I’m still pulling myself out of what I assume is a depression. My brain is foggier than normal. My energy is weird. I didn’t like anything I drew, but still I drew, using every mark to keep my hands busy.

When my mind goes dark like this I always feel like I’ll never pull myself out…that I’ll never create again…never be funny or imaginative. I know this is just a lie that depression tells but it tells it so cunningly well.

So I pulled out my old sketchbook and finished a doodle I’d started years ago. One I’d begun during another fallow period when I feared my creative cup was forever empty. And it reminded me that I have felt this fear before, and always I have found my spark again. Always I have come back to myself to enjoy life again if I give myself time and patience. And there’s no reason to believe that I won’t again.

“Sometimes I feel a hollowness inside. An emptiness. But still I have hope that the songbird remains. Even when she is quiet.”

And the same is true for you, if you are struggling, or feeling empty or scared. This will pass. The songbird in your heart might be quiet from time to time. Let her rest. She’ll sing again.

Keep going, friend.

I will too.

Love and (sometimes silent music,

me

Last week my brain decided to stop working correctly, which isn’t that unusual for me. I couldn’t think straight and my brain was in a hazy fog. I decided to draw something simple and peaceful, and it was a helpful bit of therapy…creating a simple sketch even when my mind was lost somewhere else.

I couldn’t think of the right words for the doodle though. They had deserted me along with my mind.

And each night I struggled with sleep that wouldn’t come. This is also not unusual for me…I involuntarily greet almost every 3am with chronic insomnia. I’m lucky that my writing schedule is so flexible, but it’s still hard…that anxious, frustrated, uneasy tossing as every worry grows enormous and the weight of the world feels so heavy on my chest. I know that midnight worries are illogical monsters and I know I’m not the only one haunted each night, but it always feels so real...so lonely.

So I pulled out my sketch and spent the lonely, small hours pulling the dark around me and putting it on paper, but in a way that might feel comforting rather than dreadful. When my hand cramped I took breaks to walk in the people-less moonlight of my neighborhood. I laid in my yard and watched the halo around the full strawberry moon and tried to capture it on paper. I walked until I saw deer sleeping in an empty lot and a possum looking for snacks (who I may have lured to my house with breadcrumbs but don’t tell Victor). And after many hours I finished and propped the little sketch up on my nightstand as I finally fell asleep.

And then I found my words.

“It’s okay to rest.”

It is, you know. It’s okay when your brain goes away for a little. It’s okay to rest when you are tired. It’s okay to give up on sleep and explore the night. It’s okay to not be okay.

It will be brighter in the morning.

It always is.

Love and moonlight,

~me

This week I decided to try to challenge myself by drawing feet (because I am very bad at feet) and after drawing and erasing a million versions I finally had one that I felt was almost human:

And then I showed it to Victor and he was like, “Cool. Is that a boot?” and I was like, “No, she’s wearing a fancy sock with a slip-on shoe” and he was like, “Got it. Did she break her ankle?” and I was like, “IT’S HARD TO DRAW ARCHED FEET” and then Hailey walked in and I asked, “Hailey, does this foot look weird?” and they said, “No, it’s cool” and I was like, “Hell, yeah” and then they said, “It’s one of those weird, old-fashioned victorian boots, right?” and I explained that it was just a normal foot in a sock and they were like, “Oh” and Victor was like, “Remember that time Hailey twisted their ankle when we were on vacation and it swelled up so much we had to use a whole box of popsicles to get the swelling down?” and that’s when I decided to maybe I needed to make some changes.

And I think it works.

I super crazy love you.

~ me

I am very late on sending on this because I have a terrible, terrible summer cold that has been trying to destroy me. The good news though is that I’m able sit almost upright to send this and that is a very big improvement.

This week I haven’t drawn anything because I’ve been in the land of literal fever dreams but luckily I’d finished last week’s drawing and so I do not come to you empty handed.

“Midnights stretch on so long. But have faith. The morning comes. And some of us bloom in the dark.”

I created it last week during a bit of a depression that turned into several nights of anxiety-insomnia and I used it to remember that even in the dark, good things may come. I far spend too many of my anxiety nights doom-scrolling, waiting for sleep that eludes me…but I’m much less likely to regret the art I create at 3am or the book I read (or write) when sleep deserts me. And if nothing else, I remind myself that I am not awake alone…and perhaps the group effort of so many of us wishing for a kinder world at 3am is an accidental spell that we weave together.

Or possibly I’m just so feverish I’m rambling.

But I like the idea of good things coming in the darkest times…even if it’s just in the empathy that we gain for others who are alone in the same shadows we lurk in.

Does this make sense?

If not, I blame the fever. But in truth, it’s the same fever that gave me the craziest dreams of a market I attended that was full of magic. Victor got me a dog that was made of spare parts of garbage and vegetables and I was like, “This seems like something we shouldn’t bring home” so I snuck it back into the vendors stall and it cuddled up with its siblings who were made of old ham radios and sailing ships, and when I woke up I turned over to tell Victor that you should never buy anything at a goblin market but he was gone. This seems like the beginning of a very good book but it is absolutley true. And he eventually texted me that he was just out on errands but I half-suspect this is all coming from the goblins and I keep thinking that I’m probably still in a dream even now. I’ll probably wake up and go, “Wait…does that mean I just dreamed that I mailed my substack art letter out? ARGH” and I’ll then send you one that says, “You should have read the letter I sent you in my fever dream, dude. It was nuts.”

Love from dreamland (maybe?)

~ me

So instead of showing you those I pulled out another drawing I did a few years ago that I never finished and I finished it. And it’s quite fishy, so I think this counts.

“Don’t confuse ‘different’ with ‘wrong’. Strange can be extraordinary.”

Read more

This week I tried my hand at making a fairy-tale sort of doodle and I sort of love it? I had a million different ideas about what the story would be…with poisonous toadstools and wishing trees and scared but ultimately heroic bunnies…but in the end I thought that what would be nicest is the sort of story that wipes away the bad-luck curses that were left on us for not forwarding on all of the chain-letters we got in school.

“The spell goes like this: If you can read this, the curse is broken. You are free. And there is still time.”

And now we’re free.

We win.

Love, ~ me

PS. For some reason zoom only let the first 500 people into my HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY book tour stop but we recorded it, so if you missed it you can click here to watch it all. Also, yes, it does start with me creeping around on the floor because I am incredibly professional and also because I was trying to catch a kitten. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

This week I drew a branch from a lemon tree but it was a bit meh so I decided to try to use some paint markers to make it a little more fun:

When life gives me lemons I always ask,

“Who the hell ordered these? I wanted a martini.”

And I was relatively happy with it but it was too dark inside to get a good photo so I took it into the front yard to take a picture of it outside and it was then that I realized that the colors looked very different in the sunlight and were simultaneously too muted and not muted enough compared to what I thought I’d done inside.

It made me wonder if this ever happened to famous artists who painted outside and then thought their painting looked dull inside the art gallery (or vice versa) and then I thought, hang on…do these lemons kind of look like three jaundiced boobs?

And now all I can see is tree boobs.

My neighbor walked by when I was taking the picture and looked at my bush (the one I’d laid my drawing on) and I was like, “They’re supposed to be lemons” and he looked at me like, “What else would they be?” and I did not say, “It’s not a boob tree” because that would be insane, but also? I bet Georgia O’Keefe was constantly saying, “I assure you, these flowers are not vaginas” to total strangers, so maybe this is just a common pitfall of being a woman artist.

Anyway…enjoy the lemons. Or the boobs.

And in slightly related news…this Friday I’m doing a free online event in case you missed my book tour for HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY so if you want to just watch me doing a book reading and an unhinged Q&A from your bed just click here to RSVP and Nowhere will send you a zoom link.

Hugs,

me

PS. You can watch the reading from your bed, I mean. I won’t be doing the book reading and Q&A from your bed. That would be weird.

PPS. If you order from Nowhere I’ll sign it for free before we mail it out to you. :)

PPPS. But maybe I should do the zoom from my bed? That actually sounds amazing.

I did not watch it.

Perhaps a combination of my anxiety plus a little leftover trauma of watching the Challenger live in Elementary school? Regardless, I couldn’t enjoy it until I knew that they were safely back home, but then I did a deep dive and that is why I am forever experiencing pop-culture moments behind the rest of the world. It’s also why this week I decided to draw something that might have been more timely before, but I suspect you will forgive me.

It reminded me of how amazing space is…of exploration and joy…and of the idea that we are each an actual part of the magic of that universe, even when we feel that we are so tiny and unremarkable.

So this is just a reminder to you that you are truly made of stardust. Nearly all of the elements in your body were made in a star, and many have come through several supernovas. The actual iron in your body is from a star going supernova. So if today you are feeling small, remember that you are magic in astounding ways.

PS. I know I normally just talk art here but I thought maybe you’d want to see this. Yesterday I started fostering a feral rescue kitten to try to fill the kitty-sized hole in my heart right now and I’m pretty sure this tiny, nameless orange gentleman will not be leaving us because omg, y’all.

I am two days late on sending this because I was stuck in a depression and it ate all of my extra energy. I started and stopped several drawings because I’m not sure if I didn’t like them or if I just didn’t like me very much. My dr recommended sun and exercise and other things that sound very easy when you are not depressed and it reminded me of a poem my mom read to me so often I’d almost memorized it. (All of A.A. Milne’s poems are the songs of my childhood.) If you hate poetry, skip this part.

The poem always made me feel both cozy and sad at the same time, which was a confusing thing for a small child but also a combination that my brain would grow to specialize in.

It reminded me that recently I’d read that tiny harvest mice have been found asleep in flower beds and so I decided to draw that:

“Sometimes harvest mice will crawl into flowers to feast on the pollen and stamens and will fall asleep inside.”

The drawing is simple and plain and fairly unimpressive, but it made me feel warm inside my heart and that is a very special sort of magic.

This is all a very long way of saying that whimsy and comfort and coziness and nostalgia and joy are all worth more than we give them credit for…whether in drawing mice or reading poems from childhood or eating nectar and drunkenly falling asleep inside flowers.

Go find comfort, my friend.

I promise that you deserve it.

Hugs,

me

So I got up some and decided that I would do an abstract version of the cactus in my backyard and it was…an adventure?

Victor said that he liked it but that it looked nothing like a cactus and I said that if you add the word “abstract” in the title then technically I think it’s a success if it doesn’t look like what you want it to look like? I’m not sure if I’m using “abstract” as a cop-out but it works for me.

Coincidentally, my sister (Lisa) texted that she was doing her own paintings using an online tutorial:

Anyway, my point is that if you do something and it looks weird to everyone else just call it abstract and the people looking at it will feel too stupid to say it looks dumb. And my other point is that sometimes a change in medium or tools can be a pleasant or challenging pause. I don’t like it as much as I do pen-and-ink drawing (I’m bad at picking colors that match) but I’m glad I tried it.

And because I thought you might ask, I just texted my sister for a follow up:

This is my last week of book tour for How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay and I have conflicting emotions because touring can be hard with anxiety and chronic illness, but it’s also so uplifting to see people in real life and remind myself that the work I do does make a difference even when my mind says otherwise. It can be so easy to listen to the lies that depression tells, and it helps me refill my cup in a way that I can’t explain.

I suspect that you also probably have no idea how much the work you do in your own life (including the work of just being human, kind, and yourself) makes ripples in fantastic ways you’ll never see, but never doubt that it does.

I drew a lot last week because I was in a depression and it helped, but my brain wouldn’t work enough to put together the words I wanted on the drawings so instead of showing you the three unfinished sketches that I’m still working on, here’s a drawing from the book that I’ve been reminding myself of during this depression:

“Don’t begrudge yourself happiness.”

Because there isn’t enough joy in life to just let it pass you by. When it arrives, celebrate it…enjoy it…don’t let guilt or the drudgery of life get in the way of grabbing joy and whimsy and relief whenever it comes and however it shows up. Because you deserve it.

And I do too.

And when this depression passes completely I want to be ready for it.

I super crazy love you,

~ Jenny

This week I revisited the Lynda Barry Making Comics book because I was on book tour and a tiny sketch book was easy to bring along on plane rides. The exercises were out of my comfort zone but sometimes I think that can be a good thing. This exercise was called “Close your eyes and draw a mermaid.”

Another was to choose a character and sketch their entire life cycle. I chose Beyoncé the Giant Metal Chicken, obviously:

I did a self-portrait…sort of:

And drew with both hands at the same time, which is much harder than it sounds:

And played with color:

And one of the last exercises was sketching a personal memory, but all I could think of at the time was that I’d just had to say goodbye to my sweet cat, Hunter S. Thomcat, and so I drew something that made my heart hurt, but in a way that was a little healing as well. And I suppose that’s what art is all about, in a way:

There’s something a little powerful about leaving your pain on the page…or sharing it with the world.

Thank you for letting me share with you.

It helps.

Love,

~me

I am leaving for the second part of my book tour in 10 hours and I have not done laundry, packed, or (if I’m being honest) unpacked from the first leg of book tour. In spite of the fact that the first stops were so lovely and fun and filled with fellow weirdos who completely understood my anxiety, I am once again convinced that everyone will hate me and no one will show up and probably I will be eaten by sea lions. So right now I am writing this to you and reminding myself that everything will be okay.

I did lots of little drawings this week but Hunter S. Thomcat is laying on my sketch pad and I don’t want to move him so instead I’m sharing a drawing from the book because I drew it when I was having a high anxiety week and it feels fitting to come back to it now. Just a reminder that even when things feels scary, you can always make a little oasis in your mind. My spell check tried to change that to “you can always make a little oatmeal in your mind” and I’m feeling very relieved that I caught that because that’s even weirder than my normal letters to you.

WAIT, DID I TELL YOU HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY IS #4 ON THE NYT BESTSELLER LIST?

Sorry. Didn’t mean to yell. It’s just late and my meds have worn off.

If you’re in California, Oregon or Austin, come join me?

Barnes & Noble in California

Powell’s in Oregon

Book People in Austin

I super crazy love you,

~ me

I’m back from the first week of book tour and taking a week off to recover before the next week of the tour and I decided to try something different in the break because I picked up Lynda Barry’s Making Comics book, which sort of takes you through her class and I’m finding it incredibly challenging (because the quick time limits make you give up perfectionism) and incredibly fun (because it’s very freeing and different). One of the first exercises she gives is to draw yourself quickly using a bunch of prompts.

This was mine:

I find it both embarrassing and full of mistakes, but also something I feel strangely proud of once I see it from a distance?

Much like life, I suppose.

I highly recommend it.

Trying something new, I mean.

And life.

Life is good too.

It’s nice to remember that.

Love,

~me

I should have written all this before I left but i was overwhelmed with packing all the wrong things and so instead I’m writing this tonight, on the eve of my first new book event in over half a decade, to distract myself from the fear and from the incredibly loud but very happy drunken wedding taking place two rooms down from mine. It feels like you’re here, in a weird way. I know that’s strange, but it’s comforting.

I’ve drawn in planes and cars and green rooms to keep my hands and mind busy but it’s a jerky mess so instead I’m sharing a drawing from my new book, because it seems fitting while I’m traveling so much in spite of the fact that I never know where I am. It’s an adventure, after all, if I look at it with the right kind of eyes.

I super crazy love you,

Jenny

This week I’ve been struggling a little with the fact that I can’t do all of the things that I want to. My book comes out next week (you’re in it!) and I feel so excited and lucky but also terrified and filled with dread. I worry people won’t like it…that no one will show up to the book tour…that I’m failing my publisher because I can’t do some of the things that most authors would jump at because I just don’t have the energy or mental strength to say yes to everything without making myself sick. I even felt a little bad about drawing this week when I probably should be doing author stuff.

But then I reminded myself that I need this quiet drawing time (is it considered “quiet” when I’m doing it while binging Dexter? I say yes.) to keep myself sane and to replenish my energy and to remind myself that I am more than just my work, and that it’s okay to not work yourself to exhaustion even if it’s for something you love.

I suspect we all struggle with this. Perhaps as parents or partners or in our career…the urge to try to be more than our bodies and minds allow, but not being able to because you are…human. It’s so easy to put ourselves last when it’s for something else that you care about.

“There is a fine line between beautiful and suffocating. Don’t forget to leave room for yourself.”

So this is a reminder from me to you to make time for yourself if you can. To rest. To create. To refill your cup. There is so much beauty in what we do for others, for our work and for our passions…but there is also a necessary beauty in what we do for ourselves…a beauty we often forget.

Sending love (and quiet moments of calm repose even when watching serial killer shows)

~me

This week I struggled a lot with anxiety. I’m still struggling, in fact. So I decided to draw something structured that I could fall into…a repeating pattern I saw in a book. And it turned out rather pretty (although also it looked a little like buttholes). And it helped with the anxiety a little. (The drawing…not the buttholes.) And today I feel a little better.

“This is all very pretty but inside I’m secretly shrieking.”

I’ve just noticed that I didn’t erase the penciled outlines of the words in the drawing and I would go back and fix it but the cat knocked my eraser under the couch and I suspect that I am judging myself more harshly than you would.

I suspect you are judging yourself more harshly than anyone else would as well.

So let’s be imperfect together.

Keep going. Keep going. It will pass.

Love,

me

PS. I added little white dots of white-out inside the flowers and now it looks slightly less like buttholes, which is nice but also now this whole letter makes even less sense and makes me look like I’m just imagining buttholes everywhere. I wonder if Monet ever had to deal with this sort of thing.

We tried to explain to Victor that it’s a meme of a cartoon guy reaching for a butterfly while asking if it’s a pigeon and that it’s used to make fun of the absurdity of assumptions, but he was even more confused so I took a picture of my painting and gave him some examples I came up with myself:

But in the end I settled with this celebration of all my autoimmune diseases, and yes, I do realize that I did the letters poorly but it’s too late now.

And it’s ridiculous, but I am pleased with it because I felt slightly hip but then Hailey pointed out that the “is this a pigeon” meme is actually from 2011. sigh

Yours in whimsical irrelevance,

Jenny

This week I fell into a rough mental spot and needed something simple to do to keep my hands from destroying me so I decided to draw a sweet little bear, but then I felt bad for the bear because people often confuse “soft” for “invisible/easy-to-stomp-on” so I made a small addition.

He is my new mascot:

And then I added the text (“SOFT BY UNFUCKWITHABLE”) but Hailey suggested “Squeak softly but carry a big sword” and I was like, “Bears don’t squeak” and Hailey said, “Oh, is that a bear?” and I was like, “It is obviously a bear” and now I want to add another text box that says “This is a bear, you guys” to clear up any confusion. Then Hailey looked again and was like, “Wait, now I see it. Totally a bear. Is ‘Unfuckwithable’ a real word?” And the answer is, yes, it is a real word. Sort of. But spellcheck is currently screaming at me that it is not a real word and so now I want to draw another text box that says, “I ASSURE YOU, ‘UNFUCKWITHABLE’ IS A REAL WORD AND YOU SHOULD USE IT LOTS BECAUSE THIS IS HOW WE GET IT IN THE DICTIONARY” but then the whole drawing will be filled with clarifying text boxes and I wonder if Van Gogh ever had to deal with this sort of thing?

Anyway, my point is that I see you, fellow gentle readers…those who lead with kindness and compassion and a softness that doesn’t always show the fact that you may seem quiet but you are a goddam fighter…for yourself and for others. Kindness and empathy seldom make headlines, but it changes the world in the most powerful ways. You change the world. And I thank you for it.

And speaking of kindness…I often have people apologize because they can’t afford a paid subscription and so I just want to assure you that only about 10% of my subscribers are paid members and I adore you all. When I first started this years ago, I was going to do one or two free posts a month but currently the majority of these letters and drawings go to both free and paid members because the world is hard right now, and I feel a little bad about that for the people who are paying a few dollars a month to keep me in art supplies except that I suspect every single person who is a paid subscriber would be happy that I share these with others who can’t always afford it.

And that is a lovely thing.

Hugs,

~Jenny

I finished the drawing I was working on last week and was inspired by something quite incredible I saw this week and I wonder if you can guess what it is based on the words I added:

“How much art was not created because we were too busy doing ‘women’s work’? Too much. Too much. Too much.”

I was inspired by the amazing quilts at Quiltcon because are you kidding me?

Just a small reminder that art is everywhere. That anger creates incredible things. That creativity is a gift you give yourself and the world, if you choose to share it.

I hope you share it.

Love,

~ me