The Lighthouse Keeper and Other Updates

A beautiful children's book, the first week of comic affirmations, and Week 9 journal prompts

Feb 25, 2024

Week 8 comic list with donut illustration

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T.S. Eliot

Happy Sunday!

I was working on a different piece for this week. I even had a moment of synchronicity in stumbling over a small detail that unexpectedly connected seemingly disparate things. As I sit now, it's Friday night, and I've finally turned out my virtual work light (which is not nearly as cool or soulful as E.T.'s heart light). I'm thinking about dinner, and what I need to paint, and about working on my affirmation comic, and the assorted weekend tasks that go along with Illustrate Your Week, Sunday Coffee, the Sunday newsletter, and so on.

I really want to try and wrangle the other piece into shape, but I think I am tired. I think you all are tired as readers, too. I'm going to take the easier path this week. I want to share some basic updates, a few random things from the week, a sweet book review, and some other posts that I think you'll enjoy from amazing writers and artists here at Substack.

Don’t forget to breathe. For years, I closed out my podcast that way. Someone complained about it one time, suggesting it didn’t make sense. But it’s so much a part of what I think about our need to slow down, to pace ourselves, and to embrace our processes. We don’t always need to be racing to the next thing. Life is really in the moments.

Here is what you will find below:

Amy

The First Seven / Comic Affirmations

It seems like an ironic phrase. “Comic affirmations,” as if they are funny, as if they are whimsical or tongue-in-cheek.

It is hard to believe it’s already been seven days! I am sharing these daily in a running weekly log here at Illustrated Life. Already, the project has been different than I expected. It has also been more than I expected. There will be plenty of updates throughout, and plenty of time for more reflection later. (For those curious, the daily notes for week one are here.)

(Update: The full 100 Day Comic Affirmations project can be viewed here.)

My Series of Comic Affirmations 1-7 — Comic Affirmations, 1-7. A. Cowen 2024

(I will say that after last week’s post about comic me not needing to look like me, I did a complete 180. Sometimes we need to fully say it in order to then embrace what we’ve disavowed. I really feel connected to one of these (not the one that looks most real). I’m pushing at something right now, and it’s okay if they aren’t all the same. I don’t know where I’ll end up—or how many days I will manage—but I am enjoying myself and losing myself each day in the process.)

Illustrated Journal Week 8 for 2024

This is a glimpse of part of my pages for Week 8 for Illustrate Your Week 2024. The portrait was one someone else selected for our drawing group last week. It was a fun challenge. I spent a lot of time this week on the 100 Day panels. There was a definite squeeze on the illustrated journal. I know though that other big projects often have this effect. The journal can absorb some ebb and flow.

Hello, Lighthouse

I have a thing for lighthouses. I’m one of millions who might say that. I know. A few weeks ago, I wove lighthouses into my anniversary post.

“This is a path for travelers lost in the dark, lost in the night, lost at sea. A lighthouse keeper I would be, in another life, a life where I had more courage, pockets full of sea glass. This is a colorful trail, a dance of light for those who are looking.” — “Milk Jug Luminaries — Looking Back at One Year on Substack”

Shortly after that post, I picked Hello Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall up from the library. It’s a lighthouse of a book, tallish and skinny, an unusual size for a picture book, but perfect to house this story of a lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper’s family.

I was charmed by this book. The illustrations are gorgeous. The colors are luminous.

Cover and illustration from Sophie Blackall hello lighthouse book

This is the story of a lighthouse, “on the highest rock of a tiny island at the edge of the world.” The story opens with a beautiful cut-away illustration that gives an interior look at all floors of the lighthouse that the lighthouse keeper who tends the light inhabits. Life is nice and compact in a lighthouse, and the keeper gives the rooms “a fresh coat of sea-green paint” and writes everything in his logbook.

In this quiet story, we see life unfold. The keeper “wishes for someone to talk to.”

Every few days he writes her a letter
and throws it into the waves.
He tends the light and writes in the logbook
and waits for her reply.

His wife arrives. They tend the light. They rescue shipwrecked sailors. The lighthouse keeper gets ill and then better. The seasons pass. There are sea lions and whales, aurora borealis and storms. There is a charming and colorful pie chart rug, and a Dresden plate quilt. There is the ever present and ever shifting sea. The keeper and his wife have a baby. He records the birth in the logbook.

But then a letter arrives that changes everything. The role of the lighthouse keeper is replaced by a machine, one that doesn’t require a keeper. The keeper and his family leave, the job done, and the lighthouse, built to last forever, stands alone.

I was so saddened by the end of this story, although readers are left with an image of the family in a house on the coast where they can see the lighthouse and reflect their own light to it.

In her endnotes, Blackall writes: “Electric lights began to replace oil lamps in the 1920s; soon after, automated machines replaced clockwork, and the keepers’ work was done. Lighthouses stand empty now, but the stories shine on.”

This is such a lovely children’s book. It’s quiet. It’s beautiful. It captures story and change. It’s sad and lonely and yet full of life, of love, of commitment, and dedication. There is gorgeous attention to detail in the illustrations, so many little things to find and discover with a child.

(While checking out Hello, Lighthouse, you might also pull Things to Look Forward To: 52 Large and Small Joys for Today and Everyday, also by Blackall, from your library. This book is a collection of illustrations she did during the pandemic. Items included range from coffee and tea to baking for someone to reading a map, walking in a cemetery, finding something lost, and learning a new word. This isn’t a storybook. While the contexts are different, this book is in a similar vein to books like How to Be a Wildflower or even What to Do When I’m Gone. Books by Kalman and Wendy MacNaughton come to mind, too. I most recently read How to Say Goodbye.)

🎧 I talked about How to Be a Wildflower (and a host of books it brought to mind) in Episode 372.

I also recently read these graphic novels:

Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu
Gift for a Ghost by Borja González

The Weekly Bits and Pieces

📕 Read-along: Week 8 notes for Sidewalk Oracles

🎯🖋️ Week 9 prompts for your illustrated journal

Writers to Read

Here are some posts from other writers that I enjoyed in the last week or so:

Made It?

Thank you for reading. I hope your projects are going well and that your accountability systems are supporting you — and supporting others in turn.

I always invite your comments on the post. You are also welcome to play with any of the following:

A superhero you enjoy
Something that made you smile this week
Letters, texts, or phone calls

If you are new here, welcome!