072. sketchbook lost & found

The sketches in this post are the pages I missed the most when I lost the book.
Paywalled most of it because I’m a big sap and it’s very TL;DR, but (spoiler) there is a happy ending.

Loss Day

Sometime between drawing the White House UFC setup in the shadow of the Washington Monument, and getting ready to sketch at the Smithsonian American Art Museum about 1 mile away, it had disappeared.

My mom and I had stopped at Fahrney’s Pens (tres chic!) in the Willard hotel on the way. I thought I might have left the book in the hotel restroom, so I jumped on a Lime scooter and blasted down the street to check back there.

It was not in the restroom, or in the hotel lobby, or the pen store. The salesperson at Fahrney’s felt for me, I could tell — they’re journal people too. I left my contact info with the hotel front desk and a valet security guard.

Where could it have gone?! After the White House drawing, I remembered putting the book and my pen pouch into inner pockets of my sun jacket for easy access.

But what I forgot was that this jacket has a flaw — one pocket actually isn’t as sealed as you’d think it would be (a manufacturer mistake, I think, because WHY). But would I really not notice a whole sketchbook falling out like that?

Luckily I was wearing a sports bra and athletic shoes, so I could jog the half mile route down 15th St. to the Washington Monument and back, my eyes hunting for a flash of florescent orange: the elastic band on my book.

No luck. Eventually, we had to give up and head home.

On the Metro ride home, I looked at Reddit threads about lost stuff in D.C. until I got motion sickness. Mom told me that Someone Would Find It and Reach Out. Thankfully, I did have my contact info written inside the book. But it was taking them a long time. I refreshed my email, DMs, and spam folders so many times that night.

Most of the good sketches I had already scanned, which was a relief. But the book itself is a document of a time. I had been slower than usual to fill the book, so it covered my entire 2026 so far — it was a lot of time to lose.

Grief filled in the spaces between happy moments surrounded by husband/childhood friend/parents in Virginia. I tried not to think about the drawings I would never see again. It felt like I was losing my memories, which was like losing part of my life.

Without that sketchbook, I wouldn’t be as connected to this year, which has already felt like a bit of a blur. That’s a big part of why I draw — documenting the things that happen. And looking at those drawings is a bit like traveling back to relive those experiences. An extension of my fragile little life.

Aspen, the mural job in Florida, spring in Seattle, San Francisco, and the really good sketch I had just made in my hometown — these experiences would never be quite so close.

Since I had carried this thing for 5 months, it was something I spent quite a lot of time with. If I spend, say, 45 minutes on each spread, multiply that by the 65 or so I had filled — that’s like 48 hours, or say 12 times hanging out for four hours at a time. I can’t say I’ve hung out with a lot of people 12 times this year.

It felt like a being I had known for 5 months had just suddenly passed away. We hadn’t been together long, but it had been an intense period, and we gotten to know each other pretty well.

I just had to get that sketchbook back.

Loss Day + 1

In the morning, my inboxes were still empty.