F and I by the sea (March 2024)
A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:
MONDAY
While F naps off her fever, N and I go to the beach. She builds sand castles and makes seagull soup; I comb the shoreline for shells. The water is cold but I jump in anyway. Under nearly 5 feet of water, I see my toes. The sea is turquoise, a mermaid’s glittering tail. I’ve never been to the Gulf before.
We walk along the beach and stumble upon some two plastic toy crabs, one yellow, one blue. They’re buried under the deserted white blanket of the beach, with just a claw or two peeking out. I ask N if she wants to add them to her collection but she shakes her head no. “Well, we can play with them for a little while,” I say, and make several crab shapes.
I want N to love the water. I’m beginning to feel a specific pressure of parenthood I thought I was immune to: wanting my children to experience the beauty of my childhood without the aches; wanting them to feel affection for many of the same things I do; wanting them to share some of the same philosophies. I want N to understand that among its many mysteries, the sea can wash most any despondency away.
N plays for a few minutes and then pushes the toys away. “Mom, I don’t want these. They belong to another child and that child will miss them.” Standing in the stark black and white of N’s morality, I feel shame. I’m envious, too. I want more of life to clarify in front of me, I want more of it to appear so obviously right or wrong. My conviction, at one point solid, made of stone, is porous now and has been for years. It’s wrung through with the realization that most days, I learn I am wrong about something I once believed.
I ask N if she’d like to bring the toys to the beach lost and found; she does. We watch as both crabs are placed inside an enormous beach shed, then closed and locked, where they succumb to a much darker life among their fellow comrades—each of whom has been misplaced, forgotten, or abandoned. Lost.
N asks me to close my eyes and walk backwards. I do. We take good care not to look once, not at the sand or the sky or the shells. Not at each other. We use our other senses. We take good care to sense the sun’s warmth on our backs, to hear the gull shrieks in our ears, to feel the powder of Gulf sand between our toes. We stumble along, and as we do, I mildly wonder what people think of us.
“Mom, are your eyes closed? You cannot surprise yourself if your eyes are always open.” N’s voice is small and perfect; I can hear the ocean inside it. You can’t surprise yourself if your mind is always made up, either, I remind myself. The whole world is endless behind my eyes. Maybe gray is OK—maybe even, gray is good.
My eyes are still closed. I turn my mind off, too. Together, N and I walk backwards into the sea.
TUESDAY
I’m reading To the End of the Land by David Grossman as part of Ruth Franklin Israeli/Palestinian reading group, I’m donating to the KidLit4Ceasefire fundraiser, I’m attending Palestine Charity Draw #3 hosted by Sarah Dyer; I’m remembering this poem by Gottfried Benn and this essay on divorce by Emily Gould; I’m looking at these illustrations by Nikki McClure which accompany Rachel Carson’s Something About the Sky.
WEDNESDAY
In-between client work and book projects, whenever I get a moment or two, I’m beginning to rework the illustrations for my picture book proposal.
I’m reading about the making The Bird Within Me Flies by Sara Lundberg as I prepare to do this. Lundberg is one of my favorite book artists working today, and reading her thoughts, always imbued with such genuine honesty and humility, has been a comfort:
“It was important for me to allow myself to be inconsequent. The characters didn’t have to look the same on each spread, I didn’t have to stick to a specific style or technique. So I just did each scene intuitively, and with the intention of bringing out the most interesting – the essence in each.
I felt confident that everything would tie up in the end anyway, so I might as well have fun on the way there, and avoid trying to do something perfect.” —Sara Lundberg
I’m also deeply interested in the pen-and-ink work of Patrick Benson, who illustrated one of our family’s favorite books: Owl Babies.
“The most important thing that an illustrator has to do is provide lots of visual clues, bits of information - rather like snapshots - that will act as a sort of springboard for the imagination.” —Patrick Benson
I’m keeping his advice close to me as I rework my illustrations, remembering that my job as an illustrator (and a writer) is never to provide the entire story, but to sprinkle just enough light so the reader can find their own path through it.
THURSDAY
Nicola came to visit last week with her little one in tow, and between the gardens and meals and messes, we managed to take some new studio shots. There’s no one in the world I’d rather be photographed by than this particularly talented friend. Working together is easy: comfortable, classic, no frills—just like our friendship.
My website requires a long-overdue update, and these new photographs will lead the way. So much has changed since the last time she photographed me in my workspace: a move to a new city, an MFA, a baby who is almost an entire year old. My own tiny studio with a door; a room of my own.
My work has changed tremendously. I have, too. It feels good to capture some of this new.
A tulips update: positively blooming. These little guys are bringing so much joy to us and all who walk by our home.
FRIDAY
Dear waves, what will you do for me this year?
Will you drown out my scream?
Will you let me rise through the fog?
Will you fill me with that old salt feeling?
Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand?
Will you let me lie on the white bedspread and study
the black clouds with the blue holes in them?
Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes one more year?
Will you still let me draw my sacred figures
and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind?
Lucky life is like this. Lucky there is an ocean to come to.
Lucky you can judge yourself in this water.
Lucky the waves are cold enough to wash out the meanness.
Lucky you can be purified over and over again.
Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone.
Lucky life is like that. Lucky life. Oh lucky life.
Oh lucky lucky life. Lucky life.
—from Lucky Life by Gerald Stern
xx,
M
To sign up for my weekly newsletter, Dear Somebody, please subscribe here.