There's a moment right at the start of strain, before anything is decided, where you still get to choose. Hide the seam or honor it. Pretend it isn't there, or fill it with gold.

Nineteen years ago today, I lost my dad to cancer. Four years ago, we named our daughter after him. I wanted this girl to see the beauty and strength behind her name.

There's a tension this piece holds that I kept coming back to while making it: the pull between control and surrender, between order and chaos. Every layer started as a decision. Some marks were intentional. Some were mistakes. Some corrections became the best parts. That's the conversation happening here, between calm structure and disruptive energy, and the piece kept telling me where to go until it found its own rhythm.