Dear Somebody: A Love Letter to My Creativity

My latest illustration for Issue 62 of Uppercase Magazine

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

MONDAY 

For Issue #62 of Uppercase Magazine, I wrote a love letter to my creativity. I’ve wanted to write this for years, inspired by an old friend who wrote a letter to her own, but I never did. I didn’t make time for this beautiful exercise, and I know why now: I couldn’t write a love letter to my creativity because I didn’t have love for it. Where there should’ve been a commitment to nurturing and protecting my creativity, there was resentment—for the artist I wasn’t, and the art I didn’t allow myself to make. 

The past few years have been clarifying. Instead of burying my creativity six feet under, I used them to hibernate—to practice listening instead of talking, observing instead of performing, and exploring instead of sharing—to practice practicing, for myself, for my craft. For my creativity. 

The reward is a diamond. It isn’t flashy. It doesn’t look like a glamorous, shiny gemstone I can flash around or make reels about. I have less to show, there is less garnering of attention, and not much of me is left at the end of each day—but the diamond itself is real. It took years to unearth, and now that I have it, I know I’ll protect it. The diamond is greater confidence. The diamond is a belief in myself, in a knowing that I can create my dreams out of whatever I have around me. The diamond is a genuine love for my creativity—one that makes the process of writing and drawing fun, challenging, and, quite plainly, delightful. 

TUESDAY

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“When I first became a mother in 2020, I was enveloped by the notion that I shouldn’t lose myself to domesticity: to motherhood, to my family, to my home. I didn’t want my creativity to evaporate; I loved my work and career. I wanted a clear work-life separation, I wanted a studio where I could deposit my thoughts, I wanted a room of my own. I felt a stark separation within myself—one where the artist in me perpetually fought to step out from under the shadow of the mother in me. As a tide slowly retreats from shore, my creativity, too, waned—but with no promise of return.

When I decided to have another child, I knew I’d have to approach myself differently. I couldn’t carry the resentment of not being enough—or the self-imposed pressure of keeping my career life cleanly separate from my life as a mother. I needed to redefine what my work meant to me, and I needed to redefine where creativity lived. Instead of seeing my work as a vessel for my creativity, I spent the year shaping my creativity into the vessel itself: I wanted it to live everywhere.”

—An excerpt from My Year At Home: A Love Letter to My Creativity, published in Issue #62 of Uppercase Magazine. The 12 lessons I reflected on are available in the full essay, available online and in newsstands everywhere.

WEDNESDAY

We’re in Michigan for the week, and it’s exactly what I was hoping it’d be. 

Blackbirds chase falcons in the clouds; the water chases the sky, F chases N across the sand and state lines. Every so often, N turns me to me and says, Mom, I’m so happy we’re here. 

We eat waffles on the beach, we climb rainbow stairs, we move through each mess more quickly and cleanly than before. We’re learning; we’re living; we’re all together—and not just in the physical sense of the word.  

THURSDAY

Michigan is on repeat all week, of course—as it should be—and it led me to discover the artwork of Brooklyn artist Laura Normandin, who is responsible for the album’s artwork, and who, quite frankly, I should have known about much sooner. I like her painted bottles, this woven enclosure, and the fact that it appears she’s managed to escape the internet. 

FRIDAY

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.

—Midsummer, Tobago by Derek Walcott 

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Being here.

An illustration for my column, Being, in Issue #61 of Uppercase Magazine

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

MONDAY 

When T pulls handfuls of weeds away from our hydrangea bushes, we discover a mourning dove sitting quietly, her back against the brick of our house. T stops pulling weeds; N stops eating; I stop talking. Is she nesting? Is she hurt? How can we help? We didn’t mean to expose her, but we have. We go inside. From the window I watch her two small eyes blinking in the sun. 

When F contracts an illness, I know the week ahead will be gutted, and it is. The sitter is canceled, my work is placed on hold indefinitely. The deadlines pile up, as does the laundry, the dust. My inbox groans; my daily poem practice falls further behind.

I don’t optimize. It doesn’t make sense anymore. In the past, I have worried, having convinced myself that worrying is doing something and therefore, at least, still productive. Of course, I was wrong; each day, I continue to be. If there’s a purpose to life, maybe this is it—to constantly unlearn until, at the end, I am stripped of all belief, leaving the way I came in: honest, unharmed, full of possibility. 

I don’t optimize. I have worked too hard at letting go. There are no to-do lists in my head. I don’t write poems while F takes her bottle, I don’t clean the house while she eats oatmeal. I spend time leisurely, as if I have boatloads of it, as if someone out there is making more of it for me. We sit outside and listen to the world. I ask F if she remembers the eclipse and the way the sky moved like a movie. She wails in response. She cries a lot. She coughs a lot. I sit with her and together, we do nothing. I am here. 

More than once, she crawls into my lap, buries her face in my shirt, and falls asleep. I wish I had my phone, I think to myself, so I could do something. Old habits die hard, but I recognize the impulse, however warily. I don’t retrieve my phone. Instead, I do what I am doing: I sit on the second-floor landing and rub F’s back with my hands, staring at our hallway walls. I am here. 

I rock F to sleep, something I haven’t done for the past 8 months, and in this act, she feels like a baby in my arms once more. I admit, I am nostalgic. Maybe it’s because she’s turning one next week, maybe it’s because I am turning decades older than that. Maybe it’s because there is no match for a moment sweeter than this one, where a child sleeps safely in my arms. Maybe it’s because there’s safety in these moments for me, too. I am here. From above I watch her two small eyes blinking with sleep.

TUESDAY

I read Go to Sleep (I Miss You) and Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley; I read Tokyo These Days by Taiyo Matsumoto (that cover!); I started Sunny by Jason Reynolds. I am re-reading James Marshall’s eulogy for Arnold Lobel, one of my favorite children’s writers and illustrators, and a fellow devotee of friendship. 

WEDNESDAY

For my latest Being column in Issue #61 of Uppercase Magazine, I wrote about how the themes in our creative work change shape and expand, evolving as we do, but ultimately remain the same—they are fragments of our foundational selves that we will always explore. 

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I touch on the importance of revisiting past work, even if it’s difficult to do so: 

“Revisiting old work is clarifying. It brings you closer to the person you were at that time—the person who felt pulled to capture a feeling, thought, or question through their art. It’s also a chance to notice how much you and your work have changed—a chance to acknowledge the creative obstacles you’ve puzzled through and the personal ones your artmaking pulled you through.”

—from The First Work I Make is the Last Work I Make for Uppercase Magazine #61, available now. 

THURSDAY

Today, it was pointed out to me that my emotional vocabulary is pretty limited(!). I was both bowled over and energized by this comment. I’ve spent the past decade helping others identify and process their own emotions, only to quietly realize that my knowledge has plateaued. I am humbled and, quite honestly, enthused by how far there is to go.

I am reading How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett in an immediate effort to remedy my own cause. I welcome further reading! If you have a book recommendation, please do share.

FRIDAY

Years do odd things to identity.
What does it mean to say
I am that child in the photograph
at Kishamish in 1935?
Might as well say I am the shadow
of a leaf of the acacia tree
felled seventy years ago
moving on the page the child reads.
Might as well say I am the words she read
or the words I wrote in other years,
flicker of shade and sunlight
as the wind moves through the leaves.

—from Leaves by Ursula K. Le Guin

xx,
M

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Dear Somebody: On dreaming.

UNTITLED #1: A collaboration between me (age 6) and my child (age 3)

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

MONDAY 

N and I sit at the dining room table and color a gigantic set of fabric butterfly wings for her to wear. She’s been working on them since the beginning of January. She hasn’t worn them once; I’m not sure she ever will. She’s more interested in the making, and so we color: her, a medium heart, mostly outside the lines, and me, a small circle, mostly inside the lines. Hers is better. 

We chat a little here and there, but mostly we are each lost to our thoughts. 

As an author who wants to write for children, and as a person who has children, I find myself returning to my childhood often—perhaps too often. I mine my past for particular memories and recall the feeling of experiencing them. For a handful of scenes, I am transported viscerally: even after 30 years, my body holds onto the feeling. It’s chosen to, though I don’t always understand why. For the rest of my childhood, I am simply a member of the audience, watching a tape that has been rewound and replayed so many times that the quality is beginning to wear. 

When I feel nostalgia for childhood, it’s mostly for a period of life where I had an abundance of time: time to practice whistling; time to wake up and read, half falling out of bed, letting the blood rush to my head; time to run until the breath caught in my chest, astonished at how my own body worked; time to think about nothing and no one or everything and everyone; time to take multiple hours to eat a lollipop, and then still wrap it back up for later; time to mush and mix—sand, flour, water, spices, broken glass, tin foil, paint, grass, mud—just to see how it feels. Time to be bored. Time to dream.

For many, childhood is a harrowing time, full of unknowns and a loss of control. It is impossible to become—a big kid, a grown-up, an author, a mother, no matter how badly you want to—until one day, you are. There is no guarantee; there never is. Children understand that, but children also know how to dream, and dreaming provides immunity. 

For the last 15 years, I’ve cast off dreaming in favor of pragmatism—and in all truth, this method has served me well. I am practical and (mostly) disciplined. I set achievable goals. But when N came home from school and told me she’d used a very tall ladder to climb into the sky and take a nap in the clouds, I found myself in awe of her imagination and disappointed in my own, unsure of when I’d lost my ability to dream. 

I color another circle. I think about how dreams are barriers that stands between the crags of life and hopelessness. I think about how believing in a different world is essential to creating any change: to changing the way we think, feel, and behave. I think about how expansive dreaming is, how it becomes easier to remain open—and accepting, if you can consider alternate possibilities, even those unknown. 

I think about how N was my dream and now she is her own, and how much good I’ll have done if I can teach her to remember that. I think about how open and forgiving she is. Her unprejudiced spirit gives her more clarity than I could ever hope to have.

“I like this color blue,” I tell her. “It’s soft but also bright.”

“I like that one, too,” N tells me. “I love all of the colors that I know.”

TUESDAY

UNTITLED #1. Cut paper collage and acrylic paint on paper. Begun in 1993, completed in 2023.

I made this paper dinosaur when I was six, and N painted this acrylic landscape toward the end of 2023. A few days ago, I collaged them together. Our first collaborative painting. 

It is the first, I hope, of many collaborations—paintings, books, choreographed dances, and of course, building our relationship. The biggest collaboration; the best dream.

WEDNESDAY

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” —James Baldwin

THURSDAY

Today I sat on a panel discussion with a few peers to discuss book publishing and how books have helped build our brand. The conversation was interesting for me, and I enjoyed learning more about my peers, each of us with our own distinct paths and challenges. A career in book publishing is not simple or easy for most of us, but it is possible—and if you love books, that’s what matters most.

My own experience with my brand and how I view creativity has changed so much, especially in the last two years. The conversation moved quickly, and I didn’t get a chance to speak about what I really wanted to, which was: treating your brand as a living, breathing thing. 

If enough of you are interested, I’ll write about this topic for the next edition of my Craft series. 

If you missed yesterday’s panel talk (with Katie Daisy, Rebecca Green, Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, Jane Mount, and Meenal Patel), you can watch the replay here. 

FRIDAY

To be a good
ex/current friend for R. To be one last

inspired way to get back at R. To be relationship
advice for L. To be advice

for my mother. To be a more comfortable
hospital bed for my mother. To be

no more hospital beds. To be, in my spare time,
America for my uncle, who wants to be China

for me. To be a country of trafficless roads
& a sports car for my aunt, who likes to go

fast. To be a cyclone
of laughter when my parents say

their new coworker is like that, they can tell
because he wears pink socks, see, you don’t, so you can’t,

can’t be one of them. To be the one
my parents raised me to be—

a season from the planet
of planet-sized storms.

To be a backpack of PB&J & every
thing I know, for my brothers, who are becoming

their own storms. To be, for me, nobody,
homebody, body in bed watching TV. To go 2D

& be a painting, an amateur’s hilltop & stars,
simple decoration for the new apartment

with you. To be close, J.,
to everything that is close to you—

blue blanket, red cup, green shoes
with pink laces.

To be the blue & the red.
The green, the hot pink.

—When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A lesson in unconditional love.

A Lesson in Unconditional Love from How it Feels to Find Yourself

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

MONDAY 

I wake up tired. 

It’s 4:35 am and the baby is crying. I sit up, swing my legs over to the edge of the bed, and stumble towards the door. Jack has been up for some time now, waiting for us to wake. He dances around my feet, tip-tapping excitedly, wanting me to sit down and play with him. “I need a minute, Jackie,” I mumble, stepping over him and into the bathroom. He watches as I brush my teeth and splash cold water on my face. I feel irritated for no reason. After a few minutes, I close the door.

By 6:00 am, the baby has been changed and fed and cried a few more times. We’re sitting on the floor playing peek-a-boo, waiting for the sun to show her face. Jack sits by the bedroom door, waiting. Every so often, he looks over to see how we’re doing.

Around 6:45, I get dressed. Jack bounces around my heels as I pull on pants and a hoodie. “Jack. Jackie. I need some space,” I say, more gently than I have before. When we reach the back door, he’s there, waiting. I let him out and he races around the yard, joyfully feeling the cool air on his face. The trees are dropping their leaves now, and the crinkle of each one fills my ears. The scent of morning dew after a long fall from the sky passes over us in waves. I breathe in deeply and will myself into feeling new. I want to be better—patient, kind, more appreciative of all the good I have. 

Jack walks over and sits down next to me, so closely that his body is on my feet. His head rests under my hands. He waits. 

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

TUESDAY

I loved this comic by Gavin Aung Than that illustrates an excerpt from Stephen King’s On Writing—namely, the difficult work/life balance of most artists, and the larger, more balanced perspective that’s only available to us in retrospect. 

Of course, that led me to Bill Watterson’s advice on inventing your own life’s meaningand Stanley Kubrick’s on life’s purposelessness—both encourage me to continue taking the road less traveled.

WEDNESDAY

I’ve always been reluctant to celebrate holidays, especially ones that make it easy to gloss over honest sentiment for sparkles and gifts. This changed when I became a mother. I want my children to experience the joy of thoughtfulness—to understand what a gift it is to know someone well, and to make them feel known. I also realize how much challenge life will give us—and what a strength it is to find reason, still, to celebrate. 

N made these seed packets for Valentine’s Day. She painted and glued each one. She filled them with Zinnia seeds. For over a week, she sat at the dining table and asked to decorate seed packets until she had one for each person in her world. In the end she made nearly 25. She’s three. 

She turned an ordinary Wednesday into something less ordinary—something special, perhaps—for so many. It had nothing to do with Valentine’s Day and everything to do with her heart—which, as I’ve suspected for awhile now, is far too big for her tiny body.

THURSDAY

I’m enjoying these paintings by Ulla Thynell, this book by Rashmi Sirdeshpande and Ruchi Mhasane, and these rules for a creative practice by Carolyn Yoo.

FRIDAY

Cook a large fish — choose one with many bones, a skeleton
you will need skill to expose, maybe the flying
silver carp that’s invaded the Great Lakes, tumbling
the others into oblivion. If you don’t live
near a lake, you’ll have to travel.
Walking is best and shows you mean it,
but you could take a train and let yourself
be soothed by the rocking
on the rails. It’s permitted
to receive solace for whatever you did
or didn’t do, pitiful, beautiful
human. When my mother was in the hospital,
my daughter and I had to clear out the home
she wouldn’t return to. Then she recovered
and asked, incredulous,
How could you have thrown out all my shoes?
So you’ll need a boat. You could rent or buy,
but, for the sake of repairing the world,
build your own. Thin strips
of Western red cedar are perfect,
but don’t cut a tree. There’ll be
a demolished barn or downed trunk
if you venture further.
And someone will have a mill.
And someone will loan you tools.
The perfume of sawdust and the curls
that fall from your plane
will sweeten the hours. Each night
we dream thirty-six billion dreams. In one night
we could dream back everything lost.
So grill the pale flesh.
Unharness yourself from your weary stories.
Then carry the oily, succulent fish to the one you hurt.
There is much to fear as a creature
caught in time, but this
is safe. You need no defense. This
is just another way to know
you are alive.

—How to Apologize by Ellen Bass

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: 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

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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

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“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

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Dear Somebody: A poem a day.

Poem-writing at my messy, neglected desk: a longed-for part of each day.

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

MONDAY 

After F goes down for her first nap, I sit at my desk to write. Since November 7th, I’ve been in the business of writing poetry, a fact that continues to startle and amaze me. This practice happened into my life because of Margaux Kent, an old friend who has been writing and sharing poetry with two friends since April of this past year. The practice is simple. Each day, I write a poem, put it inside an envelope, and post it to Margaux. Each day she does the same, which means the amount of actual mail (ie: not a bill) that I receive has gone up exponentially. The amount of poetry I read has increased. My joy? It’s skyrocketed. 

I love poetry. I’ve always wanted to write poems. When I was younger and more daring, I actually did. As the years rolled on, the desire of being good—of being a “real” poet— became more important than the practice of writing poetry itself. This desire, which was actually a fear of failure, kept me from poetry. It placed a dividing line between me and the craft. It said: you are a reader, not a writer. In this way, this fear also kept me from myself. 

Creative life can be lonely; young-child life can be, too. I spend 90% of my time with my 7-month old, inside our home. It’s rare that I venture outside of our neighborhood. I haven’t been to a happy hour in years, and since F was born, I’ve taken a step back from my work and creative practice as well. My children are small and they require so much of me. I know the cliches are true: these years will evaporate much more quickly than each day feels. Also true: In this period of my life, there is less of me for myself. 

In November, I read about Margaux’s poetry project in her newsletter. Her dedication to this practice inspired me. To me, this practice isn’t a commitment to writing good poetry or becoming a good poet, but is, instead, a commitment to the oneself. It’s a commitment to internal listening, to writing for the sake of writing, to being in community with others. 

With hesitation, I comment on the post asking to join. A few minutes later, Margaux replies yes. With excitement. With open arms. Since early November, I’ve been writing a poem most every day. I write each by hand and place it inside a painted envelope. I walk to the blue post office box a couple of blocks away, usually with F in tow, and drop each one in. 

It’s December now. I’ve been writing daily poems for over a month. Here I am: a person who writes poetry. Like me, my poems are not good or bad; they just are. I am. A person. A poet. 

It’s difficult for me to put into words just how precious this practice is because it fulfills so many present needs: the need to write; the need for creative discipline; the need to capture small moments that otherwise go unnoticed or misremembered, swept into the wayside of magnificent-yet-ordinary detritus, like an orange peel or the sunlight’s hourly change. 

It fulfills a commitment to friendship; a need for knowing another more deeply; a need for vulnerability through craft. Each day, when I sit down to write, I think about how this creative practice gives me more than I thought it would: a change of intellectual scenery, a deeper affection for syllable-parsing and line breaks, the opportunity to rekindle a fractured creativity. Respite from a lonely few years. A coming up for air. Revival.

I write today’s poem and then place it in an envelope. I write Margaux’s name on the front and my own on the back. I don’t tell her this but I think about it now: that the beautiful part of this story isn’t in the poetry or the letters or the creative practice at all. It’s much more simple. It’s that when I saw a door and knocked, someone let me in. 

TUESDAY

“I can’t think of an act more generous than an atheist at prayer, who temporarily puts aside their disbelief in a god in order to bring comfort to a friend. Loosening your position for a moment, and doing something difficult because it has been asked of you by someone you care for, demonstrates a confidence in your beliefs, and shows that they are not so prideful or absolutist that they manifest into a smallness of being. 

Of course, to some this act will seem intellectually dishonest, a sham and a lie, but to others it will appear as the purest kindness, where heart eclipses mind, a true and complex gesture of what it means to love somebody. We show that in times of need we can do whatever is required of us, with a magnanimous heart, bending to the will of those we love. Understandably, it will be difficult for you to pray, but that is the very reason to do it. What is true friendship if we are not tested at times, if we are not prepared to soften our cherished ideals as an act of fidelity and commitment to those we love. In the end, this act of friendship may be the most eloquent prayer of all.”

—Nick Cave on praying as an atheist, which I interpreted as practical advice on being a human, a civilian, a friend. 

WEDNESDAY

John Hendrix, the chair of my MFA program in Illustration & Visual Culture, writes to ask if I’d consider sharing what I loved about our program. I’m nearly 8 months postpartum, which means it’s also been 8 months since I graduated from Washington University here in St. Louis. I live a stone’s throw from campus, so I think about school quite often. I miss being a student terribly; I knew that I would. 

Attending this program unlocked a lot for me, the most important being that it forced me to get out of my own way. I’ve always believed that if I could pick a vocation—either writing or drawing—I’d excel at one instead of chugging away, moderately, at both. This program gave me permission to not choose sides. It showed me the unique potential of being an artist who can share multiple perspectives of a story, through written and visual language. It gave me the strength—and the time—to begin working towards a new chapter of my career in children’s literature. 

I learned a lot about storytelling, developing a reliable creative practice, and creative discipline, but mostly, I learned more about myself: Who I am, what my values are, and the philosophy that will guide my work. I discovered what I want to make, why it matters, and who it is for. 

What you’ll get out of a graduate program is likely dependent on what you’re willing to put in. This program didn’t tell me what to think or believe or do—it didn’t give me a road map to follow, though I often wanted one. Instead, I was taught how to think: about storytelling, myself, and the impact this combination can have on the world. 

*If you have questions about this program or my experience at WashU, feel free to comment or email me.

THURSDAY

We watched Minari, finally, after the kids were asleep and the house was quiet and it was every bit as beautiful as we’d heard it was. An immigrant story can never not be beautiful, I think, because it always contains the full breadth of human experience: perspiration and heartbreak, incalculable risk; a heart now split in two, half of which can never be recovered from the country it was left in.

I watched most of Minari with my hands covering my eyes, which is how I watch any film worth watching these days. When it was over, I felt emptied, disappointed that life is so arduous for so many. T was mystified by my reaction. He beamed as the credits rolled, exhilarated by watching a family nearly broken by life’s difficult choices sew themselves back together. 

Willingly, I changed my perspective. 

FRIDAY

Suppose I say summer,
write the word “hummingbird,”
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

—Hummingbird by Raymond Carver

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: May all, should all.

A houseboat in London, banked along the Thames River.

Hi, friends. 

I missed writing to you while I was traveling for the last few weeks—but write I did, mostly in my head or in my Notes app or in the new Moomin journal I bought during our trip to London. 

I am home now and hoping to return to my weekly schedule. We’ll see. I’ll manage what I can and try to let go of what I can’t—I hope you are doing the same.

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

MONDAY 

Week of November 17, 2023

A blush of robins circle above our heads as F and I set out for our morning walk. They are quiet, save for the occasional call. I lose sight of them as I walk down the alley across the street from our own. It is my favorite alley because it’s made of St. Louis red brick, cobblestoned together, still, despite the hills and sinks that threaten to displace them. Another reminder of the earth’s uprising against man. The brick path rattles the stroller, creating a rhythm that soothes F and that she allows herself to succumb to. It makes me feel like I’m in New Orleans, or at least somewhere else. 

A single robin follows us along, hopping from brick to brick. I wonder where else she’s been.

Week of November 24, 2023

After three days in London, F wakes up in with a fever. Her breath is short and raspy, her tiny nose closed. I give her a bottle but she barely drinks, her eyes closing before they’re even really open. All day she sleeps, either on my chest or T’s shoulder. She is still small enough to be toted around on another’s giving body, the world moving unbeknownst around her. She is still small enough where a prolonged fever ignites fear, too small to understand why her passageways won’t allow air in—why a body or a friendship or a story that is meant to work sometimes will not.

The air in London is cold but bright. We walk along High Street to flush some cool air into F’s lungs. She sleeps on T while he walks, a tiny little Joey inside a quilted blue jumper and mint green beanie. Her breath comes slowly, labored. But still, it comes.

Week of December 1, 2023

A chatter of mint-green parakeets abandons the tree on our corner while we walk towards them. They swoop low, once, before returning to the sky and resuming formation. They are joyful and though they bring me joy, I can’t help but question their belonging. They are out of place. Lovely green jewels dotting an otherwise bleak November sky. 

Week of December 8, 2023

Croup rattled F’s body for nearly a week. I sleep sitting up, with her body on mine, so that if she stops breathing, I’ll know. I feed her every two hours, as if she was newborn, to keep her tiny body hydrated. The humidifier is on high. The entire guest room feels like a tropical sauna, wet and hot but also, somehow, cold. I wish we were at home so she could get the care she needs, I think to myself, not understanding that she is getting the care she needs.

I remember all of this now, but it is unclear. It takes effort to recall the climate, or the shoulder ache that persists from holding a baby upright for hours through the night. It takes effort to even remember the days-long headache, or how my eyes leaked from behind my glasses, not from sadness or fright, but sheer exhaustion. 

What I do remember is how much love existed within the white walls of our London guest room. What I remember is my two hands on F’s back, feeling for her breath through her spine. What I remember is studying her small mouth, tongue having fallen out, as it sought her next breath. What I remember is the slight of her frame, huddled close against mine. The light that climbed out of me to find its way to her. The deliberate care that this child received; the affection bestowed upon her; the comfort of complete observation. The respect of being valued as a human being—as decent and significant and with causes as great as any man grown, or with power. The love of her father and mother and sister and aunts and uncles, all hurtling towards her through touch and thought and mysterious language I am not privy to. 

What I remember are the wishes I made through each hour of the night. They are easy to remember because I wish them each night still. May all children feel their mothers’ two hands on their back. May all children feel the support of a community under their feet. May all children be given another’s light when they cannot find their own. May all, should all. But all are not. 

TUESDAY

The music in my ears, spotted in the London underground last week.

Cat Power singing Bob Dylan’s 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert has been on repeat in my house for weeks now. The few times I’m out in London on my own, I listen to her voice while I walk, singing along: She's got everything she needs. She's an artist. She don't look back.

WEDNESDAY

It was an actual joy to speak with Nicole Zhu last week about the process behind Go Your Own Way and How it Feels to Find Yourself for her newsletter. 

Nicole has supported my work for years now. She is an incredible writer and puts out one of my favorite newsletters. After the kids were settled in bed, I spoke to her about how motherhood propelled creative growth, my writing/illustration process, and cultivating quiet confidence. It was easily the most enjoyable hour of my day.

You can read the entire interview here!—and enter a giveaway for a chance to win my books.

THURSDAY

The Dutch edition of Go Your Own Way is now available through my publisher Unieboek! This is my fourth journal, but I still find it incredibly exciting to see my work translated into foreign languages, reaching more readers across the world. Feeling lucky; feeling grateful. 

FRIDAY

I won’t be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed—
and the short northern nights.

—I Won’t Be Able to Write From the Grave by Fanny Howe

xx,

M

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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

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Dear Somebody: A song for myself

The final painting and exercise from my latest journal, Go Your Own Way

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

MONDAY 

Tomorrow I’m going to celebrate myself, I say. It’s publication day for my fourth (!) journal, Go Your Own Way, and I want to commemorate the occasion. I am notorious for sweeping my own accomplishments under the rug: a byproduct of living with an overt stress on humility, which is common for immigrants and their children—and my own, ever-rising expectations of myself. 

More complicated, though, is my relationship with success. Like most working artists, I desire validation for my work—yes. Of course. I also realize how necessary quantitative success (in the shape of sales/awards/reviews/engagement) is to sustain my work, and I hope, above all else, that my books will find readers. I don’t necessarily enjoy the limelight, though, or the pressures that accompany putting a finished work out into the world. I think a lot of artists feel this way. I’d much rather be at my desk, surrounded by words and pencils; I’d rather be working on my craft. 

My goal is to celebrate myself because what I really want—more than sales or accolades or other forms of external validation—is validation from myself. To believe that I’ve done a good thing—a great thing, regardless of how successful it is by industry metrics. To know that doing a good thing is, in itself, enough. I’ve worked hard to make a book that will help others help themselves. I’ve created a tool that can change how someone feels about themselves. I am proud of that. My brain knows this, and if I can get my heart to feel it? That’s worth celebrating.

After the morning rush and daily chores, I put F down for her first nap and respond to emails. I reply to those who write to me, who take the time to read my work, who spend their hard-earned dollars on my books. Each email is an invisible thread that connects me to someone else—often, a person on the other side of the world. The fact that something I wrote put me in dialogue with a person I’d otherwise never have met? This is a great victory, a sign that yes, vulnerability and dedicated craft can carry you to another place. I reply to each person and feel gratitude swell up inside me like a balloon. To be seen, to be read by someone else: A celebration.

Late morning, me and F go for our second walk. The trees are bloodshot and marigold, tiny maple leaves dancing around us, each one a tiny one-leaf parade. The air is brisk. A light breeze follows us. The fallen leaves, dead for weeks now, are starting to decay. A dampness fills the air, almost metallic in scent, and I can’t help but love autumn more. F watches the leaves fall, each descent a small wave from the earth. The world transforms in front of me; I let its evolution guide my own. Allowing myself to be changed? A celebration. 

T and I have lunch together. This is rare for us, though we both work from home. I have a sandwich that I didn’t make in a coffee shop that is not my house. This is, in itself, a celebration. I draw a little and he works a little, we talk when something needs to be said. I remember how often we used to do this, before children, of course—and how special it is: to work on something that fills your heart next to someone who does the same. A celebration. 

Later that afternoon, while F is still napping, I look in the mirror. I don’t have to search for very long before I see her—the person I am next to the person I am becoming. Someone who is more than a mother, a wife, a daughter, and an artist—someone who is all of those things, and perhaps, even more. Behind the person I am and the person I’ll become, I see shadows of all the people inside me that I’ve yet to recognize. I feel my ingrained need to be more finally hush, as the feeling of being enough finally settles in. 

Quietly, the heart sings. A celebration. A song for myself. 

TUESDAY

I’d be remiss not to chronicle here, in my little ol’ newsletter, that Go Your Own Waycame out today! 

I’m planning on working through this journal, alongside a dear friend, beginning next week. A year after I wrote this book, I’m excited to revisit it: to have accountability, to see what I unearth. 

If you haven’t gotten a copy, you can get one here. The UK edition is available here. 

WEDNESDAY

"Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity—audience, critics, economics, trivia—in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear.” 

—from David Bayles’ Art and Fear

THURSDAY

A book I finished, a book I’m starting, a book I pre-ordered, a book I’m eagerly waiting for. 

FRIDAY

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches. And they call again, “It's simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

—When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver

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 Go Your Own Way!

Go Your Own Way: A Journal for Building Self-Confidence publishes today through TarcherPerigee (Penguin Random House) and is available through BuyOlympia, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Target, and Amazon.

The UK edition is available through PenguinUK and is in Waterstones bookstores everywhere.

This idea for this book was born from a place of confidence. I knew, with certainty, that I wanted to make a journal that embraced our differences—a journal that encouraged others to take the road less traveled, the way I have in my own life. Though an unconventional path is lonely and difficult at times, it is also beautiful and incredibly fulfilling; I wanted readers to know this. I wanted them to take the risk, to give themselves the gift of surprise—of looking back at their own lives a year from now, and saying: Whoa. I can’t believe I did that.

Though the idea for this book was born from a place of confidence, it was written from a place of insecurity. When I began writing Go Your Own Way, I was still a new first-time mother, having freshly given birth and plunged into motherhood during the pandemic. N was 8 months old when we moved from Nashville to St. Louis so I could begin graduate school at Washington University. I was in a new city, in a new state, trying on these new identities of mother and student while searching, feverishly, for all of the people I used to be. 

I didn’t realize the impact that this combination of change would have on my self-esteem, but it became obvious pretty quickly: I was lost, unsure of where I wanted to go or how to get there. I knew I didn’t feel good about myself, that I didn’t feel like myself—but I didn’t know how to change it.

It turned out that having zero self-esteem was the perfect place for me to be. 

In writing this journal, I learned that although self-confidence can be shaken by large change—say, having a child and shaping it into a critically-thinking-and-feeling person—it is something that can be built back, again and again. Learning to stumble along your own path, however rocky or dark it may be, is the only way to build self-confidence. It is the only way to forge meaningful connections with yourself and others—and to create a life that ultimately reflects your own strengths, values, and priorities. 

I spent the last two years in graduate school while settling into our new home in our new city. Along the way, my 8-month old turned into a toddler, and then a child. I learned how to parent. I began feeling less like an imposter, more like a mother. I wrote How it Feels to Find Yourself (which published in May!) and then Go Your Own Way. I carried and birthed my second child during my final year of school, and graduated with my MFA a few weeks later. 

It's been...a whirlwind. A beautiful, difficult, challenging whirlwind. All of this is to say: I've really gone my own way. The confidence I have comes from knowing I can, because I did. 

Like all muscles, confidence strengthens with use; it grows as you do. It is not boastful or arrogant. It is quietly self-assuring, the little fire inside you that knows who you are is exactly who you should be—and that it is always best to go your own way. 

Purchase GO YOUR OWN WAY

GO YOUR OWN WAY is a fully-illustrated journal for building self-confidence, designed to help you cultivate the inner trust necessary for making healthy decisions and facing disappointment with resilience. Through the pages of this book, you’ll gain the strength necessary to recognize and speak your truths, create healthy boundaries, and take steps towards the future you envision for yourself. Transitioning from safe prompts to more challenging exercises, this journal recognizes that genuine self-esteem blooms slowly and deliberately, over time.

Each page of this journal is filled with comforting, empathetic quotes by world leaders, artists, and activists who have faced their own challenges with self-confidence and acceptance; thoughtful exercises that encourage you to find the value and beauty in yourself, and challenging prompts that help build a quiet, steady self-confidence that cannot be eroded by any external element. 

Purchase GO YOUR OWN WAY

Here’s how you can support Go Your Own Way: 

• Order a copy (or like, five) of Go Your Own Way: A Journal for Building Self-Confidence

• 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 Go Your Own Way (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 GO YOUR OWN WAY

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 talk a little more about self-confidence, the making of this book—and celebration.

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Inyeon.

An illustration from my latest Being column for Uppercase Magazine

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

MONDAY 

“Drawing—or mark making—has been a space for me to explore concepts without committing—before language, there were images,” writes Caitlin. After a few months without drawing, I feel bewildered, unsure of how to begin. I decide to start small to avoid overwhelm, choosing a pencil and a post-it note as my tools. I draw a small line and then another. As I layer them on top of each other, I realize I am drawing my infant daughter in stitches, the way a needle does with thread. This is the first spark—a signal that I’m on the right path. The tangible act of mark-making unlocks inspiration the same way somatic movement unravels anxiety: you must do to change how you feel. I decide to make an embroidered painting—a long-term project I’ll work on throughout my year-long maternity leave, to aid me in processing this season I’m in.

I choose it deliberately for the tedious, meditative nature of the work involved, and for its tactility. I need to feel the thread and needle; the drape of the linen as it pours over my knees. I need to feel the rhythm of my days without letting the movements mindlessly wash through me. I need to feel the frustration and monotony—and the sweetness and joy, without minimizing the weight and value of either.”

—Excerpted from A Season for Stitching, my latest Being column for Issue 59 of Uppercase Magazine

TUESDAY

“Wholeness isn’t something we acquire by stacking achievements or checking boxes or acquiring products or consumer goods. And I worry about this because I have two small children myself. They are five and six, and I’m thinking often about the world that they’re growing up in and what is that world telling them about who they should be and what success is. And what I worry about is that right now the world tells our kids and all of us that to be successful, you need one of three things: to be powerful, to be famous, or to be rich. But we all know people who have all three of those — who are wealthy, powerful, and famous — and profoundly unhappy, who don’t feel whole. 

I think to truly feel whole — it’s not about acquiring something that we don’t have. It’s about remembering who we fundamentally are. Part of healing, to me, is about recognizing what we already have inside of us, coming to trust that, coming to rely on that, and ultimately coming to find fulfillment in who we are.”

—Vivek Murthy, in conversation with On Being’s Krista Tippet

WEDNESDAY

What I’ve been reading lately:

Matrescence by Lucy Jones, a beautiful part-science/part-memoir investigation into what happens to a person—spiritually, physically, mentally—during the process of becoming a mother. 

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, which I looked forward to reading each night for reasons I still can’t quite pinpoint. It’s an agonizingly accurate capture of high school anxiety and adolescence through the eyes of Lee Fiora, a protagonist I cannot stand and also identify with entirely too much. 

A Frog in the Fall by Swedish illustrator Linnea Sterte, who has absolutely caught me with her line work and color sensibility. This gorgeous 300+ page comic is about a frog who “experiences everything for the first time”—full of humor and sweetness, totally mysterious. 

THURSDAY

We watch Past Lives and I learn about the Buddhist philosophy of inyeon, which serves as an explanation for why certain people connect and reconnect in certain times and places over the course of their lives. If two people have inyeon, they will find each other over and over again, in the tiniest of exchanges—crossing next to each other on the street, their sleeves brush as they board the train, one hands the other their change, the other is a postman and delivers their mail—the tiniest of exchanges, yes, except they’re all adding up, they’re compounding, over and over again, throughout 8,000 lifetimes—until their fates eventually collide.

FRIDAY

I sit here perpetually inventing new people
as if the population boom were not enough
and not enough terror and problems
God knows, but I know too,
that’s the point. Never fear enough
to match delight, nor a deep enough abyss,
nor time enough, and there are always a few
stars missing.
I don’t want a new heaven and new earth,
only the old ones.
Old sky, old dirt, new grass.
Nor life beyond the grave,
God help me, or I’ll help myself
by living all these lives
nine at once or ninety
so that death finds me at all times
and on all sides exposed,
unfortressed, undefended,
inviolable, vulnerable, alive.

—Ars Lunga by Ursula K. Le Guin

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: The way it is.

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

MONDAY 

“There’s a 23-year-old girl in my MFA cohort that I secretly admire. Daniela’s an excellent illustrator, very technically skilled, and her work shows an emotional depth that resonates deeply with me. We begin sitting together at lunch, and though her company is welcome, it quickly becomes clear that we couldn’t be more different. She’s outgoing and open-hearted; I am reserved and overly critical. She drips with the confidence only youth can bestow; I am anxious, intimidated by my own expectations and what a younger cohort thinks of me. Motherhood has stripped me of my confidence. The reality of being thrown into a powerful role that’s impossible to prepare for has me questioning what, if anything, I’m qualified to offer—to a friend, fellow student, and of course, my own child.

Daniela is comfortable with vulnerability. In each conversation, she invites me into another part of herself—her dreams, her ambitions, her own insecurities, and mistakes. She asks me for advice about relationships and building her career. She is genuinely curious about my experience with marriage and parenthood. I’m not familiar with a lot of her vocabulary—like a true millennial, I have trouble understanding the shorthand Generation Z slips into so easily. When I ask her to define a word she uses, she laughs at me gently, like a sibling. I feel at ease, comfortable in her company, starkly aware that the only person she wants me to be is myself. 

Often, I think about how easily this friendship could’ve passed me by; it was only through a small crack in the door of my heart that she came through.”

—excerpted from An Open Heart, an essay on friendship I recently wrote for issue #57 of Taproot Magazine

TUESDAY

This embroidered version of The Wind in the Willows by Rachel Sumpter that I bought months ago. I have yet to begin my own embroidery project, but this sits on our dining table (buried under a heap of N’s own paintings) patiently waiting for me; reminding me there is still time. 

WEDNESDAY

My days pulse with an air of desperation: I am uncomfortably aware that time is passing with rapid speed—that although the days feel long, full of to-do lists and diapers and laundry and tears—they are, in fact, steamrolling right through me. 

My child turns into a young girl before my very eyes, my infant into a curious baby; my body fails me not because it is weak but because it is neglected; my art won’t make itself and no one, other than me, needs me to make it; I will always, always fall short of my own aim and expectation; I cannot have it all, full stop, most likely—but I definitely cannot have it all at once. My brain agrees that there is a season for everything; my body does not physically understand it. My blood courses with agitation. 

I find comfort, as always, in all the familiar places:

“People always ask me how I managed to paint when my two boys were small. My children were a joy to me, and there was no problem working with them around—I just let them play at my feet as I painted. They would even run toy fire engines up and down my easel, but it didn't bother me. The only problem was how to keep them safe when we were doing field work, such as plowing with the horse. Once on a TV interview I was asked about this and I said, "Oh, we just tied them to a tree." When I listened to the program later, I was horrified.” —Dahlov Ipcar

“It’s my belief that even the freest, most single and childless writers rarely do more than four hours of intense writing a day. I do the same, but I just have much less spare time to waste. In order to write, I cut out a lot of things: reading the newspapers, for example. I listen to the radio, because you can do that while cleaning. And I have to avoid all social media and most daytime emailing. But I have also absolutely given up on the idea of peace and quiet as being necessary to writing. I just don’t allow myself to think about that.” —Zadie Smith

“I used to have these acres of time. And I didn’t particularly realize that until they went away. But one of the things that I at least have found from having a child is it’s not ever just one way. For a while it will feel like there’s no time, and then time will feel expansive again. And then there will be times when I don’t even want to write because it’s just kind of completely compelling to me to be doing other things. And then there will be other times where I feel like if I can’t write and have time to myself, I’m going to scream. But kids are so funny, too. They’re much more fun than most of the things I did when I was just a depressive-freak single person.” —Jenny Offill

THURSDAY

“To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” 

—from Arundhati Roy’s Azadi

FRIDAY

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

—The Way It Is by William Stafford

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: How to stop feeling guilty about not being productive

A paint palette and accompanying essay 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

When you know yourself well, it’s easier to locate the significance in every small moment. Your capacity to retain peace during difficult transitions increases. You understand that most situations have more than one correct answer. You feel freer.

The most important relationship we can spend our lives nurturing is the relationship we have with ourselves. The lens through which we view ourselves determines our connection to the world. If that lens is cracked or cloudy, each of our relationships begins to suffer. Building a strong internal compass that skillfully guides you through life’s uncertainties is possible only by developing an intimate, healthy relationship with yourself. Through this process of continued self-exploration, I began to learn who I am, what my purpose is, and how to intentionally shape my life into one I recognize with joy. Living well means adapting to life’s constant transition; evolving with purpose and clarity is a skill I now practice regularly. This is how I found myself—for the first time, and then again, every time after that.  

—An excerpt from the introduction of How it Feels to Find Yourself

TUESDAY

It’s 4:00 in the morning and How it Feels to Find Yourself will be published today. I feel sloppy and underprepared, like I’m about to take a test I haven’t studied for. In all the chaos of the last few months, I’ve barely been able to put much time into promoting this book. As fellow authors know, especially those who write for adults—your work isn’t over when you finish writing the book. The publicity and marketing aspect of publishing is overwhelming for those of us who prefer staying out of the limelight. I personally prefer being behind a desk than a camera; book promotion demands I summon the extrovert inside me, however well she may have hidden. 

Anyway. It’s 4:00 and we’re up to feed the baby, it being 2.5 hours since she’s last eaten. I stumble around in a haze, changing her diaper and tending to her spit-up, shoving a pacifier in her small. sweet mouth as her little lungs get ready to scream. I hand her to T who looks like a zombie but sits in the recliner to give her a bottle anyway. I gotta write my newsletter, I mumble sleepily, and he nods. 

Back in bed, it’s 4:30 am. I open my laptop and begin to write, promising myself that this is the last crazy thing I’ll do in a long while. I’m going to sleep instead of writing newsletters at 4:30 in the morning, I tell myself. I’m going to exercise instead of giving birth a few weeks prior to completing graduate school, I tell myself. I’m going to delight in healthier cooking and eating instead of working myself to the bone. 

I finish writing and close the laptop. I check on T and the baby, both of whom are asleep again, the steady rise and fall of their chests following each breath. I pull the covers up to my nose and exhale deeply. This is the last crazy thing I do, I repeat to myself. 

This is the summer of long walks and less running around. This is the summer of cookouts and lazy pool days and no homework. This is the summer of breathing in baby and being crazy with toddler. This is the summer of new recipes and friendships and sleep and smiles. This is the summer I see more and do less. This is the summer I read more and write less. This is the summer for rest and replenishing. This is the summer of silence. 

I will not feel guilty for not being productive. And maybe, months from now, when I feel good and ready—I will begin again. 

WEDNESDAY

Most of us who hit 40 have had enough experiences—winning and losing—to know that it is all actually “winning” and “losing.” The best job in the world can also cause you profound stress. Getting the promotion, raise, book deal that you always wanted, might feel like a hard-won achievement in certain ways, and in others, it is likely to be anti-climatic and send you spinning off into a moment of existential confusion. If you’ve experienced the texture of work long enough, you start to sober up about what really matters to you, what you are really made for, and what you want to spend your precious energy and time on. You understand that the deepest sense of self-realization doesn’t come through paychecks or titles, but through genuine, intrinsic pride that you have done something you are delighted by with people who delight you. Midlife is a moment to seek a more finely calibrated understanding of all of this and start advocating for yourself within work settings (whether that means joining a labor union or saying no more to freelance work or not tolerating assholes). Of course the most insecure your financial situation, and the less lucrative your life’s work, the more constraints you face on living into these truths. Which is why economic disparity is about so much more than “food on the table,” but people’s ability to give the world their best gifts and live their fullest, most realized lives.

—An excerpt from Grow Bigger Not Bitter by Courtney Martin 

THURSDAY

A simple photograph to celebrate this week, this book, and a vow to be less measurably productive:

FRIDAY

My shadow said to me:
what is the matter
Isn’t the moon warm
enough for you
why do you need
the blanket of another body
Whose kiss is moss
Around the picnic tables
The bright pink hands held sandwiches
crumbled by distance. Flies crawl
over the sweet instant
You know what is in these blankets
The trees outside are bending with
children shooting guns. Leave
them alone. They are playing
games of their own.
I give water, I give clean crusts
Aren’t there enough words
flowing in your veins
to keep you going. 

—The Shadow Voice by Margaret Atwood

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: Preserving the humanity in our work.

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

MONDAY

Last week, Dan Blank asked me why I decided to make elegy/a crow/Ba into an accordion book. He wanted to know why I would spend precious time gluing and assembling 50 accordion books when I’m: 9 months pregnant; in the middle of writing my Master’s thesis; finishing my Master’s thesis project—my first picture book pitch; promoting my upcoming book of illustrated essays; preparing for baby’s arrival in 4 weeks; and, you know, keeping atop of my regular work load, toddler, and home life. 

So why am I gluing and assembling and folding and mailing? The answer is that I've been trying to figure out how to get back to myself for a long time now. I want to pay attention to the artist and the creativity in me, which has taken a back seat to the business of being a brand and artist. As I told Dan: This accordion book brings a lot of humanity back to the art I'm interested in making. This book isn’t about making money or sales or generating publicity — it’s simply about writing a story from the heart and putting it out into the world to connect with others. 

For our full conversation and more of Dan’s thoughts on the power of handcrafted, read the latest edition of his newsletter here. 

TUESDAY

A song: One of my favorite covers is M. Ward’s take on David Bowie’s Let’s Dance — on repeat in my studio these days as I draw, draw, draw.

A picture: I recently bought this print for N’s room from Anna Cunha’s shop. Her work is poignant and pure, often capturing the simplicity of childhood and living with the land. I was surprised to learn that her gorgeously textured work is mostly illustrated digitally. 

A book: I’m almost finished with María Hesse’s illustrated biography of Frida Kahlo, which is devastating, mournful, and, of course, beautiful. 

WEDNESDAY

An excerpt from Before and After the Book Deal that really hit home this week, as I do what feels like even less for my family and home, while juggling a million other things and preparing to give birth:

“I feel badly that my daughter feels bad about me missing today’s performance, but I don’t feel guilty. It took me decades to be able to live off my own creative writing, and in those decades I learned that I have to fight tooth and nail to defend not just my writing time, but my identity as a writer, because most people will want/need me to do something other than my art. From the minute I was presented with my long-legged, super sucker newborn, I realized that I now had the world’s most precious time suck in my arms. There would be no end to this baby’s needs, no end to the things she would want from me, expect from me, forget at school and need. Nina gives me a hard time about it, but I refuse to hide how important my career is to me. In the domestic framework I’ve set up and continue to fight for, my writing and my daughter are both tied for first.

But getting my daughter to understand that this framework is built from love and respect is a long, long game indeed. I believe if I model the example of a working creative who defends her time, sets boundaries, and is honest about what she wants and doesn’t want, then long-term, my daughter won’t be trampled by people who want to take and take from her, ask for favors that turn into unpaid labor, see her negotiating like a lamb when she should be negotiating like a lion. This will probably take two decades, or maybe it will take my own daughter one day having children to realize the values I’m trying to impart. Or maybe it won’t work.”

—from Can You Be a Good Mom and a Great Writer? by Courtney Maum

THURSDAY

The world has graced us with the most excellent weather this week—warm breezes and open windows, too early yet for mosquitos or sweat. We’ve gone on many walks, watched the grackles bathe in the alleyway puddles, filled the hummingbird feeder with simple syrup, and did lots of laundry. 

N wore her yellow dress with flowers for the first time this spring and looked like a doll from somebody else’s drawing. I didn’t take a picture but I’m writing it here, now, to remember.

FRIDAY

in the dream of foxes
there is a field
and a procession of women
clean as good children
no hollow in the world
surrounded by dogs
no fur clumped bloody
on the ground
only a lovely time
of honest women stepping
without fear or guilt or shame
safe through the generous fields.

—A Dream of Foxes by Lucille Clifton

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: Behind the craft #1

Painting elegy/a crow/Ba, my first accordion book and illustrated poem

Hi all,

Welcome to my first craft post, where I’m focusing on the process behind elegy/a crow/Ba, my first accordion book and illustrated poem. 

Last semester, I took a sketchbooking class with Kruttika Susarla. I was eager to develop a sketchbook practice that, I hoped, would cultivate a deep love of drawing. It sounds silly to say that I want to love drawing more, especially because I am an artist by nature and trade, but while my affection for words feels innate, drawing has always felt more like a stranger: someone I am intrigued by, but also afraid of. And like most relationships, it’s harder to love something that challenges you or is difficult to understand. 

When I write and illustrate stories, the words come first. This is because I have more of a writer-brain than a drawing-brain; I think and process in and through words. This class encouraged me to push against my natural inclinations—to prioritize illustration as the seed from which a story can grow. 

I knew I wanted to illustrate a poem that I’d written, but without having a poem written to direct me, I felt a bit lost. I chose to do something I never do, which is trust the process. I’m a Type A personality, which is conducive for running a business, but not so helpful when getting lost in creative work. I focused on drawing whatever came to me, believing that the words—that is, the entire poem and story—would somehow come to me later. 

I began with some thumbnail sketches: 

The beginning of my process: thumbnail sketches about a nebulous story.

As you can see here, I used a 6-page template to storyboard my illustration. Together, with a front and back cover, this created an 8-page book. I knew I wanted the end product to be an accordion book, so I settled on a number of pages that felt manageable with my time constraints.

I didn’t have a story in mind, but I did have a subject: my relationship with my paternal grandmother, who lived with us and cared for me throughout most of my childhood before moving back to India when I was in high school. 

Without a text guiding me, I wasn’t sure where to begin. Instead, as I do with most of my work, I tried to pinpoint the feeling I wanted to convey: nostalgia, mostly, and the pinprick of heartache that memory evokes.

Here are a few different stories taking shape through tiny thumbnail illustrations:

I created several more sets of thumbnails before a direction became clear.

By the fifth iteration, I felt like I was getting somewhere. The concept of a panoramic illustration, drawn from a bird’s-eye viewpoint, captured the combination of awe and loneliness that I was after. Vast scenery surrounded two tiny characters, creating mystery, which is essential to every engaging story. This sketch did what I wanted it to—it asked a question: What’s the story here?

Whenever I read interviews with authors and illustrators, they talk about how, eventually, after hours of writing about them, the characters began speaking on their own. They talk about how the idea for their story came from nowhere, a shiny moon that suddenly appeared in orbit. They note how inspiration is not something that strikes like a lightning bolt, but something that visits occasionally, after you’ve been sitting at your desk discouragingly, doing the damn work. 

It’s easy to roll your eyes when you read this, especially if you’re someone like me, who wants a formula for success that they can follow. It’s discouraging when any creative you admire tells you that they don’t know how the astonishing work they made came to fruition. It just kinda happened, they say. All they know is that they showed up. They put their hands on the keyboard or their fingers around the paintbrush. They wrote words that amounted to nothing. They drew embarrassing sketches that led nowhere. And once in awhile, usually when they least expected it, something beautiful arose. 

The truth is, that is the formula that I’ve been looking for—I just hoped there was something else I was missing. But there isn’t. The formula is simple: Show up, do the work, see what happens.

I did a tiny color sketch next. Here, you’ll see that I combined elements from my fourth concept with my fifth, incorporating the bird as a third character. It wasn’t until I drew this that the bird became a crow, and it wasn’t until the bird became a crow that my story, all of a sudden, came together. This was a poem about our culture, our heritage, our relationship, and my memories. This was the poem about my grandmother that I’d been wanting to write. 

It was the first time that this strange phenomena happened to me, and it was such an important, special lesson for me to experience. Drawing is uncomfortable for me, but it’s a skill that requires mastery if I want to successfully share the stories inside me with the world of children’s literature. This unexpected breakthrough gave me the motivation to keep going. 

A final, digital sketch, and more experiments in color—which I generally use to create mood, atmosphere, and emotion.

I did a tighter sketch on Procreate, and tried a quick sepia-toned colorway. I liked it, but the blue version felt just right—cold, wintry, lost; like a story that happened many lifetimes ago. So I collected my materials and began the final drawing on 2 strips of Arches cold-pressed paper that I taped together—real fancy!

The final painting on my desk…need a bigger desk!

The completed painting is 8”x48” and was created with a combination of Holbein gouache (my underpainting and large swaths of color), Faber Castell polychromos colored pencils (detail work and texture), and Caran D’Ache neopastel oil pastels (blending, atmosphere, and texture). 

After the illustration was completed, the words slowly came. I wrote and rewrote the poem that accompanies the final page of this book several times, and then spent many weeks between October and December of 2022 revising it. 

I then added the front and back covers in Photoshop and spent approximately a week or two of my life trying to format it properly so that when printed across 4 panels and assembled, the accordion book would fold and unfold exactly the way I wanted it to. 

Here’s a photo of my shoddy version:

When I couldn’t quite figure it out, my friends at Done Depot here in St. Louis graciously took this task off my hands and printed the final panels for me. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been assembling the accordion books here and there, whenever I have small patches of time, and I’m so excited to now offer them for sale. 

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.

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: How it Feels to Find Yourself

The cover of my upcoming book of essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself!

Hi, friends.

Today’s newsletter is a departure from our usual while I reveal the cover for my upcoming book, HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF: Navigating Life’s Changes with Purpose, Clarity, and Heart, which will be published on May 23, 2023 by TarcherPerigee (Penguin Random House). 

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.

Pre-order HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

A spread from How it Feels to Find Yourself

Book promotion is not exciting for me. If I’m being honest, it fills me with a sense of existential dread. I don’t like asking people to buy things from me, and I don’t like to be pushy. Like most creatives, my heart and purpose lies in creating the work, not talking about it. The reality is that I support myself and my family with my work.

Pre-orders are vital to the success of any book. All publishers rely on pre-orders (and sales, in general) to see whether the books we write resonate with people and whether they should continue supporting us in creating them. Strong pre-orders for this book indicate strong interest. Strong interest encourages my publisher to buy my next book. 

More than that, pre-orders signal to my publisher—and the larger world of book publishing—that the work I’m making is important. That talking about emotions, vulnerability, and the complexity of the human condition is important. That raising our children with greater introspection and awareness is important. That creating books of value, with the intent of widening a reader’s mind and heart, is more important than a book designed to simply look good on Instagram.

Pre-order HOW IT FEELS TO FIND YOURSELF

So, how can you support me and this work?

• Pre-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. 

• 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.

Pre-order 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 next week with a new edition of Dear Somebody! 

xx,

M

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

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: A Simple Hello.

A page from my sketchbook: Lisle Sur Tarn, France – reimagined with N

A quick note: Tonight I'm leading a Time Capsule workshop with the Summer Writers Institute at Washington University, where I'll teach you to make an 8-page zine that captures this moment in time––using a single sheet of paper. Join me if you wish! This virtual workshop will be casual and reflective.

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

MONDAY

I've been home for nearly a month now and things between me and N have improved, although she does still ask for dada while I put her to bed, help her get dressed, or do almost anything. I smile and nod along while it's happening, saving my grimacing for later––for when I am alone or on the phone, or with T, who speaks to me sympathetically, albeit with the security of someone who is loved.

It's nearly 5:15 in the evening and N and I are coloring together, bright green silky scribbles on the paper that reach for the wooden floor. She makes marks the same way a dancer leaps across the stage––deliberately, with strength, using her entire body. I excuse myself to start dinner and she follows me into the kitchen, urgently shouting to be picked up. She wants to play with the upper cabinets, where we keep the cocoa and coffee, bags of sugar and corn starch, tins of assorted mushroom teas that I impulsively bought and will, really and truly, never drink.

“I have to cook, Naddo, so I can't watch you while you play on the counter,” I say. “It's not safe to stand up there alone.” She stares at me blankly and then resumes shouting, choosing not to understand the plight of a person who can't be in two places at once.

I want to be loved, so I pick her up and put her on the counter. She opens the cabinets and grins at the assortment of powders and potions inside. She laughs maniacally––with satisfaction, I imagine, at both the scene stretched in front of her and the agility with which she controls her mother. I turn away from her, leaning against the counter so she can't fall, but she shouts “Mama!" so loudly I spin back around.

N kneels down on the counter and takes my face between both of her hands. Her eyes are open wide, studying me intensely, and I unexpectedly feel…seen. Like I am a person in the world. Like I am someone special. Like in this very moment, all N wants is for me to be here with her. She leans towards me until our noses are touching and takes a deep breath.

“Hi," she says, exhaling the word deeply. Hi. A one-syllable meditation. The most beautiful word I've ever heard.

TUESDAY

“Writing, like all art, can be a site of safety, freedom, imagination. It can hold futures and dreams, our best memories, our worst. But because we deal in language, it seems inevitable that each writer, at one time or another, must confront other uses of writing, its place in a larger structure of power, and that structure’s hold on our social hierarchies. How we take in these moments, how we react to our knowledge of them—that is what makes the difference in the kind of writing we can hope to do.

The nice thing about going your own way is that you’re already “wrong”—but in your wrongness, in being off the map, you can stay free for a little while longer. To become that writer requires a radical act of imagination. More than one. And then the courage to choose yet another path. To keep moving, and know that there is truth and strength in that.” –Yanyi, on Justifying Your Writing

WEDNESDAY

"In the early 1940’s, abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko began pushing artmaking into uncharted territory: they sought to create works that resembled their internal sources of being—their spirit or consciousness. The abstract artists of this time rejected traditional images and visual realities in favor of walking freely into their own untethered imaginations. They were explorers of their own consciousness, interested in understanding (and reflecting) the vulnerable and often unseen sides of themselves.

I often wonder why I am so interested in my own feelings. I occupy a large amount of my time with emotional sorting: sitting with, identifying, and then categorizing the various heaps of daily emotion that pile themselves upon me. It’s only later, when I finally sit down to work, that I recognize the environment that begins to build from layers of paint on paper. It is my own emotional residue, transferring itself from my hand onto the painted page. Any powerful piece of art creates an atmosphere—a feeling of sublime that transports the reader or viewer out of their own world and into another." –An excerpt from my latest column, Being, for Issue #53 of Uppercase Magazine

THURSDAY

My new 2022-2023 weekly planner with Amber Lotus Publishing is now available! You can get a copy in my BuyOlympia shop, through the Amber Lotus Publishing website, and in bookstores everywhere.

FRIDAY

When you come, bring your brown-

ness so we can be sure to please

the funders. Will you check this

box; we’re applying for a grant.

Do you have any poems that speak

to troubled teens? Bilingual is best.

Would you like to come to dinner

with the patrons and sip Patrón?

Will you tell us the stories that make

us uncomfortable, but not complicit?

Don’t read the one where you

are just like us. Born to a green house,

garden, don’t tell us how you picked

tomatoes and ate them in the dirt

watching vultures pick apart another

bird’s bones in the road. Tell us the one

about your father stealing hubcaps

after a colleague said that’s what his

kind did. Tell us how he came

to the meeting wearing a poncho

and tried to sell the man his hubcaps

back. Don’t mention your father

was a teacher, spoke English, loved

making beer, loved baseball, tell us

again about the poncho, the hubcaps,

how he stole them, how he did the thing

he was trying to prove he didn’t do.

–The Contract Says: We'd Like the Conversation to be Bilingual by Ada Limón

(our 24th Poet Laureate of the United States!)

xo,

M

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