Making a list, again and again

Remembering to look, see, and document

Pen and ink. A. Cowen, 2009.

Happy Sunday.

I’ve got a backwards and forwards post today. Feel free to skip the intro, skip the backwards look, jump to the current list, just look at the simple graphic novel panel or the pages from my illustrated journal from last year. While the post has a deliberate, additive flow, there is always an invitation to skip around.

• ”Things I am appreciating” panel (a visual list)

• Excerpted from Episode 347: Walk Around

• A ginkgo photo and illustrated journal pages from last year

• Jump to 2023

• Random notes and old shows (including a few book notes, an intriguing 2024 read-along, the Week 50 prompts, and more)

As days and years pass, our detritus grows. Even as we may start to weed things out, pruning and reducing and minimizing our footprint, trying to find and reclaim hints of floor, learning to appreciate bare spaces, other things may continue to accumulate. For many of us, there are piles and piles of words and art and life documentation that continue to proliferate. We morning write. We make to-do and grocery lists. We make notes on calendars and in planners and in Notion. We write and send newsletters, or essays, or blog posts, or chapters of books. We carry little pocket notebooks for odds and ends. We fill pages in journals and sketchbooks and composition books. We scrawl notes on scraps of paper, the backs of receipts. We track things. Our combinations of analog and digital, of backups and versions, add exponents to the amount of data that trails behind us, tucked here and there, on shelves, in boxes, in closets, in assorted apps, in outdated and faded formats. We accumulate words, especially, at logarithmic rates.

Maybe you never look back. I think there is great value for artists in scrolling your feed now and then, but maybe you never pull journals and sketchbooks off of shelves, maybe you never dip back into writing from the past, and that’s okay. There is so little time. We are constantly caught, as it is, in the conundrum of spending time drawing and writing about the day to day, while still trying to be present, to not be always a few steps behind the actual living, always out of sync because we are caught up in the recording.

Even though I wanted to find an old sketchbook last week after thinking about the old ornament paintings, I would have needed a stool, and I still might not have found it. I might have created an avalanche trying to pry free the one wooden block in a Jenga tower of things high on a shelf. I stood at one point looking at stacks of very old journals, many piled on top of other boxes and books. I reached on tiptoes and pulled down a few, just in case I might get lucky. I didn’t, and I decided that I didn’t need to tangibly prove the memory badly enough to go to all the trouble involved in searching for the needle in the haystack.

Sometimes, the present sends us diving into the past. Something about the ginkgo post sent me digging in Evernote. There was an echo of golden leaves. I thought there might be an overlap with last year’s gratitude series. In searching, I found yellow leaves last year, lots of them, but, oddly, no ginkgo.¹

What I fell into, however, was a set of show notes from 2019.

They immediately felt magical. The notes declare themselves as such. Part of me is constantly surprised that I can get caught up in such simple things, that such whimsical meandering can offset the endless realities. Part of me wonders if I’m laughable in my willingness to embrace the tiniest of mysteries. I worry I am. Part of me is always amazed at how similar I am, how similar my voice is and was through the years.

I hope by the end of this post, you make a list, or several lists. There are so many kinds of lists we can make.

My nutcracker series is underway. I’ll share some of them next week maybe. Saying I was going to do that was good for me. It’s good to know what we have to do to nudge ourselves and how we can best gamify things to keep us in motion.

In my drawing group, I seem to be the only one watching holiday movies. I have seen so many nutcrackers pop up this week, many of them life size. Of course nutcrackers are part of December themes and decorations, but I’ve never paid any attention to them. Seeing them show up again and again has felt a bit surreal. I know some of you have been seeing nutcrackers, too. Thank you for sharing and thinking of me.

Wishing you a peaceful week.

Amy

PS: This post is “too long” for your email partly because there are a number of images. Use the link at the top to click through to read in the app or in a browser.

Things I Am Appreciating (or “Things That Are Helping”) Panel

I didn’t initially plan to contextualize this list as “appreciating.” I was thinking of a few of these along the lines of “keeping me balanced.” But then I broadened the list and settled on the lens of “appreciating.” It’s a simple visual list. Given time, yes, I would rather do a grid illustration and show them all. But I’m good with this for this week! (If I did this once a week, what a great record of a year I would have! Thinking ahead…)

Excerpted from Episode 347: Walk Around 

(Note: These podcast notes were written for speaking. They won’t pass any red pen English 101 checks. I am deliberately leaving them in this raw form.)

There is magic afoot.... and I don't want to jinx it. Superstitious. Not superstitious. Find a penny.... pick it up. Today's show is one that is going to drift into the next show. There is an invisible thread that already connects these shows even though neither is written or ready or has substance and shape beyond a shimmering mist that keeps following me around.

I had an ah-ha moment on a Saturday. Ah ha moments can be exciting and glittery and full of color and wonder in the moment, but they fade... they fade unless you prop them up with a few little rolled up bits of intention.... give them wings.... add a puff of air and let them rise... see if they will fly. Some ah ha moments are better kept in their glittery form, the fanciful idea you look at wistfully and go on. (It is good to have things to hope for, wish for, look for.)

In this case.... a flicker of an idea.... a flicker of awareness.... who am I kidding.... a piercing ray of light.... a blinding moment of awareness and insight.... the lifting of a veil and the sinking and disorienting realization that the world is bright and shiny and has continued to change.... that I am out of time and out of touch and missing out on seeing..... that a bit of fresh air could .... make a difference. A blinding light.

A chair on a corner. A fancy chair.... expansive seat.... cream upholstery.... blonde wood.... were there gold markings.... an oval back.... oval like fairytale mirrors.... ornate wooden trim circling the chair and rising from the top in a circle of whimsy.... A chair on a corner. A walk to a coffee shop. A young woman with a pale pink jacket with cutouts and tassels..... Ginkgo on the ground.

Making small moments bigger than they are.... making small moments the wireframe for language that can turn the everyday into something magical.... it's what happens here on the [Creativity Matters Podcast]. The moment was small. A week later, I missed my chance. It shouldn't be a chance... the reality is I have to fold the origami papers and put my things in a bag and leave the house to set off on this path... to hike into a space of potential seeing.

The next day, I needed to wait on a kid having an appointment. I planned to take advantage of the time...I thought I would record a show from the car.... I would draw.

I dropped him off. I found a place to park. I looked up and saw Sutro Tower.... my tower.... rising ahead in the distance over the storybook houses that sprawled around me. It was breathtaking. I snapped photos.... from my car.... I wasn't really planning to get out of the car. I planned to record a podcast. Ready to talk.... I reached over for the recorder only to discover that I had forgotten it.

When leaving the house, part of me knew what my sitting and waiting was about.... and part of me seemed to have not gotten the message. Foiled, I looked around, and so many little things caught my eye.... so many things you don't notice until you really look..... until you jolt out of autopilot mode and click into real-time... a mode of being really present.

I decided to go for a walk around the block. I was instantly bombarded by color and pattern, moments I wanted to capture, to hold, to collect, to freeze-frame.

I looked around and a plan formed.... I will jot things down.

It's as simple as that.

I will jot things down.

(This should not be revolutionary. But how often do we stop, really look, and catalog the simple things in front of us?)

I went back to the car and dug into my bag for paper. All I had was my journal, and I didn't want to scrawl whatever this list might be in my journal. I fished in the pockets... nothing. I checked the dashboard, which is usually overflowing, but I'd cleaned things out when I had my oil changed. I found a receipt or two, but I knew I might need those.

Feeling the glow of the moment start to fade, I checked my journal one more time, and I found three 4x6 index cards tucked in the back. (This is a good lifelong principle: always keep index cards on hand.) The only pen I had with me was a fountain pen, not super convenient for walk-around-the-block list making, but it would do. It will do, Amy, it will do.

And so I made a list.

• Towers and hills in the distance over the street of Victorians

• Two silver scooters parked, one black seat and one dirty taupe

• Beautiful Victorians, pink and cream, tall and skinny.... tucked between one lavender and one taupe

• A building with so many windows.... all askew

Once I started, it was addictive. I couldn't stop.

Sometimes all we need to do to hook into the present is simply look and document, concretely or mentally, what we see.

Every time something caught my eye.... I stopped, moved out of the way on the sidewalk, made a note.

Maybe I'll make a list of ten things I see, I thought. Just ten. 

Ultimately, I didn't number the list. Why number? Why limit? 

A simple walk. A simple list. But so powerful.

(The podcast contains the full list.)

A Ginkgo Photo

I stumbled over these old show notes, initially, because I was looking for notes I thought I’d written last year about ginkgo during my November gratitude tracking. I didn’t turn up the notes I expected to find, but then last night, I tumbled headfirst over this photo from last November.

Ginkgo leaves, November 2022. A. Cowen

Even odder was to then pull up these illustrated journal pages that I had planned to include this week. They, too, contain the ginkgo.

Illustrated journal pages from November 2022. A. Cowen

Jump to 2023

Finding the old podcast notes a few weeks ago, I was swept away by something, something forgotten, carried by the almost breathless accounting of simple seeing.

Why is it often so hard to keep hold of the simplest things, the simplest truths.

We so often have these beautiful, silver bell moments, moments that ring sweet and clear, moments that make us feel one with ourselves. We think we will remember, tomorrow, next month, next year. We think we will continue to stack the good things, the silver bells, one atop another until we have a recipe for navigating each day, a map for living a life that is engaged in ways that have meaning, is mindful, is peaceful and balanced. We hold these moments, and we may keep them in view for a while, but gradually, many of them slide away.

Something I read recently (an excerpt by Alain de Botton) about days blurring together and feeling faster in midlife because they are all so similar really struck me.

“The more our days are filled with new, unpredictable, and challenging experiences, the longer they will feel. And, conversely, the more one day is exactly like another, the faster it will pass by in a blur.” — Alain de Botton (published on Oldster)

I was disheartened initially because this felt, yet again, as if the secret to more present living requires doing more and different things, always going, always climbing. (That was me projecting from my own fear, my own worry about stagnancy, the future, and dwindling resources.) The post is an advocation of looking and looking again.

The post reached out and grabbed me because I saw myself in the words, both in the blur of time and in the sameness. Day after day, the days are similar. There are a dozen reasons why I don’t leave the house each day, why we never go anywhere, why we haven’t eaten in a restaurant together in years. Each year brings new changes that continue to shrink the boundaries, the borders, the possibilities.

I miss many things that once helped ensure I left the house more. My own car. Our dog. A schedule of drop-offs and pick-ups. Better eyesight. Dual incomes. A city that felt shiny and safe. I miss the days of having a coffee card. I don’t know that I miss the coffee specifically. I miss the reason to go out, the chance to sit in a coffee shop.

I think I might be scared to sit in a coffee shop now. It’s been so long, I know it would feel awkward. I can easily talk myself out of it now. I can just make a pod. I can sit on the couch and write or read or draw. I’m too busy to leave my desk in the middle of the day. I don’t want to open the garage if I don’t have to. I don’t need to waste the money.

The one time I splurged in recent months, really wanting the seasonal apple macchiato, which tastes like apple pie, I placed my order via the app, went in and picked it up, using my foot to activate the button to open the door. I grabbed my coffee with a masked thank you and headed back out, head down, hoping no one I knew would see me.

What is that?

Years ago, I would have sat to write, to draw, to record life.

Seeing the old show notes, the articulation of the magic of small moments, which I write about often and in a variety of ways, was a bit of a shake. Yes, the days blur together because they are all the same. Yes, I continue to work and make art in the margins, which is how I’ve described what I do for years and years.

I don’t want to be always on the go, always doing new things.

I prefer slow and mindful.

I want to be content with what I have, with who I am, with what is.

Claiming a more minimal approach isn’t always glittery and cool. Advocating a slower approach, comfort in simple things, can look boring to other people. There isn’t something new and sparkly every day, nothing to show off, nothing to claim or parade or announce. But really, I don’t want or miss or need all that.

Yes, maybe I should leave the house more often. I should be more proactive about changing my view. I could make small changes that might improve my happiness.

But I also know that I can sit, anywhere, and make a list.

Even making a list of the familiar brings awareness, comfort, and something quiet.

Right now:

• The rushing of traffic on the street far below; it is like the white noise of the ocean

• The curlicue pattern on the lace curtains, illuminated by the morning light

• The slight movement of the branches and leaves out the window through the open space between curtains

• The need to change my socks because they are orange and my leggings are green (and even if I don’t care, it seems odd)

• The light from the window is hitting the white Santa ornament with the cape with red hearts on the tree and the breast of the gold bird clipped on a branch in front of it

• The light is grazing the neck and head of my guitar, warming the already honeyed amber of the wood and making the strings appear to sparkle near the top

My list goes on.

On a different day, in a different moment, an entirely different list would emerge.

Maybe you can make a list, too.

I see so many people who are dissatisfied with life, and they can list all the things that are wrong. I always wonder about the counter list. Sometimes there can be great power in listing the things that are right, or good, or sweet, or special, or simply there.

These kinds of lists can be gratitudes. Your list might involve glimmers. But it can be good, simply good, to just make a list of what you see, what is.

Noticing something will lead you to notice the next thing and the next, and slowly, you make a list of specifics, little details that are part of the holistic moment, tiny pieces of glitter embedded in the overall mosaic.

Time and again I find old notes and old files that are simple lists. Lists that string observations and details together to give contours to a day…

And sometimes, I need that jolt. Sometimes, I need to be reminded. Maybe you do, too.

These “right now” lists seem so simple. I am not sure why we would need them other than that we so often fail to really slow down and look and see. I am not sure why we need them and yet… somehow they make life feel real.

I put together a list of some older shows from Decembers past. One of those was a reading of The Velveteen Rabbit. It’s a story, of course, that makes us stop and think about what makes us real.

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.” — The Velveteen Rabbit

Random Notes

🎧 Need some company in these days? I put together a list of podcast episodes from a few recent Decembers.

📗 I had the chance to look at The Art of Living: Reflections on Mindfulness and the Overexamined Life by

Grant Snider

this week. It’s a beautiful and inspiring collection of philosophical comics. This would make a great gift (along with I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf)! Poetry Comics is scheduled for a spring 2024 release.

📒 In a comment thread a week or so ago, someone mentioned Sidewalk Oracles: Playing with Signs, Symbols, and Synchronicity in Everyday Life by Robert Moss. I pulled this from the library. Anyone want to buddy read?

💥 “What purpose could be greater than to watch the universe pass by—and to share that experience? My purpose is to wander and wonder in the dark, then come back and share with anyone who will listen about the miracles I’ve discovered.” —

Jason McBride

, Weirdo Poetry

🚪 Beautiful and thoughtful piece about doors, windows, aging, and the role of imagination on

Emily Kaminsky

‘s

Spaghetti Twisted Thoughts

🎨 When our art and creativity is rooted in our life, it follows the ups and downs, highs and lows, victories and challenges.

Dishkitty

is bravely drawing on the “now” in her daily

Trish Tails

diary comic. See Me 12.2.23.

📕 If you have never seen it, Dear Data is a beautiful book on a shared documentation and tracking project between friends Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec.

📘 I am intrigued by a year-long group reading of War and Peace (a chapter a day) that

Simon Haisell

will be guiding via

Footnotes and Tangents

. I haven’t read it before, but I am thinking about it!

🎲 I have watched countless videos this week about roll-and-write games. We tend to be card-oriented, with cribbage being the most commonly played game in the last few years, mostly because it works really well with two or three. But we often try a new family game (before resorting to Spades, Rook, Canasta, and Hearts) over the holidays. I’ve made a roll-and-write selection for this year that I hope is going to be a good one. Fingers crossed!

🧠 Pictured in the panel, a simple pop bubble board like this one. (I can’t explain until after the holidays, but it is completely addictive.)

🗒️ I haven’t sat in on SAW’s Friday Night Comics in a while, but earlier this year, Summer Pierre did a session on “list comics” that was fantastic. Today’s simple panel is a list of sorts. View Summer’s Paper Pencil Life zines in her Etsy shop.

Old shows that come up in the context of today’s post:

• An Ordered List (379) (2020)

• Currently List (320) (2020)

• Scroll Your Feed (362) (2019)

• Three Things (353) (2019)

• Walk Around (347) (2019)

• Make a List (307) (2018)

Made It?

Thank you for reading. I hope you will continue reading over the next few weeks and into the new year!

Your comments are a special part of each weekly post. I really appreciate your words and the feeling of community that arises.

This week:

• Three things. Three things you see, right now. Three things you are thinking as you sit wherever you are.

• One word that describes how you feel right now.

• Stars, moon, or candle.

Thank you to those who have chosen to offer paid support. Your show of support in my words here and on the podcast means more than you realize.

🎯🖋️ The Week 50 prompts for Illustrate Your Week are available.

🎯❄️ There is a separate set of December prompts, too.

Your comments help make this space warm and cozy.

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1. This turned out to be wrong. Searching old writing still is not reliable. I think last November, I was trying a different app. Or maybe when I wrote the gratitude show with the golden leaves, I didn’t actually use the word ginkgo? Or gingko. I checked both spellings, too.