this was my first full year being self-employed.
I got hundreds of pages of comics drawn: an illustrated interview, 1/2 of TIDESONG fully finished, a webcomic off the ground, four short comics published ranging from 5-70 pages:
not pictured: “Cuttings”, a very tiny comic about a god of houseplants that I published on Twitter.
Yet what became my saving grace this year was to look outside. to go outside, when I could. Learning to forage in Prospect Park, to grow seeds in an aquarium, reading & learning about fungi & moss & other small, hidden things in the natural world... my perspective has been altered forever.
I didn't consider myself a cynical person, but being online a lot (especially in the first few months of 2020 when we were all in lockdown) compounded with the news and noise that we become flooded with when we’re on social media feeds really leached away a sense of hope or wonder. Taking the time to step back and learn and read about nature and interact with folks who have made it their life’s work to be HOPEFUL about nature and what it can do— that brought back the feeling that there were still beautiful things in this world, however small, however invisible to our human eyes.
When I was in school, science as a subject felt unwelcoming, alienating and cold. The focus on dry lab reports and taking measurements and most of all, MATH (which I was never good at) completely turned me off to the whole field as a potential place to work. I had never heard of “citizen science”. I thought Science was something you had to have an advanced degree to work in or appreciate (another turnoff, because while I enjoyed parts of school, fact memorization and exams were never my strong suit either).
Reading books like Lab Girl, Entangled Life, Braiding Sweetgrass, Gathering Moss, and Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art helped me realize that science and art are not so separate from each other, after all. I knew this as an intellectual fact, but harmonizing research and anecdotes, humor and warmth— through the words of science writers, I was inspired to take more time to slow down and observe the world around me and to find magic in the everyday. That is what I am most grateful for this year, and what I will carry into 2021 and beyond.