New Plantings Coming Soon (Dallas Arboretum, March 2026)
A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:
MONDAY
A friend comes to visit and for this reason, and this reason alone, I begin to clean the house. She hasn’t been to our house here in Saint Louis since we moved nearly four years ago. Four. I say the number aloud, not believing it but having to because it is the truth and I’m hunting for it. Now that I have children who also hunt, it’s become clear: this is not a journey particular to me, but one that most find themselves lost on, looking this way or that, wondering if what they see is mirror or mirage.
A friend comes to visit and so I vacuum the floor and wonder if my house will ever be crumbless, if a single non-sticky step awaits in my future, if there will ever be a moment where my walls aren’t cluttered by gorgeous, fading drawings; will the white of the walls will ever have their time in the sun? Before we had children, when we still lived on the farm, T and I poured ourselves into its arms. We shaped and painted and polished as if it were more than just a house sitting in the middle of a field, as if it were a home we came together to build, and the hard work of it made me shine.
The Farm (Nashville, TN, 2020)
When I moved to this house, N was 8 months old, and the work of mothering, well, it wrung me out. Some handle motherhood well, but I don’t recall seeing myself shine. Looking around my house now, there’s little resemblance of the efforts I once placed into the farm, little to show, aesthetically or organizationally, for having lived here for nearly four years. Looking around my house now, you’d know that just getting through has been enough.
The sunlight shines in patches over our partially painted walls. Toys and books are strewn about, abandoned by a child who lost interest. Half-finished Lego buildings dominate the dining table; there is gold glitter everywhere; in the corner of the living room sits a small pile of crumbled chalk. I pick up a lunch box from the living room floor and take inventory: a single golden spoon, seven plastic diamonds, a stethoscope, two bracelets, and a Moana figurine. There are piles of paper everywhere.
The Dining Table (March 2026)
N and F’s studio or The Dining Room (March 2026)
A friend comes to visit so I pick up some stuffies and move them around. A dark shape inside my mind tells me I should keep a better house, but mostly, I drink my morning coffee thinking about how much I’ll miss Tuna and Penguin when they’re no longer haunting every corner of my home.
Tuna and Penguin Have Coffee (March 2026)
I clear the dining table so there is place for conversation and cutlery, and though I don’t want to, I tear down the Lego construction site and sweep the pieces into a box. I put F’s trinkets back into her lunch box and stick it on a shelf. What do other people think a home should look like? What do I think a home should be like? I don’t quite know, but I’m figuring it out. Over and over, we rebuild what we care about most.
A home is a beautiful farm on a lonely field with seven French doors that scoop the sunlight right in. A home is a tiny brick Craftsman on a busy city road filled with clutter, and crumbs, and cries. A home is a place inside my heart that doesn’t fear or falter, that remains steady and true—even when the body that houses it changes, ages, and continues to fail. All three are homes that I have built, with different priorities, at different times, for a different number of hearts—and the hard work of it makes me shine.
TUESDAY
I have a bunch of new cards out with Biely & Shoaf, including these springtime favorites:
Follow Your Inner Moonlight (birthday card, 2026)
I Love You Mom (Mother’s Day card, 2026)
All That Makes You Wonderful (birthday card, 2026)
You can find my entire line of cards over on the Biely & Shoaf website.
WEDNESDAY
On creativity as reaction, the ghost that meets the reader, and maximum choice points: A conversation between George Saunders and Rick Rubin, sent to me by L.
THURSDAY
On being a writer:
“Anyone who writes is a seeker. You look at a blank page and you’re seeking. The role is assigned to us and never removed. I think this is an unbelievable blessing.”
—Louise Glück
On being an ever-evolving person:
“It dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns…that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn’t have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale…that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorient myself.” —Bob Dylan
On turning harsh reality into art:
“My brush and my paintings about the children of Gaza who lived through hunger, fear, deprivation, loss, exhaustion, and the world’s indifference.”
—Marah Khaled al-Za’anin, who turned her tent into an art gallery on the Gaza Strip
FRIDAY
In 1992 my mother believed
the world was going to end.
Having given this church
cash and also her wedding ring—
sign of new fidelity—
she asked in the parking lot,
Is it better to be
citizens of Heaven
or of the United States?
Ten years old, I knew well
enough what to say.
Then she called the caseworker.
And this is how my siblings and I
remained illegal.
—Out of the Mouths of Babes by Esther Lin
Of all the things you can put in front of your eyes, I’m grateful that my little letter is one of them.
If you’d like to support me, please buy my books. My art prints and line of greeting cards make excellent gifts for yourself or a friend. You can also hire me for your next project—I’d love to work together.
xx,
M
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