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

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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.

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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

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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. 

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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

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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

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