It’s Monday evening (as I write this) and the end of a long day. Ice drapes over everything, but it’s about 20-30 degrees warmer than it has been, so I take it as a win. 

My brain is tired. Emotions weigh heavy, but I’m here. I have a draft of my next novel open on my desktop, and there’s fire burning within to crank out another chapter or two. Last week, I knocked out my first newsletter of 2026, and I’m already itching for the next one.

Last year, my creative spirit succumbed to a never-ending cycle of news that ranged from mind-numbing to stomach-churningly mortifying. That is true for many of us.

But today, on a day where I needed to start earlier due to back-to-back meetings, I listened to a band I hadn’t jammed out to in a while. It was an old favorite, one that fell to the wayside as newer music and soundtracks took center stage. For whatever reason, I felt the pull to blare it through the car’s stereo, as if something deep and lost and hidden was guiding me.

This is the part where I confess that I am a huge B-52’s fan. I’ve been to more than one concert, often being one of the youngest fans there. When they released their last album, Funplex, I skipped class to go pick it up. 

As part of the tail-end of the Pee-wee’s Playhouse generation, “Rock Lobster,” “Planet Claire,” “Mesopotamia,” “Big Bird,” and “Private Idaho,” fit right in with my crazy, discordant, new wave-influences growing up. Paired with a diet of 60’s and 70’s Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen movies, they offered more than a healthy dose of feel-good energy. The B-52’s cultivated whimsy, which is often an understated sensation in society. 

Wild, energetic beats like these encourage people to dream, to imagine their way out of whatever situations they’re in. Whimsy, if albeit for a little while, staves off the paralysis of fear, anger, and hatred that, especially this past year, has pervaded the air. It’s a flame in the darkness, one we often overlook.

To me, whimsy is a fuel that can keep us all going, and we need it if we’re ever going to push ourselves forward. As I sit here, I’m cuing up that playlist again. I’m rekindling this old flame because we, those of us who like to create, have work to do. 

Find your whimsy. Breathe it in, and spit it back in the face of fear, anger, and hatred.