Yes, my brain is on fire

Just got back from a week in Paris—I was stepping into a Creative Director role with a niche fragrance brand during Paris Perfume Week.

Which, on paper, sounds very glamorous. And truly, it was.

But what stayed with me had less to do with Paris and more to do with proximity. Being in rooms with people who are fully immersed in their work. Perfumers, artists, makers—people who don’t separate what they create from how they see the world.

We spent time talking through how a fragrance comes to life. Not just the notes, but the origin, the story of it. All of the references, the memories, the feeling they’re chasing before it ever becomes something tangible. Every scent began as a creative brief, but not in the corporate sense….more like a fixation. Something that kept nudging, kept speaking until it demanded to be made.

And the decisions along the way—the references, the notes, the edits, the restraint—are what carry it through to something that actually feels distinct.

It took me straight back to trade shows from my “other” world. Furniture, lighting, textiles. Different medium, same energy. The people behind the pieces we bring into our homes—the ones quietly shaping how we live, whether anyone registers it or not.

There’s something that happens in those rooms. It’s subtle but it’s immediate. You start to remember what you like. Not what works. Not what sells. But what you are actually drawn to before it gets filtered through everyone else’s expectations. How it all lives.

I like to think of it as creative friction. The good kind.

The kind that leaves your brain on fire. Ideas stacking faster than you can organize them. Connections forming between things that have no business connecting—and yet, somehow, they do.

And then you come home.

Back into real life. Client projects, builder timelines, the logistics of making things actually happen.

Because it’s not just about taste. It’s about proximity…again. What you surround yourself with, who you’re in conversation with, what you’re exposed to on a daily basis. It either sharpens you or it dulls you.

And if you’re not paying attention, it’s very easy to drift.

Which is where I found myself, honestly. Not off track—just a little diluted. Pulled into execution mode. Solving problems. Keeping things moving. Necessary, yes. But not the whole point.

Inspiration isn’t passive. And somehow it never lands when you’re simply waiting for it.

It’s something you decide to stay close to…and something you consciously choose.

It’s paying attention to what lingers. What keeps showing up, quietly and consistently, until you stop and follow it. Not everything deserves to be turned into something. But some things won’t leave you alone—and those are the ones that matter.

That’s the thread.

And right now, I’m more interested in following that thread than forcing anything else.

This feels like a creative reset—not in a dramatic, reinvention kind of way. Just a return to the work that actually lights something up. The conversations, the environments, the level of thinking that makes everything else feel a little flatter by comparison.

Less what should I create? More what won’t leave me alone?

This is the work I want to be in. And, no surprise, I’m done pretending otherwise.

We’ll start there…and see what happens.