There's a pattern I've noticed over the years: I'll walk into a workout with a design problem rattling around in my head, and somewhere between the warm-up and the cooldown, something clicks. A name. A direction. A solution I'd been circling for days.

If you read the tribute post I wrote for Vinz Clortho, you already know the shape of the last two years. A loss, then another, then another. The first domino, and everything that followed. What I didn't fully explore there — because that post belonged to him, not to the work — is what grief actually does to a creative person. Not metaphorically. Biologically. And why, eventually, it makes the work better.

This past week has been interesting. Not really because I changed my routine or landed a new client or anything really exciting, but I had trouble adhering to my day to day routine.

I felt unmotivated and while I did a little bit of work, it was nice to feel like I could step away from my desk if I wasn't feeling creative.