Reaching Out: Day 1 🦋 “Last Drop of a Holy Drink”

A One Week Project Where I Reach Out To You - My Readers

🎨 Welcome

I feel lost in this space between major art projects. I tried to be more active on social media, but it only made me feel more isolated for some reason. This Substack creativity journal is my favorite online space and I thought it would be really nice to spend this week here with you all - and seek your counsel / advice / feedback / community.

I’d love to know your ideas - about my ideas - for future creative projects. I’ve brainstormed by myself alone in the art studio as much as possible. And I love my early mornings of creative solitude, for sure. But my favorite part of the creative process is sharing with others.

I’m reaching out.

I’ve taken another week-long break from social media (Instagram & Facebook). I’d like to write here every day this week instead - and share 7 ideas (1 per day) for what I’m considering and sketching out and mapping.

The very act of sharing our art and creative ideas is so full of hope and vulnerability and courage…I could use an extra dose those things right now.

Thank you for being here to read / respond - whatever feels best to you.

As you read this, please know - I’m sending love to you. Keep going. 🌿

Good journey,

~Emily Lupita

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🦋 Creative Mapping

I’ve been doing what I call - creative mapping ( in purple below) for a couple weeks now.

• A big blank page with no lines.

• Arrows and lists and circled ideas.

• Drawing book pages side-by-side.

• Things I’m dreaming to do.

In pink below are my “to do” notes - things I need to do like do laundry and eat lunch. A really different format and process.

Also, I am more tan / brown than ever before in my life. (LOOK at those brown feet!) I wish my mom could see me now. I remember the exact moment in my childhood when I realized I have a different skin color than my mother. We were looking in the mirror together. She was brushing my curly brown hair, trying always to smooth it down like her own gorgeous straight black hair.

People who know us both - they say that I am definitely Mom’s mini-me - but some people, upon seeing our photos or meeting her, later say something to me like, “That’s not your REAL mom, is it?” And/or “You look nothing like her.” It’s kind of an ongoing trauma in my life. (I now have a son with a different skin color than me…more on that later.)

When we FaceTime on the phone, I can see my face and Mom’s face again side-by-side, like when we used to look in the mirror together as she brushed my hair. Sometimes Mom doesn’t understand where I am or why I’m here. (Because she had a stroke and lives with brain damage in a re-hab home in Iowa. And I’m a world away in Turkiye with my sons.)

See how quickly my thoughts moved from creative mapping to my mother? This is one future / potential / in-progress project…a non-fiction / memoir type book about my relationship with Mexico and my Mexican mother. (I’m from rural Iowa.)

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Idea #1: Last Drop of a Holy Drink

My Mexican Mother & The American Dream

• Tells the true story of when I accompanied my Mom back to her childhood home in Mexico to visit her sister - her first time there in 42 years.

• The outline is finished. The Chapters are in order. All Chapters have some writing already drafted out.

• There are photos printed out and organized in order of how I want to tell more of the story.

• I need to add in sections about Mom’s stroke, brain surgery, difficult recovery, realizing she may be paralyzed for life, visiting her in the re-hab home, and watching her be a warrior who is learning how to begin again. How to paint again.

• Maybe the book is illustrated? This (below) is an illustration I did of mom (an accomplished artist) re-learning to paint in her wheelchair at the re-hab home.

  

• Will need to add a section about my big move to Turkiye to better support my two Autistic sons which meant that I had to leave my Mom in her hour of need in Iowa. A painful, excruciating choice that, if I’m honest, still haunts me daily. (My brothers & dad are there- thank God.)

• I submitted my book proposal to several writing grants and was short-listed once and was a finalist once. This is a major project that I don’t know if I can actually ever do without some sort of funding to support me while I write.

• Maybe I should concentrate on editing / improving the book proposal and send that out again to more places?

• I don’t know how I could tap into the place I need to go to write this book then tap out again on the daily and show up for what “needs” to get done. I’m afraid of this part.

• Maybe I could somehow divide it into smaller parts so it’s more manageable / doable / less of a mountain to climb?

• Maybe this isn’t the time. But then if not now…when?

• Maybe I’m not enough of an “expert” on this topic and should just shush up about it. But if I’m not an expert, having lived it, then WHO is more of an expert?

• Is what I have to say important / timely / beneficial to others, to my family, and to myself?

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I’d love to hear your ideas. Please share your thoughts with me in the comments.

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🦋 My New Cappadocia Book

The first Autism Brothers Book - Cappadocia - is now available on Amazon. Purchase here.

👩🏻‍💻 Social Media

I’m off social media again. The encouragement of my online community here on Substack has been so heartfelt for me. Thank you.

Please help me reach out by sharing this newsletter with someone you think may be interested.

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❤️‍🔥