Dear Somebody: A new friend.

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

MONDAY 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TUESDAY

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

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

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

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

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

WEDNESDAY

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

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

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

For me, this process has been most useful in:

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY

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

FRIDAY

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

—Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror by Kelli Russell Agodon

See you next week!

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: The anchors we carry.

Moon Man and the five children (sketchbook, 2025)

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

MONDAY 

For the second time since N was born, I board a plane and travel with my children alone. We embark on a surprise trip to my sister’s, and none of us can wait. For N, it’s her cousins and all of the treats she doesn’t receive at home—but mostly, it’s her cousins. For F, it’s her cousins and the acrobatics—three flights of stairs to climb up and down on—but mostly, it’s her cousins. For me, it’s all of it: me and my sister and our five children, all corralled under one roof, a tangle of limbs and tears and, of course, indoor hide-and-seek.

Now and then, it pokes at me that the places most comforting to me are the ones where I’ve spent my formative years: by the water, on the east coast, near my sibling. Will I always turn towards the anchors of my childhood? Will I always feel the tug, known deeply by younger siblings—of reaching, wanting more? Of forever feeling two steps behind? 

The thoughts tumble in my mind while I stand at the kitchen island, watching my nephews play Madden on the living room floor. The oldest offers to teach me, but I love him too much to disappoint him by actually playing. N and Z are in the playroom, concocting meals out of pretend ingredients. They feed their dollies, they feed each other. They yell to see if anyone else is hungry; we all yell back that we aren’t. Only F feels out of sorts, clinging to my legs, wailing for something she doesn’t have the language to express. My sister scoops her up and carries her outside.

I smell the snow before I sense it, before I see the soft clumps accumulate on the back steps. The kitchen window isn’t cracked but the sharp, dampened scent of winter leaks in anyhow. I’m going to watch the snow, I announce. No one responds. 

In my sister’s arms, F is quiet. She’s listening to the snow, or maybe it’s very arrival is the world’s simple way of listening to her. Such is the strength of a young child’s heart. 

One by one, the rest of our band files onto the porch: first Z, who wants to see; then N, who wonders what Z is up to; then both boys, curious as to where everyone went. For this moment, Madden is on pause. 

The snowdrifts sort my thoughts and I know what I know: I don’t have an affinity for New Jersey or the east coast—or any particular nostalgia for the past. The only anchor I carry from childhood is my sibling, an anchor I’ll carry from house to house, shore to shore.

Our five children are cousins: together and sweet. The snow is the snow: always a pleasure. And I, so far removed from the roof, roads, and city that I call my own, feel perfectly at home. 

TUESDAY

“There’s one ceramic piece, by my daughter — my wife and I are super sad that we lost that. It’s an image of her as a 12-year-old holding a globe with the world on fire on top of her head. And it’s her in her overalls with her striped shirt on and brown hair. It’s an interpretation of an image I made after the fires in Malibu. She was becoming this awesome artist, interpreting the world through her art just like I do. To me it was an image of uncontrollable powerlessness — that feeling you know everyone shares, but through a kid’s eyes. My daughter’s sculpture was a symbol of someone becoming who they are in a moment of time we’ll never get back to.” —Cleon Peterson on what they grabbed.

I found these resources for LA from Nicole Cardoza’s Reimagined to be really helpful. Included are links to help organize, volunteer, and donate to aid those impacted by the wildfires. 

WEDNESDAY

The Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on wood

The Census at Bethlehem (1566), oil on wood panel

These world landscapes by painter Pieter Bruegel which simultaneously evoke in me a sense of war and peace, storm and calm, winter and the first day of spring. 

THURSDAY

“Consciousness lives on. The body is like a car, and the driver is the spirit, the bit of consciousness, the atom, the soul, you could say. And so the car gets old and rusted and falls apart and the driver gets out and continues on.” —David Lynch, rest in peace.

“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.

The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it’s a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw in other fish, and they’ll hook onto it. Then you’re on your way. Soon there are more and more and more fragments, and the whole thing emerges. But it starts with desire.”

—from Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch

FRIDAY

So after weeks of rain
at night the winter stars
that much farther in heaven
without our having seen them
in far light are still forming
the heavy elements
that when the stars are gone
fly up as dust finer
by many times than a hair
and recognize each other
in the dark traveling
at great speed and becoming
our bodies in our time
looking up after rain
in the cold night together

—January by W. S. Merwin

See you next week!

xx,

M

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Dear Somebody: A new year's day.

Sketchbook page from January 9, 2025

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

MONDAY 

When the first snow of the new year falls, I wake up to the syrupy hours of early morning and slope down the stairs. My cold nose presses against the iced windows while drifts stream down, soft ribbons sparkling against the dark night. A lone car whistles. An enormous moon watches. 

Last year felt like a loss, a piling up of all I didn’t get to. The days moved slowly: a never-ending trail of meal-making and playing catch up, of falling farther and farther behind, of willing my mind to be present and my temper further restrained, of tempering my expectations while motioning for my spirit to remain untethered, unfettered, dancing before me. 

Last year felt like a loss, a blur of all I was too overwhelmed to see. The days turned quickly: a whirl of cake-making and playing dress up, of celebrations and wishes, of willing myself to be a better mother than the ones I’ve been before, of one step forward and several steps back, of choosing—again and again—to tear it all down and rebuild, rather than simply walking away. 

Last year felt like a loss, a constant pinging of everything beyond my control. A year of reaching: where the person I am followed the person I want to be, of days that marked death and deaths that marked each day, of choosing to remind and remember, of chilling loneliness and bitter stagnation, of seeding and searching for new growth, and still—the gratitude for each new morning, evening, star. 

Now the days are gathered up behind me, three hundred-and-some in all. Looking back, I see a few neatly washed, some fed and watered, some treasured—but all worn through well, all loved and wanted.

Last year felt like a loss, but it also brought me back to myself. I sit here and write, the most honest form of loving I know, and feel the presence of someone I haven’t been before. Someone who tries, in the ways she knows how, to leave a change in the people and places she comes across. 

I love making resolutions. I love big, lofty lists of vows and ambitious goals, but in this new year, I have only one: to love myself the way I love life—in acceptance of all it is, in awe of all it can be. And I wish the same for you. 

TUESDAY

I’ve been under Chihiro Iwasaki’s spell for years now, long before I visited the Chihiro Art Museum in Nerima, Tokyo in 2019 and took in the full breadth of her work.

Chihiro Iwasaki, Tyltyl and Mytyl Running after the Blue Bird from Aoi Tori (The Blue Bird), Kodansha, 1969 | Courtesy of the Chihiro Art Museum Tokyo

The Little Mermaid Thinking of the Prince

Source: Jama’s Alphabet Soup

It’s been five years since I visited that museum, which was previously the home she shared with her husband and son, but her work continues to influence the paintings I make and the shape I’d like my life to take.

Rarely do I spent a day in my studio without considering the war-struck life she lived, the ethereal nature of her paintings, the sensibility in her line work, or the philosophy steadily strung throughout her paintings: to live a simple and modest life, to listen for laughing voices, and to protect our children at all costs. 

WEDNESDAY

An image of Richard Brautigan’s Karma Repair Kit

THURSDAY

I kept my more/less list extremely minimal and to-the-point this year, with the understanding that improvement on this one core item will greatly impact the rest of my world and everything inside it:

“The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb. I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word "love," and was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck's classic self-help book The Road Less Traveled, first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Explaining further, he continues, "Love is as love does. Love is an act of will-namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love." Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.” —from bell hooks’ All About Love

For archival purposes, here’s last year’s more/less list. 

FRIDAY

The day feels put together hastily
like a gift for grateful beggars
being better than no time at all
but the bells are ringing
in cities I have never visited
and my name is printed over doorways
I have never seen
While extracting a bone
or whatever is tender or fruitful
from the core of indifferent days
I have forgotten
the touch of sun
cutting through uncommitted mornings
The night is full of messages
I cannot read
I am too busy forgetting
air like fur on my tongue
and these tears
which do not come from sadness
but from grit in a sometimes wind

Rain falls like tar on my skin
my son picks up a chicken heart at dinner
asking
does this thing love?
Deft unmalicious fingers of ghosts
pluck over my dreaming
hiding whatever it is of sorrow
that would profit me

I am deliberate
and afraid
of nothing.

—New Year’s Day by Audre Lorde

See you next week!

xx,
M

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