Dear Somebody: In the midst of things.
Five things from this week that I'd like to remember
A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:
MONDAY
I plot the process for my current book, drawing a path that can take me from concept sketches to final paintings and then production work. I follow the path, and for awhile, all goes according to plan: I collect inspiration; I draw initial concepts and then four rounds of revised sketches; I kill my darlings, I stay open to criticism.
I keep to the path but the path stops making sense. The more I work on sketches, the more afraid I feel of making final drawings. The more I work on perfecting my linework, the more afraid I feel of picking up a paintbrush. I don’t want to fail; I know I will.
I’m overwhelmed by how circuitous the path has become, as if it were designed to keep me from progression. But the path is a line, not a loop—and hadn’t I drawn it myself? I know how I like to work: matter of factly, like a machine. I know how I like my process to feel: clean, orderly, with little friction. I know what I want to create: surprise, the unfolding of what I haven’t planned.
On Saturday morning, I visit Chris Wubbena’s exhibit at The St. Louis Artist’s Guild. It’s titled In the Midst of Things. Each sculpture is created by the enmeshment of everyday objects, each removed from where they once stood in the middle of their own respective lives. I walked around the room of miniature buildings, some tilted at precarious angles or stacked atop slippery mixtapes. There are poems in the center of these buildings; there are voices and video; there are people and their stories. All smushed together. All leaking surprise. Somewhere in the middle.
In the midst of things is a literary device where the narrative work begins in the middle of the plot—not at the beginning. Though I carefully designed my creative process to keep my fear and anxiety at bay, it only cultivates more of both. It encourages me to continue planning instead of creating. It forces me to stay in the beginning so I never have to be in the middle—and the middle is where surprise lives.
When I come home from the exhibit, I say goodbye to my plan. My studio is a mess. I’ve only properly sketched out half of the book, but instead of planning the rest, I jump into a final painting. I choose colors like an artist instead of a scientist; I let myself feel. I swish the paint around on the page, I let it pool where it shouldn’t. This painting isn’t from the beginning of the book, nor at the end. It’s page 17—right in the middle of the story, where all of the surprises are still waiting to happen.
I have a bunch of thumbnails, only one final drawing, and more questions than answers—but I know the answers are somewhere in here, beneath the gouache tubes and tracing paper and my own apprehension. It feels messy being in the middle, but I also feel the satisfying stretch of discomfort—of knowing my mind is working under conditions it isn’t used to, that my body is familiarizing itself with a feeling that isn’t easy.
I don’t know how to paint this book, but I’m figuring it out. It’s messy where I am, but I stand my ground. I’m on the cusp of unraveling a mystery, of finding water, of waking up in the place where it all finally begins to make sense.
Standing in the middle, I begin to understand it—where surprise really lives. It’s somewhere here: in the midst of things.
TUESDAY
After much experimentation, Stay Golden is available as a four-color risograph print! It was printed very thoughtfully in blue, yellow, green, and magenta inks by Land Gallery in Portland, Oregon. It is available exclusively through Buy Olympia.
Many thanks to Pat for all of his hard work and dedication in making this edition happen!
The original Stay Golden crewneck, made in collaboration with Golden Hour Candle Co., is available here — perfect for this crisp, cool weather. Both make excellent gifts.
WEDNESDAY
“You will take bits from books you’ve read and movies you’ve seen and conversations you’ve had and stories friends have told you, and half the time you won’t even realize you’re doing it. I am a compost heap, and everything I interact with, every experience I’ve had, gets shoveled onto the heap where it eventually mulches down, is digested and excreted by worms, and rots. It’s from that rich, dark humus, the combination of what you encountered, what you know and what you’ve forgotten, that ideas start to grow.”
—from Ann Patchett’s This is The Story of a Happy Marriage
I am still working my way through all of Emile Mosseri’s film scores, which is my current favorite music to write or draw to. My family is tired of the Minari soundtrack, so now I’ve moved onto Kajillionaire, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and Homecoming.
As a middle-schooler, I was hugely mesmerized by Frank L. Baum’s method of worldbuilding. I bookmarked this piece by John Updike to understand more about how a series of intricately-crafted books continue to be overshadowed by the film they inspired.
Lastly, I loved this list on how to reassess your childhood relationships by
—thoughtfully provoking.THURSDAY
I was pleased to receive a few copies of the French edition of Go Your Own Way, from my French publisher, Le Livre de Poche!
The French edition is available here, and the English version is available here.
FRIDAY
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
—Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich
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If you'd like to support me, you can order my latest journal, Go Your Own Way: A Journal for Building Self-Confidence, or my book of illustrated essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself—for yourself, a loved one, or both!
My art prints, stationery, and books are also available through BuyOlympia.
See you next week!
xx,
M
Hi Meera, thanks for this raw post. Love stay golden!! Do you know if your ‘grow your own way’ book is available in Italian? Thanks, Eileen
I’m currently trying to rekindle spontaneity and play in my creative process. I’m stuck in this place where everything seems stale and predictable and at the same time like I have know idea what I’m doing—as if I’ve never made a book before.