Last year's Covered with Quadry was the only Viewfinder written in Miami. It was my first time back in Florida since the pandemic started. Florida is close enough to Georgia where the two feel like family. I think all the southern states are distant relatives. So Miami, to me, is like Atlanta’s cousin. The cousin you visit when you’re ready to trade your Hellcat for a Yamaha and a yacht. 

Bikes and boats aren’t really my thing, but the ocean does affect me creatively. I remember looking out at the beach while finishing Quadry’s story. Far enough from home to appreciate the scenery. After midnight, hours after publishing the story, I walked down to the water. Alone, beneath a Virgo moon, I wanted to write about songs that should only be played in absolute darkness. Music for shadows. Nothing really came to mind except for Childish Gambino’s “Urn.” 

“Urn” is barely a song, lasting only a minute long, but the singing has a lingering, illuminating effect without saying very much. As I sat with my feet in the sand, I thought back to Donald Glover’s profile in the New Yorker some years ago. It’s one of the few extensive interviews from that period of his career. In the ninth paragraph, the writer gets into some of the stress Glover was under as a polymath working on several projects at once. 

“He was feeling immense pressure to edit the show and promote it, make his next album, and finish work on “The Lion King,” along with an animated show he’s making for FX, “Deadpool.” Everyone was calling, texting, expecting,” wrote Tad Friend. “The next morning, after sleeping his customary four or five hours, he wrote a reminder in red ballpoint and posted it on the wall: “Make the best sand castle.”

I didn’t understand why he wrote the best sand castle of all things. Sand castles aren’t sturdy and require an incredible amount of patience for something that can’t be brought home with you. Why concentrate on building something that, at best, would only last as a picture in your camera roll? 

It wasn’t until sitting on the beach did I realize that sand is to the beach what ideas are to artists. There is no limit to the amount of sand like there is no limit to creativity, but there is never enough time to make use of all the infinite possibilities. Artists have to accept, creatively, Not every project will be the cathedral of their dreams. All they can do is build with the best intentions. 

Intentionality made Donald Glover’s era as Childish Gambino a period of world-building. Every album was, in retrospect, a sand castle of sorts. His songs weren’t as favored as Kendricks, weren’t beloved as Coles, or popular as Drakes, but he made an effort to be the outlier against the odds. Creating what he wanted with who he wanted. Never stuck in the current of the latest wave, but turning his inspirations into lodging for seekers of someone doing it differently. 

The success of “Redbone” and the release of his third studio album, Awaken, My Love, were both milestones because they proved he had yet to peak commercially or creatively. Creativity has no boundaries. Sitting in the sand was where I remembered to be boundless. 

View this week’s newsletter as a sand castle made from the memories of a Miami trip where even the air felt rich with inspiration. I hope to spread some of that energy to all the builders plotting their next blueprint.