It’s a Process

In the past week I’ve gone through way too many themes for this website. I would like to report that I’ve landed on this one because I’m finally happy with it and it’s exactly the kind of theme I wanted, but that would be a lie.

In truth, I’ve gone with this one because I realized my desire for the “perfect theme” was an impossible quest (and antithetical to the goal of this blog). This a frustrating thought but, perhaps, reassures that I’ve made the right website choice (I really should say a suitable one because to release perfectionism is also to destabilize the right/wrong binary).

Suitable website choice in mind, this is also a suitable theme, one that I think I can learn to love.

Setting up the site, I knew I needed one that displays previews of recent posts, rather than a long list of articles in full. Because the name of my site was inspired by Shonda Rhimes’ book, Year of Yes, I also wanted a space to pay credit to her. Her memoir (that I would really prefer for you to experience firsthand, but I will also now nervously recount in a way that nowhere near serves it justice) details how she challenged herself to conquer fear and say yes to all opportunities that scare her.

Reading Year of Yes this summer, I felt called to a personal challenge. When I read about Shonda’s sister calling Shonda out for always saying no, I quickly looked away from the page, bothered and feeling like it was directed right at me. She was calling both of us out! Then, when Shonda talked about the safety of her imagination, playing in solitude as a child, it was all too familiar.

In later weeks, I’ll begin to unpack how this book (and many other instances that emerged outside my control this year) have prompted a transformation in my thinking around identity, productivity, creativity, and perfection. For now, just know that Shonda, for all intents and purposes, is my God(dess) and the inspiration for the title of my website.

As for the branding choices, I did a guided meditation to summon Shonda Rhimes, and allowed her to communicate the font and colour choices that she feels will best serve my personal development and brand. Kidding. Mostly. I do enjoy a good guided meditation.

For my title, I was looking for a chunky font: something that would have caught my eye as a kid but that’s also fairly clean and legible. To be honest, I landed on this one by accident. I had scrolled through the Google font directory and began typing the name of a different B-named font that I wanted to test out. Because my trackpad is struggling to function normally these days, my cursor slipped and landed on another one under B (so, who knows? Maybe it was Ms. Rhimes).

The colour choices were much less intentional or divinely guided, however, because the aforementioned “suitable” theme does not allow for colour customization. Sigh. It feels a bit ironic to have a blog about being messy be completely deprived of colour, but maybe I can learn to love that about it, too.