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

---

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

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

---

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

Dear Somebody: Life is infinitely inventive

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

Hi, friends.

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

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

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

MONDAY

View fullsize

View fullsize

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

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

TUESDAY

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

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

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

WEDNESDAY

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

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

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

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

THURSDAY

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

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

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

FRIDAY

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

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

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

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

—The Kitten by Mary Oliver

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: It might have been otherwise.

A paint palette from my forthcoming book, How it Feels to Find Yourself

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

MONDAY

For the past week and half, N has been fighting bath time. She kicks and screams, wriggling on the floor. We present her with choices, we discuss the joys and benefits of regular bathing, and lastly, we plead for her to just get in. When none of the above works, we put her in ourselves, soaping and rinsing her body against the wail of her. Tears run down her cheeks and onto her neck, tiny rivers helping us rinse the day away from her. We brush her teeth solemnly, tired from all the hours that came before and exasperated by day 6 of bath strike. Why can’t it be otherwise?

N sits in her rocker with T, wrapped up in her new blue shark towel. Her biggest source of comfort is him, which I am grateful for—and, having worked hard at overcoming it over the past two years, only slightly envious of. In another life, I would be my child’s chosen source of comfort. It could’ve been otherwise. 

I sit on the floor at their feet and work her pajamas over her body—first, beginning at the feet and pulling them over her legs, her belly, her arms. Already she is slimming, moving further away from rounded baby into toddler. Who knows what comes next? Whatever it is, I know I’m not ready.

N moves onto the floor in front of me and we read a book together while T combs her hair. “Dada, I’m going to give you a kiss on your cheek!” she says triumphantly, looking at him. Her eyes are stars, bright and sharp. T gives her his face, obliging willingly, and she kisses him once on each side. My face splits into a grin. Who am I to begrudge such an act of love? It shouldn’t be otherwise.

Afterwards, she turns to me. “Mama, I give you a kiss on your cheeks!” she says, watching my eyes turn wide. I lean towards her in shock while she presses her face against mine first on the left side, then the right. We’re not in France, but I’m certainly living outside of my own life. 

It’s the first time she’s ever kissed me. I know I must write it down. It could’ve been otherwise. 

TUESDAY

“I’ve realized how much pressure I’ve put on myself to be, and stay, well — as if being well is inherently better on the hierarchy of humanity. The pressure came even bigger when I became a therapist, and then when I became someone with a public presence — the pressure to be an image of healing and growth, a walking testament to what’s possible when we choose to show up for ourselves, a reminder for others that healing works — and that it working means we get “better” for the rest of time.

The problem with this isn’t the possibility of wellness, or the fact that we all deserve to be deeply well, or the truth that we can grow and become more whole. The problem isn’t the desire to be well or the reality that life tends to feel a lot better in seasons where we are well. The problem, for me, is how this striving often sets us up to hide when we’re not in a season of feeling our best, and to feel bad about ourselves anytime life feels hard. Which then creates a deep urgency to get better, quickly. And life is going to continue feeling hard — more so in some seasons than others — forever.”

—The pressure to be well from Lisa Olivera’s Human Stuff

WEDNESDAY

I have a few new cards out with Biely & Shoaf, and I’m especially proud of this one, which welcomes new faces into the world with my favorite little elephant. 

My entire line of cards and boxed notecards are available on the Biely & Shoaf website. 

THURSDAY

“Secrets are everywhere. Some humans are crammed full of them. How do they not explode? It seems to be a hallmark of the human species: abysmal communication skills. Not that any other species are much better, mind you, but even a herring can tell which way the school it belongs to is turning and follow accordingly. Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?”

—From Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, which I’m currently halfway through, and is about humans, octopuses, and the unspoken nature of both. 

P. S. I recently finished John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies, gifted to me by a friend, and it’s one I looked forward to reading each night and am still thinking about weeks later.

FRIDAY

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

—Otherwise by Jane Kenyon

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: The gaps of life.

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

MONDAY

My collaboration with Mead Cambridge was released a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share it here. Over the last year, I worked on dozens of iterations before these three designs were greenlit for production, and although we are well into January, I hope these will be of use to those of you who, like me, enjoy mapping out their days.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

A handful of planners are available in my shop as well as on Amazon. You can also enter the giveaway I’m hosting on Instagram (virtually no one has seen this post, so there is a very large chance you will win!). 

TUESDAY

When I confided to a friend recently that paring down my interests felt like I was making my work, business, and impact smaller, she invited me to realign my perspective, sending me the following passage:

“If you take objects out of a room, one by one, two things will happen. The first is obvious. You will miss some of the things you have taken away. The second is that you will notice the things that remain more than ever. Your attention will focus. You will become more likely to read the books that are left on the shelves. You will appreciate the remaining chairs more. And if there is a chess board, you are more likely to play chess. When things are taken from us, the stuff that remains has more value. It rises not only in visibility but also intensity. What we lose in breadth we gain in depth.”

—The gaps of life from Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book

WEDNESDAY

Today I read Still This Love Goes On, a beautiful picture book by Buffy Sainte-Marieand Julie Flett that celebrates seasons, Indigenous traditions, and community. When I finish, I turn to the back of the book to read the note that Buffy and Julie have written to readers. 

In hers, Julie writes: The lyrics represent a Cree worldview, one in which we don’t really have a word for goodbye, but say kithwam ka-wapamitonaw, which means “we’ll see each other again.”

I think about how much is lost in translation—between separate languages, of course, but also in the simplest of glances, or when transforming sheet music into sound, or when inviting the sentences from a book into our brains. I think about how often words fail us, even the ones we believe to most precisely describe how we feel. Mostly, I think about how beautiful it is that in Cree philosophy there is little reason for the word goodbye to exist. 

THURSDAY

It’s a cold January day but we go for our usual morning walk anyway. For the first time, N wears her dinosaur hat, a hand-me-down from her 3 cousins.

“Are you a dinosaur?” I ask her, smiling.

“No, mama,” N tells me solemnly. “Daddy is a dinosaur. I just have a dinosaur hat.”

I trail behind her and her dinosaur dad sheepishly, wondering how I could’ve let myself ask such a daft question. As she bounces along, I think about how many heads the dinosaur hat has called home: first A, who is now 9; then S, who is 7; and Z, who, at 2, is only a month older than N. 

I love that N wears so much of her cousins’ clothing. As I watch her collect sticks and pinecones, memories float along the river of my mind and down to my heart, where A carved out his own little nook nine years ago. I was still a lost kid in my mid-twenties when A came into the world prematurely, a tiny riot of iron will and too-fast-everything. 

Almost a decade before I had my own child, it was A who first introduced me to parenting—and that learning to parent is a long road towards becoming the person you always wanted to be, but never actually practiced being. With A, I learned what patience truly is. I didn’t know how to hold a baby, but I practiced with his little limbs. I felt my heart irrationally flare with anger when another toddler stole his pail at the playground; I practiced calming myself. I learned what it meant to be protective of another’s mind and heart through my conversations with him. I learned how to love my sibling more closely by observing how he loves his. Even today, I feel my heart well each time I experience the sensitivity and empathy he carries with him daily. It is far too big for his frame. As a person, I have always been slightly closed. It was A who taught me how to open my heart—who taught me how to love unconditionally. 

I think about A all day. Later, my sister tells me that the dinosaur hat never belonged to A—she bought it for S when he was little. Not only is my memory flawed, but the immediate flood of recollection I experienced was summoned by a truth that never even existed. At first, I feel cheated, as if the love in my heart is a lie. But then A’s face fills my mind and my eyes are quick to fill with tears. I feel overwhelmed by my love for him. Nothing about this love is a lie. 

FRIDAY

You simply go out and shut the door
without thinking. And when you look back
at what you’ve done
it’s too late. If this sounds
like the story of life, okay.

It was raining. The neighbors who had
a key were away. I tried and tried
the lower windows. Stared
inside at the sofa, plants, the table
and chairs, the stereo set-up.
My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me
on the glass-topped table, and my heart
went out to them. I said, Hello, friends,
or something like that. After all,
this wasn’t so bad.

Worst things had happened. This
was even a little funny. I found the ladder.
Took that and leaned it against the house.
Then climbed in the rain to the deck,
swung myself over the railing
and tried the door. Which was locked,
of course. But I looked in just the same
at my desk, some papers, and my chair.
This was the window on the other side
of the desk where I’d raise my eyes
and stare out when I sat at that desk.
This is not like downstairs, I thought.
This is something else.

And it was something to look in like that, unseen,
from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there.
I don’t even think I can talk about it.
I brought my face close to the glass
and imagined myself inside,
sitting at the desk. Looking up
from my work now and again.
Thinking about some other place
and some other time.
The people I had loved then.

I stood there for a minute in the rain.
Considering myself to be the luckiest of men.
Even though a wave of grief passed through me.
Even though I felt violently ashamed
of the injury I’d done back then.
I bashed that beautiful window.
And stepped back in.

—Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In by Raymond Carver

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: We must supply our own light.

A recent screenprint with gold leaf applied by hand, 18”x24” on Arches paper

Dear Somebody,

Welcome to the first edition of this newsletter hosted on Substack! Thanks for bearing with me while I migrated. While this weekly letter will always be free, I’m considering adding a paid tier to this newsletter, likely this upcoming May.

If you’re interested in seeing more from me, please let me know what excites you most. Thank you to those who have already written to me. 

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

MONDAY

After a year of working on it, between projects and books and school work, I finally completed this large screen print as a belated gift for T. After years of promising to do so, it was important for me to make something for him using my hands—something that had the full imprint of me embedded within it. The print is hand-pulled using black Speedball ink on Arches paper, and then gilded with gold leaf. My gold leaf application is imperfect but deliberate, and the child in the drawing is modeled after N. Both of these elements contribute meaning to this piece of work. 

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

The print is inspired by one of T’s favorite quotes by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, originally said in his 1968 interview with Playboy Magazine: 

Playboy: If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living?

Kubrick: Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism—and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in faith and in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong—and lucky—he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death—however mutable man may be able to make them—our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

TUESDAY

I’ve found the following encouraging as I work on rewriting my picture book manuscript:

• Picture books, drawing, and storytelling: Emma Carlisle on The Good Ship Illustration podcast

• Watercress by Andrea Wang and Jason Chin, one of the most perfect picture books I’ve read. Poignantly written and beautifully illustrated, and never saying too much.

• Three pages a day by Oliver Burkeman (originally inspired by Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages)

WEDNESDAY

“I seem to live on moods, ups and downs. And I seem to be repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Some mistakes are beautiful. There is a beauty in mistakes that you can’t find anywhere else, maybe that’s why. And I keep avoiding any definite ties with anything and anybody. There are places and moments during which I feel that I would like to always remain there. But no: next moment I am gone. I seem to enjoy only brief glimpses of intimacy, happiness. Short concentrated glimpses. I do not believe that they could be extended, prolonged. So I keep moving ahead, looking ahead for other moments. Is it in my nature or did the war do that to me? The question is: was I born a Displaced Person, or did the war make me into one? Displacement, as a way of living and thinking and feeling. Never home. Always on the move.” 

—The diary entry of Jonas Mekas, a Lithuanian refugee who escaped his Nazi-occupied country for New York City in 1949

THURSDAY

When I wake up this morning, everything is wet. The roof, the windows, the earth. I look outside at my favorite sky, which is white and streaked with nothing. I look outside at my favorite sky, which is cold and the color of nothing. I smile. I slept all right. I feel strangely alive.

N puts her rain boots on and we go puddle jumping for a few minutes. We look closely at the water covering our feet, at the gasoline that pools on the surface, the leaves and debris swirling underneath. Want me to put on the rain song? I ask her as we get into the car. Yeah, she says, and waits as Nina Simone’s version of I Think It’s Going to Rain Today climbs out of the speakers. Is this the rain song? N asks before requesting the ABC song instead. I pretend not to hear her and play Claudine Longet’s version next and by now, no one is listening to the music except for me. 

There is rain on the windshield, rain drizzling through the speakers, rain running through the streets. In my heart, human kindness is overflowing. 

FRIDAY

Ocean, don’t be afraid.
The end of the road is so far ahead 
it is already behind us. 
Don’t worry. Your father is only your father
until one of you forgets. Like how the spine
won’t remember its wings
no matter how many times our knees
kiss the pavement. Ocean,
are you listening? The most beautiful part
of your body is wherever
your mother's shadow falls.
Here's the house with childhood
whittled down to a single red trip wire.
Don't worry. Just call it horizon
& you'll never reach it.
Here's today. Jump. I promise it's not
a lifeboat. Here's the man
whose arms are wide enough to gather
your leaving. & here the moment,
just after the lights go out, when you can still see
the faint torch between his legs.
How you use it again & again
to find your own hands.
You asked for a second chance
& are given a mouth to empty out of.
Don't be afraid, the gunfire
is only the sound of people
trying to live a little longer
& failing. Ocean. Ocean —
get up. The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world. Here's
the room with everyone in it.
Your dead friends passing
through you like wind
through a wind chime. Here's a desk
with the gimp leg & a brick
to make it last. Yes, here's a room
so warm & blood-close,
I swear, you will wake —
& mistake these walls
for skin.
—Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong by Ocean Vuong

xx,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: Listening to yourself.

from Listening to Yourself for Issue 56 of UPPERCASE Magazine

A small note: next week, this letter will come from Substack instead of Flodesk. Please set your inboxes to accept email from meeraleepatel@substack.com to prevent your spam filter from intercepting them.

This weekly letter will continue to be free, but moving to Substack will allow me to foster community: you'll be able to comment on letters and engage in conversation if you wish. As I prepare to graduate from school this semester, I'm re-evaluating what I want my business and career to look like. Being able to offer a paid tier for my work (some possibilities I'm considering are process tutorials, personal comics, illustrated poetry, or guided journaling workshops) will allow me to sustain my business while stepping back from work that I've outgrown. 

I've spent the past two years deep in transition and 2023 will include even more change, both personally and professionally. I'm strictly prioritizing writing and illustrating books, including a new beginning in picture books––and caring for my young family. I want to be more present; I want to continue growing; I want to uncover the work inside my heart. I imagine many of you share these same goals. 

If there is an offering you'd like to see from me in the future, please let me know! Just hit reply to write to me. Thank you, always, for supporting me and my work. 

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

MONDAY

When K, C, and their daughter M arrive to spend New Year's Eve with us, I am both excited and nervous. It's one thing to have a good friend visit, but another to mesh your families together for the first time. As an adult, long-term friendship requires more than the friendship of youth: more emotional investment, more depth and deliberation, more evaluation. I take friendship seriously; I cull my garden regularly; I become more protective of my heart and my time. 

The days pass easily. Time slips by like water. We start each morning with a long, meandering walk through St. Louis, stopping only to grab coffee or watch our girls hold hands. The conversation dips between music, culture, and parenting before sloping into relationships, families, finances. Nothing feels too intimate to share. I watch our families lean into each other and feel my friendship with K widen. 

The four of us sit on the couch long after December disappears into January, our laughter occasionally, slowly, shaping into yawns. The future is open; I watch the possibilities multiply; my heart swings against itself. I take note of how lucky I am.

TUESDAY

On listening to yourself:

"Over the last few weeks, I’ve prioritized myself again. I’ve begun meditating, spending time with a notebook and pencil, and consciously separating my own thoughts from the ones externally projected onto me. I’ve protected my vulnerability by only sharing myself with those I trust to understand and support me. I’ve begun writing, though it is difficult, and though the words come much more slowly than they used to. I paint for how it makes me feel, not for what the final image looks like.

I do all this with the understanding that learning to hear myself again is a continuous practice, and one that I won’t always be able to sustain with regularity. Life will happen, again—as it always does, and as it should. I will stumble again, possibly succumbing to self-doubt, much to my own disappointment. If I can continue to create, however—if I can reach down and discover what else there is inside me, to listen to myself more closely than I have before, and to write and draw what I believe to be in my heart, then there is a chance that someone out in the world will see it—and that it, too, will be what they need most in that moment."

––An excerpt from my latest column, Being, for Issue #56 of Uppercase Magazine 

WEDNESDAY

A holiday gift to myself: surrounding myself with strong, unapologetic women––including this new studio inspiration from Her Name is Mud to guide me through this upcoming year of creating, transition, and challenge:

“I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.” ––Georgia O'Keeffe

THURSDAY

“If we are sincere in wanting to learn the truth, and if we know how to use gentle speech and deep listening, we are much more likely to be able to hear others’ honest perceptions and feelings. In that process, we may discover that they too have wrong perceptions. After listening to them fully, we have an opportunity to help them correct their wrong perceptions. If we approach our hurts that way, we have the chance to turn our fear and anger into opportunities for deeper, more honest relationships. The intention of deep listening and loving speech is to restore communication, because once communication is restored, everything is possible, including peace and reconciliation.” 

––Thich Nhat Hahn, from Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm

FRIDAY

you owe it to yourself to quit being the apology. to

hold your hand and sing your favorite song. to

love another and see how far that will go. to love

yourself and forget where you were headed in the

first place. love is a funny story. it wakes up and

builds a plot. it wakes up and shapes you into the

kind of woman your mother studies. i am not per-

fect in it. i am not even remotely articulate. but it

is big, this love. it is airborne and triumphant. i am

no easy show. i hurt like the climb of my lineage. i

hurt on purpose. i hurt to not be hurt. no, none of

this is an excuse. just a blueprint. a map. come

find me when the day is bronze and the sorrow is

full. i am building my poem in this here heart. all

of it is a working title.

––Until the Stars Collapse by Tonya Ingram

xo,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: Running into a new year.

A glimpse of the art from “Elegy/A Crow/Ba”, an illustrated poem (forthcoming)

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

MONDAY

While you are sleeping, I consider your breath, wait for it beside my own, measure each one by the slow climb of your stomach against blue linen sheet. 

You are round; the moon. You love me, for now. I try my hardest to keep you curious, believing there is more—ocean floor under sea under twilight under sky under cloud under bird under song, I try my hardest not to undo you.

Your eyes, closed. The moon, alone. No one sees it come and go, its great back against the persistent sky, its face turned this way or that, with no mother to watch or wait for it. 

TUESDAY

N and I watch a handful of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episodes on repeat, especially Episode 47 from 1985 which features Yo-Yo Ma, so I was especially interested in learning more about Ma's latest collaboration which unites music, culture, connection––and America's national parks.

“Culture is able to look at the macro universe and the micro universe and bring it back to a size that we can see, feel, touch and analyze. What if there’s a way that we can end up thinking and feeling and knowing that we are coming from nature, that we’re a part of nature, instead of just thinking: What can we use it for?"

––Yo-Yo Ma is Finding His Way Back to Nature Through Music by Joshua Barone

WEDNESDAY

Holding this sentiment close as I move into the final semester of my MFA program, work on my thesis project + defense, and remind myself why I do the work I do: 

“The books I’m writing are houses that I build for myself." ––Etel Adnan via Shira Erlichman

THURSDAY

The reflections I'm considering as we move into 2023:

1. What do I want to prioritize in the next 12 months? Are these pursuits rooted in an internally or externally-motivated sense of self-worth? And: If no one sees what I'm making, do I still want to make it?

2. The relationships I'd like to prioritize, cherish, and foster: the people that make me feel like enough, who celebrate my successes, and who aren't afraid of life's messiness. Making an effort to create community in my new city, continuing to be honest about life's joys and disappointments, and understanding that not everyone is for me.

3. What are the feelings, fears, and habits I'd like to leave behind? Especially: What cycles of thought and convictions am I better off without?

4. Recalling the impermanence in all things.

FRIDAY

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

––i am running into a new year by Lucille Clifton

xo,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: How I give my thanks.

From Notes on Inspiration for Issue 55 of Uppercase Magazine

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

MONDAY

I step out into the evening and breathe it all in: the borrowed sky, the pinprick of star, your small hand lost in your father’s. I’m six paces behind. I follow your shadows like a stranger, I memorize each crack before you step on it, I see the uneven anger of sidewalk lashing against your toes. You talk in night voices, small but bright against the still air. I step onto the ending of each sentence—an eavesdropper, a passing thought, a pair of wings in the sky. A few maple leaves still hold onto the emptying branches above us, stout. Resolute.

For now, we are three. For tonight, there is only us. I give my thanks to whoever still listens, I gulp each stony breath more deeply than the last, I collect the cold like marbles in my lungs. I count how many evenings like this we still have left.

TUESDAY

"Inspiration propels us to act. Within the world of creativity, it is something that inspires us to create, experiment, or expand the way we think. While plagiarism merely replicates another person’s work, inspiration motivates us to thoughtfully collect elements of an artwork we resonate with, to create something new—something that previously did not exist. At its most genuine, inspiration guides us towards innovation and natural evolution.

When I’m drawn towards a particular piece of art, I study it and try to understand what it is I’m captured by. I consider three specific areas and mark my observations in my journal or sketchbook. What I’m looking for is a through-line—the line tying my sources of inspiration to the art that I’d like to create. Pinpointing this is essential in making work that is original and honest—that carries the spirit of you, despite who or what it’s inspired by." 

––An excerpt from my latest column, Being, for Issue #55 of Uppercase Magazine 

WEDNESDAY

“We seldom think of conversation as commitment. but it is. I find that expressing what I really feel and telling another person what is actually important to me at the moment is difficult. It requires a commitment on my part to do so, and I sense that this is true for most of us. It is equally difficult to listen. We are usually so full of our own thoughts and responses that we seldom really listen close enough to one another to grasp the real flavor of what the other person is attempting to convey. Creative communication in depth is what allows us to experience a sense of belonging to others. It is the force that limits the destructive potential in our lives and what promotes the growth aspects. Life is a struggle. Coping with a lifetime of change is a struggle, but through a lifetime of change we will experience ourselves as full persons only to the degree that we allow ourselves that commitment to others which keeps us in creative dialogue.” 

––bell hooks on conversation as commitment.  

THURSDAY

Last night, we watched The Snowman, an animated short based on the original children's book by Raymond Briggs. It was perfect in the way most movies from childhood aren't––that is, it stood up to the high bar of wonder and magic my 7-year-old self encased it in. Better yet, as an adult (and artist), I'm now able to fully appreciate the hundreds of hours that go into drawing and animating such a fantastic film.

Today, I listened to the soundtrack on repeat. My favorite track is, of course, Walking in the Air: gorgeously haunting piano music paired with Peter Auty's beautiful voice. 

P. S. I'm also reading Grace Loh Prasad's The Orca and the Spider: On Motherhood, Loss, and Community. Have you read it? I'd love to hear your thoughts if you have.

FRIDAY

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

––Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

xo,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: Another year over.

A portrait of my mother and N, for Issue #53 of Uppercase Magazine

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

MONDAY

When my mother first comes to visit me on the farm, she’s in awe. She’s lived in the suburbs for her entire adult life, ever since she emigrated to the United States as a young woman. For the last 30 years, she’s been surrounded by streets and sidewalks, the chatter of neighbors, the early morning rumble of school buses picking up their children. Here, it’s quiet.

"Look at all this land!” she says, walking around the 20 acres of wood that surrounds us. “Wow. It’s so green. So beautiful. Look! There’s deer there.” I look, but my eyes miss their delicate limbs as they disappear into the maple trees. Instead, I see the weeds inching past my knees, the stone driveway in need of leveling, the demolished kitchen I spend my days re-tiling. We wash our dishes in the bathtub. We spend our nights tilling the earth, weeding the greenhouse, or clearing years of neglect from the yard. It’s difficult for me to imagine the future, but I know it will take many years to love this neglected land into something new.

–An excerpt from my latest column, Being, for Issue #53 of Uppercase Magazine

TUESDAY

"To be reminded of your cosmic insignificance therefore isn't just relaxing, but actively empowering. Because once you remember the stakes aren't anywhere near that high, you're free to take meaningful risks, to let unimportant things slide, and to let other people deal with how they might feel about your failing to live up to their expectations."

–Oliver Burkeman on Cosmic Insignificance

WEDNESDAY

Today, on my birthday: this is what I look like. This is what I look like nearly all of the time: like I'm sleepwalking through life.

I've got one year of graduate school nearly finished, one forthcoming book of essays written and under my editor's care, and one beautiful baby who loves waking up at 4am.

Sometimes I look at my little family and feel like I'm in a dream. Sometimes I get off the phone with a friend and I think about how lucky I am to have such meaningful relationships. I've built a life my 15-year-old-self couldn't even have imagined. I feel myself changing nearly all of the time. Things are hard and beautiful; challenging and all the more fulfilling because of that.

Low on sleep, but life is full, full, full: this is a lucky life.

THURSDAY

Over the past half-year, slowness has settled into me. I've become a lot more comfortable with taking the long road, letting go of ideas that dictate where I shouldbe and how it should look.

It is especially difficult to be patient with creative work, which can be quite isolating and lonely, and which relies on a strong connection with your honest, artistic self. I'm continuously rebuilding this relationship. While I do so, interviews with those I admire have been especially comforting: Shaun Tan on taking the long road, Caver Zhang on gradual acceptance, and Lois Lowry on reading as a rehearsal for life.

FRIDAY

Lucky Life isn't one long string of horrors
and there are moments of peace and of pleasure as I lie in between the blows.
Lucky I don't have to wake up in Philipsburg, New Jersey,
on the hill overlooking Union Square or the hill overlooking
Kuebler Brewery or the hill overlooking S.S. Philip and James
but have my own hills and my own vistas to come back to.

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

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

–from Gerald Stern's Lucky Life

xo,

M

---

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

Dear Somebody: The perfect day.

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

MONDAY

I climb into the car after a long day of classes and J, who's visiting for the weekend, tells me she's brought along a bottle of The Perfect Day all the way from New York, having socked it away in the airplane's belly, along with dozens of bagels.

We do the perfect day exercise, the one where you imagine your perfect day 10 years from now. In it, I live in a house with a separate studio and a family that looks just like mine. In it, I write stories and help other people share theirs. In it, a friend comes by to hang on the porch and share in laughter. In it, I feel good, with a body less stressed, with a mind less stretched. In it, there is time for me.

Between J and me are 19 years of memories. My 15-year old self never imagined friendships this old, but here we are: still friends. I know time goes on, but where does it go? Time becomes the ease, I think––the natural laughter, the conversations about bodies, and babies, and home. Time becomes the tears in my throat. A swift catch when I slip on the ice, all the words we don't say, her hand in mine.

We're sitting outside in the fifty-something warm-wash weather, the sunshine glinting in our eyes, legs draped over the porch walls. I can tell it's happening right now––the meaningful part of life, the part you remember years later, the part that wakes the sleeping bird in your heart.

I'm going to remember this, I say aloud. You and me on the porch, this orange wine, this moment in time. The perfect day.

TUESDAY

In an effort to understand what direction I'd like to take my illustration work in, I've been making collages. Here is one, and another, and another.

Collage opens up the way I think about composition and layout, by providing more air between my subjects and their environment. Everything in the picture breathes.

WEDNESDAY

"Does working so much fulfill you?” a skeptical writer friend asked; I’d opened up to him a bit about my other lives, then regretted it. I wasn’t trying to show off. I was just trying to explain why I’d been tired for an entire month. He seemed annoyed by how much I worked and, after expressing concern for my general health, suggested that, because I wasn’t giving the M.F.A. my full attention, I wasn’t taking my writing seriously. I was taking my writing seriously, but I also needed to make rent. He, on the other hand, was fine financially, and would continue to be fine, even if he never made money from his writing. I brushed off his judgment and, for a while longer, we continued to be good friends. The obvious but tedious fact is that some of us are conditioned to work much harder than others because some of us have a lot more to prove. Had I mentioned this to my friend, he would have rolled his eyes.

–from Weike Wang's Notes on Work

THURSDAY

Factories at Clichy: might be my favorite Van Gogh? I stared at it not-long-enough, while N ran amuck, her tiny feet slamming echos through the museum. Next time, we'll look at this painting first.

FRIDAY

It has begun: they climb the trolleys

at the thief market, breaking

all their moments in half. And the army officers

in the clanging trolleys shoot at our neighbors’ faces

and in their ears. And the army officer says: Boys! Girls!

take your partner two steps. Shoot.

It has begun: I saw how the blue canary of my country

picks breadcrumbs from each soldier’s hair

picks breadcrumbs from each soldier’s eyes.

Rain leaves the earth and falls straight up as it should.

To have a country, so important,

to run into walls, into streetlights, into loved ones, as one should.

Watch their legs as they run and fall.

I have seen the blue canary of my country

watch their legs as they run and fall.

–from Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic: 2. 9AM Bombardment

xo,

M

---

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