As we near the end of the year and the decade, we collectively glance back at the recent past and make an assessment. Good and bad, pros and cons. We live in strange and uncertain times, indeed, but we’re not the first — nor will we be the last — to think this. There is always beauty in bleakness, and when we seem to be halted by an impasse, creativity shows us a new path around the blockage. I don’t ordinarily wax poetic like this, dear Internet, but it’s just been that sort of year for me, filled with triumphs and sadness, beginnings and endings. This year, I lost my mother. At almost 90 years old, she led a full life and died in her own place surrounded by family which, when you consider it, is the best that any of us could hope for. I am saddened by this, but this sadness doesn’t paralyze me. On the contrary, it propels me forward. It underscores the brevity of our short lives, and the urgency to leave nothing undone. Things will definitely be left undone, of course, but that doesn’t stop us trying. I’m under no such delusion that my creative output as an artist will last much past my lifetime, but it’s never really been about the end product. It’s always been about the joy of making.