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Meera Lee Patel

ARTIST, WRITER, BOOK MAKER
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Dear Somebody: The start of something.

January 5, 2024

Happy new year, everyone. 

I took the last few weeks off in an effort to not be on the computer or my phone and it was wonderful, though I missed writing. This week’s letter is a mush of end-of-year recap, more/less for the new year, and, of course, poetry. 


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

MONDAY 

End-of-year lists are tough for me, because I tend to zoom in on what doesn’t work instead of celebrating all that does. This used to be motivating. Recently, I’ve realized how continuing to push myself without acknowledging how far I’ve come has taken a toll on my confidence, resilience, and motivation. 

I don’t want the rest of my years to continue this way. Luckily, I am reminded daily that nothing in life has to be this or that. I can celebrate some things and decide to do other things differently. I can feel gratitude for what I have and let go of what I don’t need or want. I can love well and uphold strict boundaries. 

The gray is where clarity lives. It is simple. It is both. 

My 2023 memorables: 

  • Having a safe delivery and giving birth to beautiful, healthy F. She is the greatest of all gremlins, the loudest 13-pounder, the absolute apple of both my eyes, and N’s favorite lovey. I can’t wait until she can look me in the face with her gigantic moonbow eyes and say, quite clearly, “no”—just like her sister does. 

  • Graduating from Washington University with my MFA and a permission to dream bigger.

  • Working less. Letting social media fall away. Creating less content, less paid work, less of everything. 

  • Publishing How it Feels to Find Yourself: Navigating Life’s Changes with Purpose, Clarity, and Heart, a book that was born in the pandemic and carried me through the past few years. 

  • Publishing Go Your Own Way: A Journal for Building Self-Confidence, the fourth in my journal series. Remembering Start Where You Are, which began it all. Feeling grateful for my past self, who took a chance on herself. Feeling grateful for my present self, who continues to.

  • Some of the best work I made this year was for my column, Being, in Uppercase Magazine. I have the freedom to experiment with full support from my editor, Janine, and I feel lucky and grateful for her trust. 

  • Pushing past the overwhelm to travel with two small children: 

    • Visiting friends and family in New Jersey. Playgrounds. Laundry. Meal prep. Doing the same mundane stuff I do at home, but with my sister. Three o’clock drinks, hide and seek, splash pads. Watching five tiny people I love so much love on each other. 

    • Visiting friends and family in London. Meeting my Penguin UK family. Seeing the city through N’s eyes from the very top of a double-decker bus. Holiday lights. N’s first ice cream crone. F’s first croup. Making it through. 

    • Spending our very first cousins Christmas at my sister’s. The joy of five little adventurers. All-floor hide and seek. Evergreens. Cold walks. A warm and cozy home, supported by a inexhaustible thermostat and family who knows me well. 

    • Visiting upstate New York for the final few days of 2023. Managing expectations. Practicing flexibility. Looking for the helpers; finding them inside ourselves. Creating new traditions that will carry into each next year. 

  • Joining Margaux Kent a poem-a-day project, which has been a lesson in friendship, grace, and the power of art that isn’t shared publicly. 
    *I wrote more about this project in my last letter.

  • Writing this newsletter! This year, propelled by an apathy towards my work, I shifted my focus away from marketing and towards meaning. I write this newsletter for myself, first—and second, in the hopes that it will resonate with someone out in the world. Most of the time, I find that it does. If I’m honest with myself, I can also be honest with you. 

    I wanted to write Dear Somebody weekly, and I tried my best to. Instead, I wrote 32 letters and gave myself a break when I needed one. That feels just right. I feel proud of how much I wrote and I’m excited to write more this year. Both/And. 

TUESDAY

Now that she’s 3, N has taken on an interest in Santa. I myself don’t know how to explain the phenomena of Santa, though my childhood was also made up of The Nutcracker and Christmas trees, dreaming in the same red-and-white-and-sugarplum colors that my children do. 

I don’t feel particularly attached to the idea of Santa, but I recognize what he can bring: Joy. Innocence. The ability to believe in something you can’t see, like friendship or courage or sometimes, yourself. The skills necessary to decide, on your own, when something isn’t worth believing in anymore. 

Who is Santa? N asks. You know, I’m not sure, I reply.  Is he kind? she says. Yes, I say. I think so. He tries to make others happy. She thinks this over. I’d like red rain boots from Santa, she says. Well, I tell her: Then you’ve gotta write to him and ask. And so she does.

Her very first letter to Santa reads: 

Dear Santa,

I want to see you because I really want to see Santa. I want you to take a photo by the Christmas tree so I can see you. And I would still like my red rain boots please. 

Your friend,
N

N places her letter to Santa on the coffee table, next to all of the other letters her cousins wrote to him. She studies the table, laden with cookies and milk and carrots for the reindeer. She looks at the chimney, which definitely doesn’t have room for even the slimmest of Santa’s to shimmy through. She wonders if she’ll hear him. She wonders if the reindeer will wait for him to return. 

I hope these letters will keep him warm, she says, at long last, before climbing up the stairs to say goodnight. 

WEDNESDAY

“Racism, it seems to me, is usually not calculated but is rather a form of stupidity: it’s the absence of thought. That’s why it is very important to think and speak as clearly as we can.

Of course I do also believe in the political value of slow forms, of art-making, even if this value is quite intangible and unpredictable, and even if I fairly regularly experience crises of faith. People with different professions and temperaments might be more suited to quick action; the present extremity of violence will eventually crest (even though this is actually very difficult to think about right now) and the tempo will shift and the slow people will become useful again. And at the same time there are shorter-term things we can all do, like speak truth to power when power is lying. We can try to lift up the voices that are being suppressed or drowned out. We can insist on history, and on facts, and on humanism.

But, also, artists and intellectuals are just people of the world. We need to hold on to the very basic democratic principle that the exercise of individual agency becomes powerful en masse.”

—Isabella Hammad in conversation with Sally Rooney

”
If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.”

—from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird

THURSDAY

After seeing Elizabeth Haidle’s more/less list, I read Anis Mojgani’s and Julia Rothman’s. 

And then I made my own:

Also: more hide and seek, more lemon, more taking new paths. 

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


In 2024, I wish us all health, happiness, and hope. Thanks for being here with me. It will forever mean the world to me. —M


xx,

M


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

In Life Tags New Year, End of Year, Lists, Memories, Recap, Motherhood, Parenting, Parenthood, Graduate School, How it Feels to Find Yourself, Go Your Own Way, Start Where You Are, Uppercase Magazine, Family, Friends, Poetry, Santa, Isabella Hammad, Sally Rooney, Racism, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, Elizabeth Haidle, more/less list, Julia Rothman, Anis Mojgani, i am running into a new year, Lucille Clifton
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Dear Somebody: Better together.

September 8, 2023

Seven Presidents Park, the New Jersey horizon I grew up on.

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

MONDAY 

I’ve spent the past month bouncing around New Jersey, visiting some of my closest friends, many of whom now have children of their own. I’ve known these friends for decades. I’ve seen them struggle and shout and fall over backwards; I’ve held their tears and vomit and laughter in my hands; I’ve argued with and hugged and begrudgingly forgiven them; because of them, I’ve learned how to willingly forgive. These friendships taught me how to love—other people, yes, but mostly myself. 

We take N and F to the bay where we look for seashells and colored glass. N shakes her head solidly at the gorgeous whole clamshells a friend finds, opting instead to pocket handfuls of crush. She builds her first sand castle, she fills buckets with sea, she lets the water reach her shoulders. We take N and F to the beach, where we gawk at the outrageous seagulls and stare at the horizon of my childhood. I look and look, but there is no end; only sea and sky and the moment they meet. It’s overcast, a little too cold to be in the water, but F cries until I start to wade in. She listens to the crash of water against shore, her tiny body calm against my own. I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time—settled, perhaps? Or reignited.

In between the beach and the boat and the aquarium and the half dozen playgrounds, we spend most of our time at my sister’s new home with her three children. N is all smiles and bewilderment, chasing after her cousins with the glee of a child who has no one to chase at home. F lays wherever we put her, spitting up like a fountain, giddy for a television that’s always on and her cousins who treat her as a person with respectable wants and needs of her own. As for me, I do all of the same things I do at home—ungodly amounts of laundry and a too-long bedtime routine. I grimace over what to make for lunch and dinner, consider which activities will occupy the children for the longest conceivable amount of time, and clean poop and vomit and crumbs off every surface in sight. There are two significant differences: I am with my sister and I am not working. It is easy to be content. This is summer. 

My sister and I gripe about parenthood and motherhood, we care for each other’s children, we share too-early glasses of wine or pumpkin beer or both. Our good friends come over and bring their children; it’s a perfect commotion of too many mouths to feed and no one listening to each other. When F projectile poops all over my summer jeans, my sister orders me to take them off, whisking them upstairs before the stain sets. My oldest nephew wanders into the living room and advises me to locate new pants immediately. I oblige, and the weeks saunter along. The kids are tired. The adults are tired. It’s too much and also not enough. This is summer. 

There is barely a moment of quiet. When one finds me, I think about how lucky I am to have a sibling with whom I feel at home. My own children are so little and sweet, in need of me more than each other, but it’s only a handful of years before that changes. I worry about their sisterhood constantly—will they be good friends? Will they think of one another? Will they care for each other when their father and I are no longer the places they choose to turn?

Friends ask me what the best part of my trip was—the boat or the beach? The New York slice or the Strollo’s? Neither, I think to myself. Drawing orcas with my nephews, one art directing, the other editing. Playing indoor hide and seek with N and Z, afternoons full of shrieks and screams and a pleading for just one more round. 

Folding laundry on my sister’s couch, waiting for my three o’clock glass of wine. Having entire conversations without talking. Sharing a gripe and a smile, rolling our eyes. The good, the bad, the incredibly monotonous: it’s nothing like when we were growing up. Now, everything is better together. 

TUESDAY

Thinking on friendship, as I do almost daily, always brings me back to the same place: my very favorite friendship of all. 

WEDNESDAY

While in New Jersey, my sister and I wandered into her local Target. I was so surprised to see this Wellness end cap that featured a sold-out How It Feels to Find Yourself, next to Glennon Doyle’s Untamed. 

I feel incredibly proud to see this little book (written by little ol’ me!) slowly make its way into this great big world. Thank you for supporting us both. 

THURSDAY

Old Friends by Simon & Garfunkel, another ode to friendship that I’ve kept close for many years—and a reminder that even friendships that fall apart can hold everlasting value. 

FRIDAY

Every time I'm in an airport,
I think I should drastically
change my life: Kill the kid stuff,
start to act my numbers, set fire
to the clutter and creep below
the radar like an escaped canine
sneaking along the fence line.
I'd be cable-knitted to the hilt,
beautiful beyond buying, believe in
the maker and fix my problems
with prayer and property.
Then, I think of you, home
with the dog, the field full
of purple pop-ups—we're small and
flawed, but I want to be
who I am, going where
I'm going, all over again.

—The Problem With Travel by Ada Limón

xx,

M


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

In Life Tags New Jersey, Friends, Friendship, Family, Parenting, Parenthood, Sisterhood, Sisters, How it Feels to Find Yourself, Simon & Garfunkel, Meera Lee Patel, Old Friends, The Problem With Travel, Travel, Poetry, Ada Limón, Glennon Doyle, Untamed
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Dear Somebody: The moonlight is here

April 28, 2023

A sketch of me and baby Frida in the hospital. 

On April 21, we welcomed Frida Iyla into the world. Frida means peace in Old High German and Iyla is based on the Turkish Ayla, for moonlight.

Writing this newsletter weekly is important to me, but if needed, I’ll take some time away from the world to care for myself and my family. I have no schedule or particular ambitions; I’m planning on taking it exactly one day at a time. 

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

MONDAY

It’s no surprise that I admire Frida Kahlo as a woman and artist; as a human, she has the enviable ability to embrace her strangeness, her differences, and to find strength in them. As I learn more about her life, I am stunned by her endurance, determination, and ability to find romance—that is, beauty and value—in even the most treacherous moments of her life. 

My favorite words by her are below:

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”

—Frida Kahlo

TUESDAY

My experience with birth the second time has been vastly different from the first, and a positive reminder that the past does not have to be indicative of the future. 

What do I want to remember most? 

• The way I was cared for by my surgeon, my doctors, my nurses, my husband, my daughter, and my family. The friends and classmates who’ve called and comforted. The editors who have stretched deadlines, the cohort who has taken on my Thesis installation, the publishing team who has taken on more work in my absence.

• The humanity of those that gave a little of themselves to me and my family, though we were perfect strangers—during many moments of great vulnerability over the past week.

• A never-before-felt grace towards my body, which always tries to care for me, and endures far more than I ever give it credit for. A promise to give you rest. 

• The joy of experiencing motherhood with a lot more patience, a lot less anxiety, and priorities—and a perspective—that suits my values, my needs, and the life I want for myself. 

• The sweetness of you, my little Frida, who has brought out such unexpected, dormant sweetness in me. At six days old, you have already changed me.

WEDNESDAY

“When things go well, it is easy to celebrate our bodies. But when things go poorly, or not how we imagined, it becomes much harder. I could look back and think about the ways my body disappointed me—and I did, a few times. But whenever I went down that road, I found that it was a dead-end street that made me feel terrible. Hating my body remains a waste of time. At some point, just for the purpose of survival, I chose, deliberately, to focus on all the things my body did right, what it did so well on my behalf. Everything it tried to do.”

—Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes

THURSDAY

Frida’s childhood home in Mexico City, Casa Azul, was turned into the Frida Kahlo Museum in 1958. I’d love to visit one day — many of her paintings are still on display, including Viva la Vida, her final work. In true Frida fashion, she remains in the house as well: an urn containing her ashes lives in her bedroom.

Below are a few of my favorite paintings by Frida:

The Two Fridas

The Wounded Deer

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird

Thinking About Death

FRIDAY

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another
season to offer you: frost soft
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.

—First Fall by Maggie Smith

xx,

M


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

In Motherhood Tags Frida, Motherhood, Parenthood, Frida Kahlo, Strange, Birth, Health, Family, Friends, Body, Self, Angela Garbes, Like a Mother, Mexico City, Frida Kahlo Museum, Viva la Vida, The Two Fridas, The Wounded Deer, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, Thinking About Death, Maggie Smith, Poetry, First Fall
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Meera Lee Patel is an artist, writer, and book maker. Her books have sold over one million copies, and been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide.

Her newsletter, Dear Somebody, is a short weekly note chronicling five things worth remembering, including a look into her process, reflections on motherhood, and creative inspiration.

Join thousands of other readers by subscribing.


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