Sometimes it Snows in April by Prince came on the radio because he’d died that morning, and one of the local stations was paying tribute to him with an uninterrupted afternoon of his music. It was April 21st, and it was snowing, a heavy, wet, Spring snow. I was home working and thinking about how the graphic design profession keeps changing, and how the ground that I’d staked for myself decades earlier continued to shrink and morph. Because of this, I’d been planning to shift my focus on a bunch of work-related things for a long time, but I had an extensive list of reasons not to.

Most types of big changes are riddled with anxiety and forward progress is slow, glacial even, because I usually wait for the perfect time to begin, and because the perfect time is rare, I have another excuse allowing me to procrastinate even more. When I have moved beyond what’s stopping me, and real change does occur, I don’t often remember the details of how it happened, and what I did to help it along, because the process takes so long, I’m not taking notes, and I’m not always objective. So, everything from beginning to end is mostly nebulous, blurry, and hard to describe.

However, somewhere between the amber light at my desk, and the blue light through the window, something felt different, even magical that afternoon. What I’d been thinking about, worried about, mulling over and over for years, needed to begin right then. I’d talked myself out of it so many times, imposed so many rules and restrictions for myself, and listened to so many actual and imaginary opinions, that it was difficult to move forward. I’d been stuck for a long time. Except that afternoon I was ready. So, I started to write and didn’t stop for hours. I hadn’t written in that way for decades and I’d never heard this song before. Everything merged into something uncomfortable and better.

For Prince

Sometimes It Snows In April by Prince, Waiting for My Real Life to Begin by Colin Hay, Always Returning by Brian Eno, Survive by Reviver, and Gone On a Purple Cloud by Daily Bread