Just start (over)

I left my paid-down house in Las Vegas to live in a half-size bungalow in Sunland, California, snuggled between Pasadena and Santa Clarita – yes, the sleepy semi-rural hamlet of Netflix zombie series fame.

But we had a backyard and a garage, so by LA standards we were living pretty well.

Until we weren’t, and I had to move back to my home state of Texas after facing the loss of my younger brother. My heart still doesn’t believe he’s gone, because he’s just not supposed to be.

And a billion other unending terrible things happened that year, ultimately punctuated by the loss of my lifeline, my light, my little 14-year-old earth shaker, heartbreaker of a pup.

I didn’t totally mind having to leave that house, even under the circumstances I did, because I could never make it work. It was too small to hold the kind of life I’d spent so long living, with working from a home office, cooking constantly, and nonstop projects.

My living spaces are loosely concepted as workshops with lounges and wine racks. That LA house had six square feet of counter space and three kitchen cabinets. And despite two years spent constantly organizing and reorganizing, every mealtime was a circus, juggling bowls and plates and pans along any available inch of surface area.

And then I got sick, in that weird sick way where nobody can see anything wrong with you, but something is definitely wrong.

Whatever might be said about these past few years, I don’t think anyone would call it “winning.”

And yet, in at least one sense, I did win. Kind of. Because whatever else happens, my identity fundamentally changed.

Bugs in the City

There’s a quote that I’ve held close to me since college. The friend who shared it with me didn’t feel it so deeply as I did to search out the source, but I found it so profound I had to read it in context.

I found it in a short story by William Gass, from a collection called In the Heart of the Heart of the City, and while the containing story did not surpass the level of poetry captured in this brief passage, it’s a worthwhile read about a young homemaker. She’s vacuuming up bug corpses when these words leap out:

Our bones are secret, showing last. So we must love what perishes; the muscles, and the waters, and the fats.

— William Gass

I later used the words to compose a print for a letterpress workshop, and to this day am still awestruck and flabbergasted at the beautiful simplicity of such a complex grief.

And this fundamental nature of identity and knowing.

The heart of the heart of identity

This tension to be reckoned with, between the unseen and unspoken and what presents itself as if it were the unseen and the unspoken, is so integral to the work of constructing identity.

It is the very heart of design — to make the imperceptible manifest, calling forth flesh and blood shaped in accordance with the underlying frame – and not wildly imposing incongruent features onto a structure that ultimately will not support it.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in a wayward, kind of paralyzing and painstaking, circumvention of this same potential pitfall — not wanting to succumb to the folly of putting on a face I couldn’t support.

Advisors do the best they can with the information they have, and sometimes, it’s just not the right set of data to get the feedback that helps move you forward.

So I’ve been steered in various directions, which I believe will ultimately be of benefit, but in the Odyssian sense that the path is its own reward. The sirens sound to show you who, and what, you are not.

So along the paths the past few years have taken me I have learned that I am not:

• A web developer — but I can code your website
• A designer — but image is the tool I have honed
• A writer — but words are an integral part of my work

Am I all of those things? Probably. And probably more; just as everyone is probably much, much more than they typically allow themselves to consider.

Toeing the line

But every data point on what a person or an idea or a construct isn’t is also a data point on who or what they might be. And as ever more data comes in, you get that much closer to discovering what potential is inherent to its nature, its environment and its expression.

And the only thing required to stake a claim in that new identity is a single step — though, perhaps prefaced by many, many, many steps that came before it.

There was a line from I think a criminally underrated show called The Patriot, where, to return to safety, to literally get back to safe harbor, an embedded spy had to swim the English Channel. His handler father, played by Terry O’Quinn, insisted he’d never make it, he wouldn’t be able to swim the whole length of the channel. The spy responded by explaining he didn’t need to swim the whole length, he only needed to get halfway there, because halfway there, it was a different country already.

Once across the (albeit watery, invisible) line, his identity would change — from one of interlocuter to that of hero, even though he hadn’t yet made it to the finish.

A single toe into new waters is all that’s required to shift a self-concept, the construct or the awareness of identity.

The long way round

And that’s sort of what’s happened for me.

After many, many, many steps and roundabouts and Plan Bs, Cs, and Ds, I’m not anywhere close to what I would call a finish line, but I have put a toe across the line. And I’m experimenting with something I’d wanted to do for a very long time — basically since I began working for myself as an independent designer.

In a way it’s sort of like coming home, via the long way round, in that I’m getting back to more design work, while my freelancer persona of the past few years has pretty much solely been called on to help with eCommerce development. I will, of course, continue in that, because, firstly — who doesn’t love some retail therapy?

But also because it’s just the way of the world now, and I believe it’s going to continue holding the key to future prosperity for small and independent brands, which I care deeply about serving. I want as many small and independent brands as possible to not only exist, but to flourish, because they offer almost infinite paths to joy and creative experiences.

The new identity I’ve stepped into, the line I’ve crossed that changes how I exist in this world, is one of product creation. A designer as founder/creator role. It’s certainly a long path, and not one to be completed so much as ambled along. But I’m hoping to show my first foray into what I’ve made soon, and to continue to dabble in making things I believe should exist.

And I do anticipate, or hope, and believe, that putting myself in the shoes so many of my clients come to me wearing will improve my abilities to serve others with creative expression. The experiences I’m seeking out in building products and selling my own vision will expand my understanding in how to help build out their vision, their future brand, their stake in a new identity.

If identity—yours, your brand’s, or something you’re building—is on your mind, I’d love to hear what you’re working on.

Limited Print

I found a few extra copies of the letterpress print mentioned above, keepsakes from another life. They were destined for the Goodwill box until I thought — maybe they deserve a more intentional kind of goodwill. So I’m sending a few out into the world, wherever they’re wanted.

If you’d like one, send a quick note or subscribe and mention it. I’ll mail a couple right away and hold another as a year-end surprise.