Dear Somebody: Like a cloud.
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
T and I voted early last week, with N in tow. We talked about the election and voting process, but mostly we talked about why your voice matters—why you must believe it does, and act as though it does—even when it feels inaudible. Even when you feel invisible. So much of life is comprised of pretending, of doing before believing. Of doing the thing your future self would do so that one day, eventually, you become your future self.
As I cast my ballot, I thought about all the things that can go wrong between my filling out a very paper ballot and it actually counting: so many things. Elections are fragile. Ours are increasingly so, bitten through with voter restriction and misinformation, but the fact that no one other than me wants my vote to count just makes me want it more.
This morning, I read about Craig Mod’s experience of casting his ballot from Japan:
I slammed my ballot down and shoved it into an EMS international airmail envelope and gleefully paid thirty freggin’ bucks or so to get that sucker to my utterly blue state knowing damn well that that vote won’t tip the scales in any meaningful way. And yet. And yet — AND. YET. — I wanna be on that ledger. Goddamn, you bet I want to be on that ledger. What else is there but the ledger in a moment like this? Pull the lever, cast your tiny pebble into it all and hope things add up. De minimis? Hell no. At the very least, you’ll be present on the cosmic scale, a little number at the end of a bigger number — one that wouldn’t have been quite as big without you. That’s not nothing, and when your grandkids asked what you did right now — in this mythic time of madness and infinite resources all seemingly used in the wrong ways, facing the wrong directions, directed at the wrong people — you can at least say you were present, doing the smallest of things you could in whatever way you could.
Freedom doesn’t usually feel like freedom until it’s taken away. In 2024, I’m still allowed to vote in an American presidential election. I did, and I will, until I can’t. There were many things my family did last Thursday that were meaningless, that genuinely did not matter—but casting a vote and reminding myself and my kid that what we do matters, that who we are matters—was not one of them.
TUESDAY
“In the past, I’ve been perplexed by artists who work intuitively–artists who say they simply knew to use a certain color or to make a specific mark. A fear of failure, compounded by a mountain of self-doubt, led me to believe these artists possessed an innate talent I didn’t have. For years, I attempted to use logic and reason to convince myself of this self-sabotaging belief because it relieved me from the responsibility of accepting the truth: that intuition in craft develops through years of regular practice.
In Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, authors David Bayles and Ted Orland address this very idea: ‘For every artist who has developed a mature vision with grace and speed, countless others have laboriously nurtured their art through fertile periods and dry spells, through false starts and breakaway bursts, through successive and significant changes of direction, medium, and subject matter. Talent may get someone off the starting blocks faster, but without a sense of direction or a goal to strive for, it won’t count for much.’”
—An excerpt from my latest essay, Intuition and Your Creative Voice: One Leads to the Other, for Issue #63 of Uppercase Magazine
WEDNESDAY
“There’s no shortcut. I’m no accident. People like to say it’s natural. It’s not so. You have to practice and you have to study.” —Miles Davis
“…I personally have been focused on changing my own negativity bias. And because our brains have plasticity, we can actually change this. I’ve spent the past two years trying to unlearn a focus on the negative all the time as the main thing. And because a focus on all our problems is draining, and it is super depressing and sometimes actually is debilitating. And something that organizing campaigns taught me early on was to focus less on problems, but to turn those problems into issues that people could maybe actually find a way to engage in to transform and change. And this has really kept me going over the years. I think oftentimes about, if I hadn’t been involved in organizing campaigns, what my life would have looked like, how much I probably would have been so depressed, you know, more depressed. Because I just think having a way to be able to see a way forward to transform and change my conditions is such a huge part for me of being able to live in the world.” —Mariame Kabe, in conversation with Kelly Hayes, on their book, Let This Radicalize You
THURSDAY
As a longtime reader of Modern Love essays, I enjoyed learning a little more about how illustrating the column for so long has affected Brian Rea.
As a longtime admirer of printmaking techniques, I’m working up the courage to make some Tetrapak prints—has anyone done this? Does anyone still have or use their Gocco printer?
As a longtime fan of all sky-related matters, I was initially perplexed (“…a cloud?”) and ultimately renewed (“…a cloud!”) by N’s request to be a cloud for Halloween this year. I made two costumes out of paper mache, but when they didn’t work out, I turned to newspaper print and cotton batting.
I constantly use my voice to tell my children to be who they are—to go against the grain if the grain doesn’t suit them, and to listen to themselves, even if it’s a little lonelier when they do.
On Halloween, in a sea of glitter and color and power, there was only one cloud. Steady and sweet, if a little unassuming. Flying under the radar, certainly, but unreplicable. Irreplaceable. Like a cloud. Like freedom. And I was proud.
FRIDAYWhen they say Don't I know you? say no. When they invite you to the party remember what parties are like before answering. Someone telling you in a loud voice they once wrote a poem. Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate. Then reply. If they say We should get together say why? It's not that you don't love them anymore. You're trying to remember something too important to forget. Trees. The monastery bell at twilight. Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store nod briefly and become a cabbage. When someone you haven't seen in ten years appears at the door, don't start singing him all your new songs. You will never catch up. Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do with your time.
—The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab Nye
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See you next week!
xx,
M
I LOVE the costume!
A cloud. So beautifully poetic and somehow, absolutely perfect.