A Paper Boat

I’m entering a reflective week, and I’m entering it, unexpectedly, with cups and water all over the place. I didn’t expect such emotion, but it is almost surprisingly fitting that I have been puzzling over this little paper boat fragment, twisting and turning it like a small cube in hand. It has enchanted me in just the right way, and it remains incomplete and content to continue to shift and drift in the current. There are also a few intriguing illustrated journal-adjacent videos at the end that have me thinking and eyeing some washi tape.

Photo by Janis Fasel on Unsplash

Paper Boat ⭐ Inspiring Finds ⭐ Looking Back ⭐ Illustrate Your Week Prompts

“These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not to reach any destination.”
— Rabindranath Tagore

“I believe that the very process of looking can make a thing beautiful.”
—David Hockney

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Paper Boat

The woman in the boat wears a paper hat. I smile at the whimsy and then realize her boat, too, is made from paper. I don’t know how to fold either a hat or a boat, I think, and then wonder if the one is simply the inversion of the other.

If I had two hats, I would have a hat and a boat? This is the wisdom of folding and unfolding, of functional forms. One sits on a head, and in the other someone can sit. This is practical.

She sits looking straight ahead, her back straight. Sensing the effort behind the stiff posture, I wonder if she is sad about leaving or simply sad. The air is heavy as it gathers around her, salt shimmering in the swirling mist.

She doesn’t seem aware that she sits in a paper boat. Watching from the hidden alcove where I stand, I suddenly see the boat as she sees it, encrusted, covered in pieces from hundreds of tea cups, branching coral, and the shells from dozens of crabs, a mosaic of the sea, broken and fused like barnacles on a whale.

I blink, and the boat is once again paper.

Where would I sail in a paper boat? The answer rises, and my eyes sting at the longing and the nonsense.

I would not sail though, I think. Like her, I would drift.

There are no oars, though I carry a staff. I stand upright, back straight as I sail away from the shore and into the channel. The thin strip of water cuts between two beaches, one covered in mountains of black sand flecked with pink, and one that is immediately swallowed by trees so deeply green that it seems darkness rolls right to the edge of the sea.

I do not look at the shimmering sand, though I would like to sift a handful for a single piece of pink glass, a compass for the boat, a prism to break light into pieces I can stack in the night. I do not glance at the woods. I slow my breath, knowing I could be beached on either side, and I look straight ahead as the boat moves silently through the passage.

There is trust in this journey.
I chose the paper boat.
I chose the staff, an anchor of land, not sea.

I feel before I hear the voice behind me as someone on land calls my name, the true name few know. I hear the anguish in the cry, the way the voice trails off, swallowed not by the growing distance between but by something deep within where the sound has lodged after piercing through many layers to reach skin.

I feel the cry, a whisper now, but I do not turn.

Drifting into a clearing where the waters widen, I wonder about the geometry of the sea and sky, the shape of the journey ahead. I am sailing now to the end of the world, the flat horizon. I know the stories of sailors falling over the edge.

But I am no sailor.
I am a princess. I am a queen. I am a seeker, a philosopher, and a cartographer.
I am a writer looking for form.

I sail knowing the boat is parchment that I will cover with ink, deep and red, burnishing in the fire of day, or blazing with darkness beneath the silver moon.

I wonder what will be waiting at the edge, but I do not stop to question the wisdom of a paper boat.

I do not stop to ask how long or how far.
I do not look back because I know already there will be only a void, maybe the lingering regret for the bit of glass I might have bent to claim.

There is such heaviness in me. I do not know how much water or weight the boat can hold, but there is no sign of wilting as we move farther into the empty unknown, the horizon still as far as it had seemed in the beginning.

Lowering my eyes to the seams of the boat, they appear crisp and dry. As the angle of the sun shifts, the boat seems almost translucent, swirling blues visible on all sides, a flash of orange, something dark passing beneath my feet.

It might as well be made of glass, I declare out loud, laughing in the open air as a fish jumps from the water, throwing a fine spray in my face.

Soon, I will sit.
Soon, I will begin.

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Inspiring Finds and an Interactive Spark

I spend very little time scrolling these days, but there is still “some” of that in the in-between moments. (On the other hand, I’ve watched about five thousand videos this month. I’ve been looking for something specific, and I go through each morning and add a ton of things to the queue to play in the background when I’m doing certain kinds of work.)

Several things caught my attention recently. I’ll share just a few here today.

🐣Seems like a really clear theme in these first three. I’m thinking through “next week” and what I may start or reintroduce as part of my personal year. In this moment, I’m thinking I may do some “interactive” element exploration. I know what I don’t want (or enjoy), so I have clear boundaries, but for some reason, these caught my attention and have me thinking a bit beyond the flat page. I probably shouldn’t say that in public until I’ve thought it through and at least made a list, but it might play a role in how I decide what journal I move into next week. Anyone else want to experiment?

Fantastical villages with accordion: (This one has the least personal applicability, but it’s still wonderful.)

Fascinating comic/graphic novel format:

I’m making a list…

Inspiring. My efforts were never this impressive! (I’m sure many of you did similar things.)

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Weekly Pages and Pulls

Glimpses of a few pulls because I enjoy the art of these cards. (Please note: The card pulls are all for different things. The photos don’t reveal anything.) The pages, not shown, were full of paper boats.

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Illustrated Journal Prompts

• Prompts for Illustrate Your Week - Week 25 (2026)

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Looking Back (Year Over Year)

• 2025: What do you want?

• 2024: A Proactive Birthday List

• 2023: Rainbow Hair and Creative Life

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Made It?

Thank you for reading.

I encourage you to join in the conversation in whatever way feels comfortable.

Folding a hat and a boat are not identical. There are a few extra steps to turn the hat into a boat. We make such allowances here.

• Ready for the summer solstice and the mid-year point?

• Paper boats or rock skipping?

• Rocky beach or sand?

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