on the dual roots of tragedy and creation

Your stories on the topic are welcome and can shared through the comment section.

When Right Now, It’s Like This came out, I went downstairs and did the dishes. I’d let it go—this piece of me—and handed it to you. And I celebrated that quiet victory alone, scrubbing dried pasta sauce off a ceramic bowl. It felt right. After all the noise of getting the album out into the world, the silence and simplicity of doing the dishes felt like a relief. I wasn’t staring at the mountain of a music career ahead of me—I was just scrubbing a bowl, grounded by the immediacy of it.

Albums are released weekly. Singles daily. Books, films, columns, and sculptures are unveiled continuously. Each project comes with a different name attached to it, and behind each name is a crowded table of brilliant minds—producers, co-writers, collaborators—who silently stand in the shadows, holding up the public persona with grace and humility.

Tragedies happen weekly. Grief arrives daily in ways that feel impossible to fully comprehend. Failures of society are revealed continuously, and we watch from afar if we’re privileged enough to remain outside the wreckage. To cope, we numb ourselves, because that well of grief is too deep, too debilitating, to enter every day.

We can’t witness every piece of art. We can’t rally behind every tragedy or solve every injustice. We can’t prevent a young girl from questioning her worth because of the size of her stomach. These things are rooted so deeply in our world that they feel immovable. But while we can’t rip them out at the roots, we can tend to the branches with softness and kindness as they continue to grow.

I believe that even in the face of tragedy, art will always prevail. Next to the roots of the world's chaos is our deep, unstoppable need to create and connect. The world will continue to fall apart and come back together, and even in the midst of it all, we’ll still go downstairs and do the dishes. We’ll still create, release, and share. A boy who dares to dream will write his first novel, and his community will rally around him. And that act of creation, of people supporting one another, will pull him from the pit of helplessness. We’ll keep going, because we have to. And in doing so, we’ll write, we’ll scream, we’ll laugh, paint, sing, and rage. We’ll find a way to create meaning, even when it feels impossible.

On November 1st, I’ll be releasing my second album, Protagonist. It’s an album about reclaiming your narrative, about finding your voice again. It’s a reminder that while we can’t control everything, we can still choose how we respond, how we create, and how we show up for each other.

There is immediacy in the small things—in smiling at one another, in being curious about a person’s day, in doing the dishes. In starting to write a song that doesn’t make sense at first, but allowing yourself to expose the rawness of your truth anyway. In reading another’s words, listening to their voice, and seeing yourself in their story. In wondering, maybe, just maybe, we’re all one.

In the midst of your own noise, what’s the 'dishes moment' that brings you clarity?

Protagonist. 11.1.