What’s more thrilling — and frustrating — than the sample rabbit hole? That rhythm that flips the switch in your brain, gets you humming for days, and then comes back to haunt you when you try to remember where you’d heard it before?

We live in an era of grief, a long stretch when everything feels unhinged and unsettled, when oppressors seemingly control both power and popular opinion. Whose voice powers our next revolution? Who fills the spotlight left empty when our heroes die? Why not you? Me? If not now, when?

January has long been my albatross, a month that starts with do-over optimism and ends in loss, defeat, crisis. Restless nights as dark and long as the days are short with light.