Lists, notes, and keeping an illustrated journal

Words and meaning, daily drawing, and Week 4 prompts for Illustrate Your Week

Jan 21, 2024

I intend for this to be a positive space, a space where you are inspired to record your life in combinations of words and drawings, to trust your voice, to break the rules, to stand on your own creative feet and make and take and carve time for your creative life. I want to nurture your mindfulness. I want to support your use of art as a form of self care. I want to celebrate making art in the margins and making art that you love. But all lines blur, and all of the things I advocate for you are rooted in the personal.

Hello and happy Sunday.

This week brought all kinds of surprises. Things ran the gamut from high to low and back again, and the risk, of course, is whiplash, puppets on a string, or maybe vertigo. Are we being slung back and forth, or are we spinning, sometimes at disorienting speeds? Or is this all happening at a snail’s pace, so slowly that we only perceive that certain moments are fast as they whirl away from us?

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
— T. S. Eliot

I watched a video recently in which someone set a small collection of tops spinning, tops of all sizes. They spun and spun, and the viewer was asked to guess which would spin the longest. They spun and spun. There were wobbles. There was listing to one side or the other. Some of the tops traveled as they spun.

A couple of months ago, there was a turtle. I entered a building because the day had gone exactly the opposite of what had been planned. I entered to pick up a bag of belongings. As I walked down the hall to the elevator on the ground level floor, I stopped at the turtle’s house. As much as I have always felt connected to turtles, everything about this turtle space is nondescript and brown.

The turtle was against the back wall of the glass house, facing away from me, and I stooped to take a photo, feeling in the surreal mist of the day the need to anchor my movements with concrete markers, even if they were nondescript and brown. As I bent to take the photo, the turtle turned, faster than we expect a turtle to turn, and came charging toward me. Staring at me, it scuttled across the mulch until it ran right into the glass, and even then, it kept trying to climb, its legs trying again and again to gain traction as it tried to charge me on the other side. Somehow, it was heartbreaking. Somehow, it was terrifying.

Sometimes we get caught up in trying to sort out the words. Sometimes, the blur is such that there are no words. Sometimes we are waiting until everything settles before we begin to contemplate the words, waiting, hoping there is a space in between for words, a space for things to be said, memories to be recounted, hopes to be shared, apologies to be made.

Just at the point at which I felt like I made my peace with the current moment this week, gained some perspective, gathered my resolve, or found my footing, an avalanche happened. But, really, it started as a flood. A literal flood. I didn’t even know it was possible to break a toilet tank.

The plumbers cracked jokes. The story seems funny when you don’t know the context. We smiled, laughed along, mostly grateful that it wasn’t even more costly than it was—and that they showed up. We vowed to try and keep this one clean. We did all this without a hint of the reality that an hour or so after they finished, an hour or so after the new toilet was installed and the men in their white uniforms and red booties left, a transport team would come, headed for the hospital. We were on a tight schedule.

The surface-level conversation, the forced smiles… at the end of the day, that’s what stands out to me… that juxtaposed with the hushed conversation after, the in-between hours that stretched on and on, the multiple calls from the transport driver confirming again and again the address, the time, the sitting in a small room, waiting.

I feel staccato. I feel clipped.

But the words keep lining up.

Most of them I delete.

Many of them I cover.

This is always a filtered view.

This space was never supposed to be about this.

For the last two weeks, I’ve had an ear worm, a lyric stuck in my head that I planned to put into my illustrated journal. I connected the lyric to one calendar prompt or another, and last night, with a blank space ahead of me, I thought I would write it in. The words had been in and out of my head a hundred times, but when I sat, pen in hand, I had no idea what song it had been. I knew the contours….. I knew which prompt had caught my eye when I looked at the prompt image to see what I might draw. 80s. That was my thought. Theme to a sitcom. Somehow that, too, had been my thought. Confused by suddenly having lost the song, I spent time Googling based on my list of contours. Nothing felt right.

The next morning, I heard the words. At least I thought I had the right song. The lyrics don’t quite fit the prompts I thought, for two weeks, that my ear worm was for, but they sort of fit a number of things. They also do, in fact, come from an 80s television show, not a show I remembered until I saw the name. All of this is a maybe. I took time to make a note of the refrain… in case I forgot later the same day when I opened my journal.

I had a similar moment two weeks ago when I walked into a bookstore in a college town and caught just a bit of conversation between a young couple, she in an overly long white skirt with lace eyelets and a cropped navy college sweatshirt. He had apparently suggested a book, tipping it out from its line on the shelf with his finger, and I heard her say, “[title]…. It’s just so baaaaaaasic.” There was giggling. She went on to say that she had come for “this” (whatever book she was holding). There was more giggling.

Later, I couldn’t remember if the book had been Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, or On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. In the moment, I had been struck by the conversation, by the book (whose title I heard her say) being dubbed “so basic.” But when I tried to recount the story a day or so later, I couldn’t remember what the book had been. I said Slaughterhouse Five, but then I started thinking maybe it had been On the Road. The next day, I knew what the book was, or thought I did. And yet today, again, I can’t remember.

I used several post-it note images and metaphors this week, but these words remind me, always, that I need to write things down. I know this, but I have to keep reminding myself that I need to get better at jotting everything down. My memory, never good, is not to be trusted.

It has a crack in it, just like the toilet, and everything spills out.

I never intended this space to be quite what it seems to be right now. I intended for this to be a positive space, a space where I inspire you (and I feel how pretentious that sounds) to record your life, to trust your voice, to break the rules, to stand on your own creative feet and make and take and carve time for your creative life. I want to nurture your mindfulness. I want to support your use of art as a form of self care. I want to celebrate making art in the margins and making art that you love.

But all lines blur, and all of the things I advocate for you are rooted in the personal.

We are each living, day to day, and trying to make sense of the world around us. That includes everything. More than anything, I encourage you to look, to see, to interpret, to document and to explore. I hope other things, too, that you reach, that you take chances, that you accept, that you believe, that you find balance and calm, strength, and perspective.

This is a space about living and about making art and about illustrating your life. And of course, all of these things intertwine and overlap and spiral. That we can use art to say things we might not otherwise be able to say is powerful. That we can use art to say what we feel and what we think can be helpful. That we can use art as a time out, a space between, a divergence, and a temporary digression, has its place. That we can use art as a moment of mindfulness, a moment where we watch the spinning top and lose ourselves in that spin, that wobbly motion as it appears to be ready to stop and then picks up speed for just a few more seconds… is not to be taken for granted.

I had planned to share a post this week about illustrated journaling, a very surface-oriented post designed to encourage you, if you aren’t already keeping a catch-all visual journal, to try the process, but I decided to wait.

Last week it was interesting how many people commented on the ravens and the crows. I had thought last week’s post was about the note in the book, but the crows came first. For some reason, the yellow sticky note in the book stays with me.

I am always fascinated as a writer, and as someone who often speaks these stories out loud, that saying what we mean is sometimes so difficult, fascinated that knowing what someone means can be so difficult. And yet sometimes we understand one another.

Sometimes we understand what is not said. Sometimes, we find the poem in the tangent, the lyric in the angles, and we sing back.

I approach these posts as I always did my podcast….. an intro…. and then what’s next, whatever the “real” thing is for the week, whatever will be more properly formed or shaped or woven. Some weeks, the “what’s next” is an essay. Sometimes it is just another set of anecdotes.

Really, it could all go here, in this opening letter, and I could sign the bottom.

But I don’t.

The irony is that I almost always continue to build and add to the letter. The letter is my favorite part. (Why does this feel like a sudden moment of insight? This has always been true. I’ve always been enchanted with the epistolary form. What would it look like if I really wrote a series of letters? I wonder….. And this is how things happen and change. This is the kind of micro moment which inspires something new. One of you inspired me last week, too. I am thinking a lot about an inky comment.)

The letter is my favorite part, but we need subheads to give the eyes places to land, to make reading more comfortable and a la carte, to let us bounce to sections of interest, to give us hand holds.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for opening the letter and then for reading the preamble and whatever comes after. Thank you for liking either part. Thank you for taking time to comment and let me know what strikes you, what resonates, what reaches across the divide between us and gives us a moment of connection.

Amy

(This post is image-heavy. If the email is cut off, please click through to read in a browser or use the app.)

“I am rooted, but I flow. All gold, flowing that way.” — Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Inside Week 3, Illustrate Your Week

My pages are still in progress for the week. This is a glimpse of part of Week 3 for #illustrateyourweek 2024.

Partial view of Week 3 in 2024 Illustrated Journal. A. Cowen — Illustrated journal pages for Week 3, 2024. A. Cowen

The one thing that is always true is that I spend time each day in my illustrated journal. By making that a space where I can do “all” the things, it is a comfortable daily habit.

I drew a portrait this week that I really enjoyed (based on a photo in the Museum by Sktchy app). The woman has little butterfly clips in her hair. I drew hands holding a cup, the person wearing a cozy Fair Isle sweater with a pattern of bright blue, orange-red, black, and white. I drew part of the cover of a small book that I was reading, a picture that is on the cover that I had not really even noticed until I looked more closely to draw.

I drew a tarot card that I felt compelled to pull.

There is a connection through time with these cards, history old and faded, a lifetime ago. I rediscovered this specific deck at some point in the last few months. I had looked for the cards for weeks to no avail, and then suddenly one day, they were in front of me. I was excited to have found them again, and yet they sat untouched for these many months.

This week, I pulled them out. I shuffled them, moved the cards around, feeling their weight in my hands. I flipped a few that I noticed were wrong-side up. I continued to shuffle them, and then I split the deck, cutting the cards at the point at which I was going to turn up the next card as the one card I was pulling. I don’t do readings. This was not originally my deck.

I was only pulling one card, nothing more complicated. As I split the cards, it was with a jolt to see that the next card was facing me. It was wrong-side up. It was also upside down, which, of course, matters. It was a card of the major Arcana. I did look up the significance. I don’t know that I felt the connection, but I drew the card that I pulled. I drew it upside down, just as I pulled it. I drew some other minor things, too, and some nights, while watching TV, I filled in lettering, made daily notes, added bits of color with colored pencil.

When I realized late in the week that I hadn’t looked at the prompts, I stopped and drew a few of the icons…. cable car, popcorn, crystal, arrows. I need to spend more time really simplifying and practicing the icons. I need to draw bunches of them. I need to test myself, draw icons from prior weeks.

"I am not lost, for I know where l am. But however, where I am may be lost." — A. A. Milne

Make a List

The conversations here have a rhythm right now that is hard to define. It is like we are standing outside of time. Time stops and expands. There are these odd moments of sitting, of trying to find words. Time stops and waits. I move from my computer. I make fresh coffee. I sit in a chair. Words are said. Work will still be there. The rain will still fall. But somehow, we sit outside or within all of that. Time stops, and yet we are so painfully aware that is exactly not the case.

This week gave us new words. (They might be taken away again. Stories are sometimes so hard to follow. We will be glad if the words are erased, words to be saved for a later time.)

Because I am reading Sidewalk Oracles, I am paying attention, looking to “see what I see.” This is not new for me or out of character. This is the way I tend to move throughout the days, but with this book currently in place as a lens, I maybe am expecting (or hoping for) symbol and synchronicity more than I normally do.

A few times this week, I’ve thought that there was nothing in the week, but always as soon as I thought that, I would realize that is not the case. There were things big and small. There were things that struck me in the moment as symbolic, and there were things that struck me in the moment as inane or sad or ridiculous or just regrettable or overwhelming. I gather things, regardless of whether or not they are symbolic. These are the things from which lists are born and made. And a list doesn’t always have to sort these things out. A list doesn’t have to proclaim which moments or which crumbs or which shards were symbols and which were simply the stuff of living.

I encourage you to make lists. Sure I encourage you to write. Freeform writing and journaling (at any time of the day) has its place. But sometimes you should just make a list.

When you sit and think for five minutes about your day or your week that was, or when you think back to 5 years ago or 10 or 20 or 30 or 32, make a list. Don’t get stuck thinking lists are simply for groceries or for things you need to do. A list can be a structure, a format, a container. A list can strip moments to the essentials. A list can contain observations or comments or single words or details, quotes, or adjectives. A list can be a record.

I go back, often, to lists as a way to see contours, a way to escape the trappings of prose.

My abbreviated list for the week is in the weekly comic (at the top). I’m still working out how these will come about. I put this one off until the very last minute, and, even abbreviated, the list itself feels too big, far too big, for the small space. But somehow, this is where I am.

Life Graphs, Diary Comic

Early in the week, I thought I wanted to do an illustrated essay on visual charts. I wanted to do some “life graphing,” even though I wasn’t sure exactly where I was headed. I spent some time trying to work out what I was after, grasping for straws maybe. Then the tenor of the week changed with a phone call, and my impulse to create graphs and charts felt silly and small.

The comic panels came out of that moment, that moment of throwing it all aside and shifting gears. There were conversations about lists.

But I am the only listmaker.

I drew this comic, and then I realized I could not share it. I can’t get past feeling vaguely superstitious about these kinds of details. I worked on the panels, and I felt good about them. But I realized, belatedly, I couldn’t let them go. They were too exposed, too vulnerable. They contained words that changed everything, and yet they are not words I am ready to put out there yet.

I went back in and covered them up.

This whole sequence feels incomplete and unfinished, but the cover-up feels right.

“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think – Christopher Robin.” — A. A. Milne

Read-Along

📕 Week 3 notes for Sidewalk Oracles

Illustrate Your Week

If you haven’t considered keeping an illustrated journal, or you are still trying to get started, I encourage you to grab a sketchbook or journal and make a note today.

🎯🖋️ The Week 4 prompts for Illustrate Your Week offer ideas to help fill in around your daily documentation.

Share the Love

Here are a few things I read this week that I really enjoyed, found thought-provoking, or found moving.

The Sentence that Hooked Me on Words, Rona Maynard (Amazement Seeker)
Birds, Volume 1, Lev Parisian, (Six Things)
Give 15 precious minutes to your curious wild heart, Natalie Eslick (The Sketchbook Sanctuary)

Made It?

Thank you for reading.

I enjoyed your affirmations and adjectives last week. We all need to practice positive thinking and positive self-talk.

This week, I invite you, as always, to jump in in whatever way feels comfortable. There are a small number of people stopping by, and I enjoy hearing what you think, what resonates, and what poems are floating in front of you.

What is something you drew or included in your journal last week that you enjoyed?
Turtle, raccoon, or squirrel
Three words that start with J

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