fit well, but when it does, it calms your spirit like a colorless sky, and brings you somewhere new. 

TUESDAY

I recently listened to The Partition Project and am in the middle of listening to Solito. 

Upon Ruth Franklin’s recommendation, I re-read Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, not having remembered it from my high school days. Shocked, once again, at how clear of a mirror literature is, how it reflects the degree of our humanity back to us. 

I love that fellow illustrator/author Sandra Dieckmann is chronicling her daughter, Ronja’s, drawings — they are just so gorgeous, truly suspended somewhere between reality and imagination. I’m frequently inspired by N’s artwork, and Sandra’s endeavor has me considering how to best catalog her artwork, too. 

I found my friend Cyndie Spiegel here, and welcome her weekly missives on life, work, and finding microjoys. 

T and I watched Hack Your Health and I loved two things most: learning about my gut microbiome and being re-introduced to Andrea Love’s animation. She’s worked on a few films I’ve loved, like Tulip (a collaboration with Phoebe Wahl) and Pinocchio, but I really lost myself in these cooking with wool animations. 

WEDNESDAY

After five rounds of concept sketches for Dear Library, I started over. There were several reasons behind this, and I’ll share more when I can, but for now, it means that I need a new color story for this book. 

I’ve never had a color swatching practice — it seemed an indulgent use of time, and it still does. The process of swatching colors is incredibly meditative. Restorative. Like most healthy pursuits, there’s not much to immediately show or share of the work taking place—but internally, incredible shifts take root. 

I make conscious efforts in rewiring the parts of my brain that tell me fun should be replaced with productive and so I’ve been color swatching diligently, ignoring the voice inside my head. It’s been great.

For me, this process has been most useful in:

1. Pushing myself to create color harmony with unlikely color palettes; exploring palettes beyond my comfort and regular rotation. 

2. More accurately seeing the temperature of any particular color and how that temperature changes when placed against another hue.

3. Being able to pinpoint which combination of colors evokes the emotional atmosphere I’m trying to create. 

4. Quite literally seeing that there is usually, and almost always—more than one solution. 

THURSDAY

I enjoyed looking through these illustrated love letters from the Archives of American Art. 

FRIDAY

The night sounds like a murder
of magpies and we’re replacing our cabinet knobs
because we can’t change the world, but we can
change our hardware. America breaks my heart
some days, and some days it breaks itself in two.
I watched a woman have a breakdown in the mall
today and when the security guard tried to help her
what I could see was all of us
peeking from her purse as she threw it
across the floor into Forever 21. And yes,
the walls felt like another way to hold us in
and when she finally stopped crying
I heard her say to the fluorescent lighting, Some days
the sky is too bright. And like that we were her
flock in our black coats and white sweaters,
some of us reaching our wings to her
and some of us flying away.

—Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror by Kelli Russell Agodon

See you next week!

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: Good is in the gray.

F and I by the sea (March 2024)

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

MONDAY 

While F naps off her fever, N and I go to the beach. She builds sand castles and makes seagull soup; I comb the shoreline for shells. The water is cold but I jump in anyway. Under nearly 5 feet of water, I see my toes. The sea is turquoise, a mermaid’s glittering tail. I’ve never been to the Gulf before. 

We walk along the beach and stumble upon some two plastic toy crabs, one yellow, one blue. They’re buried under the deserted white blanket of the beach, with just a claw or two peeking out. I ask N if she wants to add them to her collection but she shakes her head no. “Well, we can play with them for a little while,” I say, and make several crab shapes. 

I want N to love the water. I’m beginning to feel a specific pressure of parenthood I thought I was immune to: wanting my children to experience the beauty of my childhood without the aches; wanting them to feel affection for many of the same things I do; wanting them to share some of the same philosophies. I want N to understand that among its many mysteries, the sea can wash most any despondency away. 

N plays for a few minutes and then pushes the toys away. “Mom, I don’t want these. They belong to another child and that child will miss them.” Standing in the stark black and white of N’s morality, I feel shame. I’m envious, too. I want more of life to clarify in front of me, I want more of it to appear so obviously right or wrong. My conviction, at one point solid, made of stone, is porous now and has been for years. It’s wrung through with the realization that most days, I learn I am wrong about something I once believed. 

I ask N if she’d like to bring the toys to the beach lost and found; she does. We watch as both crabs are placed inside an enormous beach shed, then closed and locked, where they succumb to a much darker life among their fellow comrades—each of whom has been misplaced, forgotten, or abandoned. Lost.

N asks me to close my eyes and walk backwards. I do. We take good care not to look once, not at the sand or the sky or the shells. Not at each other. We use our other senses. We take good care to sense the sun’s warmth on our backs, to hear the gull shrieks in our ears, to feel the powder of Gulf sand between our toes. We stumble along, and as we do, I mildly wonder what people think of us.

“Mom, are your eyes closed? You cannot surprise yourself if your eyes are always open.” N’s voice is small and perfect; I can hear the ocean inside it. You can’t surprise yourself if your mind is always made up, either, I remind myself. The whole world is endless behind my eyes. Maybe gray is OK—maybe even, gray is good. 

My eyes are still closed. I turn my mind off, too. Together, N and I walk backwards into the sea. 

TUESDAY

I’m reading To the End of the Land by David Grossman as part of Ruth Franklin Israeli/Palestinian reading group, I’m donating to the KidLit4Ceasefire fundraiser, I’m attending Palestine Charity Draw #3 hosted by Sarah Dyer; I’m remembering this poem by Gottfried Benn and this essay on divorce by Emily Gould; I’m looking at these illustrations by Nikki McClure which accompany Rachel Carson’s Something About the Sky. 

WEDNESDAY

In-between client work and book projects, whenever I get a moment or two, I’m beginning to rework the illustrations for my picture book proposal. 

I’m reading about the making The Bird Within Me Flies by Sara Lundberg as I prepare to do this. Lundberg is one of my favorite book artists working today, and reading her thoughts, always imbued with such genuine honesty and humility, has been a comfort:

“It was important for me to allow myself to be inconsequent. The characters didn’t have to look the same on each spread, I didn’t have to stick to a specific style or technique. So I just did each scene intuitively, and with the intention of bringing out the most interesting – the essence in each.

I felt confident that everything would tie up in the end anyway, so I might as well have fun on the way there, and avoid trying to do something perfect.” —Sara Lundberg

I’m also deeply interested in the pen-and-ink work of Patrick Benson, who illustrated one of our family’s favorite books: Owl Babies.

“The most important thing that an illustrator has to do is provide lots of visual clues, bits of information - rather like snapshots - that will act as a sort of springboard for the imagination.” —Patrick Benson

I’m keeping his advice close to me as I rework my illustrations, remembering that my job as an illustrator (and a writer) is never to provide the entire story, but to sprinkle just enough light so the reader can find their own path through it. 

THURSDAY

Nicola came to visit last week with her little one in tow, and between the gardens and meals and messes, we managed to take some new studio shots. There’s no one in the world I’d rather be photographed by than this particularly talented friend. Working together is easy: comfortable, classic, no frills—just like our friendship. 

My website requires a long-overdue update, and these new photographs will lead the way. So much has changed since the last time she photographed me in my workspace: a move to a new city, an MFA, a baby who is almost an entire year old. My own tiny studio with a door; a room of my own. 

My work has changed tremendously. I have, too. It feels good to capture some of this new. 

A tulips update: positively blooming. These little guys are bringing so much joy to us and all who walk by our home. 

FRIDAY

Dear waves, what will you do for me this year?
Will you drown out my scream?
Will you let me rise through the fog?
Will you fill me with that old salt feeling?
Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand?
Will you let me lie on the white bedspread and study 
the black clouds with the blue holes in them?
Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes one more year?
Will you still let me draw my sacred figures 
and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind?

Lucky life is like this. Lucky there is an ocean to come to.
Lucky you can judge yourself in this water.
Lucky the waves are cold enough to wash out the meanness.
Lucky you can be purified over and over again.
Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone.
Lucky life is like that. Lucky life. Oh lucky life.
Oh lucky lucky life. Lucky life.

—from Lucky Life by Gerald Stern

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: A lesson in unconditional love.

A paint palette 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 our 5-month-old 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 ”A Lesson in Unconditional Love” in How it Feels to Find Yourself

TUESDAY

This interview with Blexbolex about The Magicians; this letter by Ruth Franklin of Ghost Stories about the purpose of art in dark times; this conversation on moving past your own self-doubt between Lizzy Stewart and Andy J. Pizza.

WEDNESDAY

Teared up reading today’s note from Courtney Martin, a letter about her daughter turning 10. I myself can hardly fathom a world in which my daughters are 10, or 11, or anything except so small. In it, she writes:

When we were driving home so slowly that day, I never could have predicted any of this—that, ironically, my firstborn would gift me with nourishing, companionable quiet, and return me to my love of solitude and art, and speak an emotional language so foreign to me it would humble me in all the right ways.

I think about this constantly—how N and F are their own mysterious beings, equipped with their own arsenal of language, philosophy, and thought. How they are not extensions of me. How I am humbled continually by how easily they find and hold onto anything good. How they do not dwell. How deeply they feel about their perceived injustices. How it’s not my job to tell them what they should think or feel, but help them find the words to articulate what they do think and feel. How it’s my job to guide them, yes, but how mostly it’s my job to stay out of their way—so they can show me, and the rest of the world, who they are. 

THURSDAY

In the very little time I have to make things, I have been trying, very hard, to make things. Sometimes this is during F’s nap. Often it is while we go on walks. I walk and write poems in my head, on my Notes app. I text lines of poems or this newsletter to myself. I try to capture what I feel in words, hoping that eventually, I’ll be able to translate it into a picture. I draw on the couch after the girls are in bed. I draw when I should be sleeping. Sometimes I draw instead of showering. 

I fret a lot—not about the time I’m losing, but about whether I’ll still want to make the things I want to make when I do have the time. Whether I’ll still feel the spark. Whether the making part of me will keep waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

Two pieces I made this year that I finally framed, ready to hang in our home.

I took the time to frame these two illustrations this week. We’re going to hang them up in our house. Each one took too long to make by any reasonable person’s standards. If I divide the amount of time it took to draw each one by the rate I was paid, it comes out to exactly nothing. If I add up the additional costs—time with my family, regular hygiene, a semblance of a social life, an earlier bedtime—things start to sound a little ridiculous. I start to feel ridiculous. I have written about this period of motherhood before.

But when I look at these two illustrations together, I see that the making part of myself is alive and well. That it is being tended to. That despite being obviously neglected, my creativity is climbing back into my life. Into where it belongs. That it is creating its own space in the places I have abandoned. That it refuses to be forgotten. That I have not left this very integral—perhaps the most integral part of myself, behind. That what’s good is slow in its making, but that the making part is very good, too. That, however slowly, my art is growing and changing, and I am, too—and that both are well worth the costs.

FRIDAY

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

—Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

xx,

M

---

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