New Beginnings and Continuations

An excerpt from a letter I'm writing Berkeley. Life shall not sit still, even if you chain it to a chair.

"Lately you've grown fond of trains and tunnels. You want to watch videos of trains all day long and if anything hints at being a makeshift tunnel you're under it without a second thought. Someone on the floor with a pair of legs bent in the shape of an A? Tunnel! Tomorrow we approach a big day: your first day of preschool. We'll ride upon our own metaphorical train into a new tunnel. We don't know what exactly is in it or where it exactly leads. We cling to each other (me more than you) in excitement, sadness, joy, apprehension, and hope. We enter a little family of three. Who knows how we exit. You'll start learning things, many things, not from the words and examples of your parents but from people who are now strangers but whom we presume we'll eventually love. In a broad since our family grows. Which is a good thing. But we send you out into the world now, the first taste of our little girl leaving home. And I'm stuck on that sentence. My Little Joy, one day I'll miss you so much."

The Number Ten

10 (ten i/ˈtɛn/) is an even natural number following 9 and preceding 11. Ten is the base of the decimal numeral system, by far the most common system of denoting numbers in both spoken and written language. The reason for the choice of ten is assumed to be that humans have ten fingers (digits) and because it's the number of years Robyn and I have been married.

 A list of 10.

1. Yes, of course 
2. Tatanka
3. Morgan
4. Wandering through an all but nameless town in Turkey. Trading Trader Joe's fruit strips for slices of watermelon. Agreeing with the only English words the local children knew: Bush bad.
5. All the moments a mind can't recall but that still matter, the little things that shape our lives. 
6. Struggling for and against ones own religion.
7. Waking up one morning and remembering how the woman laying next to me is related to that girl who stole my heart when I was seventeen. You can't draw a map like that.*
8. 2+1=infinity
9. Seeing Robyn, plainly, in the face of our child. It's like experiencing her childhood somehow; filling in the gaps, all the parts of her life I missed out on. This is as close as I'll get to those.
10. Yes, ten more please. 

*We were talking the other day and Robyn was recounting major parts of our courtship. She recalled so many details that I'd forgotten. Important details, things of major significance to her. Things I've done that count as reasons why she loves me. Prior to that I was reading through some old notes I'd written her. More temporarily lost details. Between the two of us we could likely piece together the major events, the whys and hows and whens. But they wouldn't add up to 3.15569e8 seconds or 5.259e6 minutes or 87658 hours. There would be so much missing and yet here we are, like a map to a pirate's treasure with everything torn away except the X that marks the spot.

So for all the best moments that I can both recall and that I've forgotten, I give thanks to a wife beyond what I likely deserve. Let us dig deep into the sand where we stand; let us unearth family, little children, long life, happiness, good health, and eternal love, together. You're the best Mrs. Robyn Kessler, happy tenth anniversary. 

Shawn

Unconventional Sports Fan

This post is dedicated to LeBron James, Peyton Manning, and Bill Simmons.

When I first started watching sports Lawrence Taylor was redefining the shape and size of linebackers in the NFL, opposing players were blaming their twisted and broken ankles on the teflon like coating that Barry Sanders was either born with or was applying prior to each game, Nolan Ryan was doing things to Father Time that are illegal in most countries, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana (and Steve Young) were turning the NFL into an air show, and Michael Jordan was being, well, Michael Jordan.

During that time I chose my favorite teams by choosing favorite players. I rooted for the Rangers because that’s where Nolan Ryan happened to pitch (I probably own well over 200 Nolan Ryan baseball cards), I rooted for the Lions because that’s where Barry Sanders was altering the physical laws of the universe. At the same time I rooted for the Giants because in my head it was OK to have two favorite teams if one was chosen for an offensive player and the other for a defensive player; even when they played against each other I could root for both teams, not caring who won as long as both players had a big game.

It wasn’t until later in life that I realized I care more about individual players and their talents than I do about the team aspect of sports. This was easy to overlook because I only knew Nolan Ryan as a Ranger, and Sanders never wore anything other than blue and silver and Taylor never put on anything other than blue and white. There was a stability in the players and where they played that made this observation impossible to make. But two things happened over the past couple of years that changed all that.

I’ve been a Colts fan since moving away from Indiana in 1992. This originally happened not because of a player but because of my connection to the city itself. However, I didn’t become a huge fan until Peyton Manning was drafted, in fact had he not come to the team I probably would have stopped caring about the Colts a long time ago. This also means that for the longest time I’ve rooted against The Patriots (and to a lesser degree The Saints), but when the Colts tanked last season and Manning sat out it was incredibly easy for me to start cheering for Tom Brady. I needed my fix of greatness and he was the closest approximation to Manning I could find, so if Manning wasn’t winning the Super Bowl his worthy rival was the only other option in my mind.  

Then the Colts didn’t re-sign Manning and now he’s a Denver Bronco, a team I’ve never really had any interest in, but guess which games I’ll be watching next season? I suspect the only time I’ll see the Colts play next season is when they take the field against Denver. This transition is easy and natural for me. Am I a fair weather fan? I don’t think so. I just don’t value a team, a sort of ethereal entity that morphs from year to year, that often has no qualms over dropping or trading players that have been with them for many years, and that often lacks a consistent feel from year to year. Instead I love players, I love talent, I love to watch the best players win. I hated it when the Arizona Cardinals made to to the Super Bowl in 2009. I hated it when the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title in 2011. And in my mind the biggest travesty in sports history isn’t The Decision but the fact that Emmit Smith holds the all time rushing record instead of Barry Sanders, an infinitely better player (in so many ways).

Which brings me to LeBron. I love to watch LeBron play and the rest of the world should too. I didn’t pay close attention to basketball prior to LeBron, his drafting converted me into a regular NBA observer. So I rooted for Cleveland while he was there and now I root for Miami. When people analyze the current state of the NBA all I hear about is how no one plays basketball the right way anymore, everyone is tired of the me-first mentality of the Kobe Bryants and Allen Iversons. And then God delivered to us a near perfect basketball player. He can score, he hustles on both ends of the floor, he’s willing to get in the paint and capture rebounds, he makes the right passes, always looking to make his team better, and he’s naturally gifted and extremely talented (and from all appearances hard working, not wasting his talents like some other naturally gifted players). His problem of course is that he doesn’t play the Meta-game the “right” way (which I’m surprised so many people care about). He wasn’t willing to let fate determine where he spent his career, he wasn’t going to be Barry Sanders playing on what would be the league’s worst team had he not been on it. He wasn’t going to wait for his team to one day decide he wasn’t right for them anymore and trade him (it’s just business after all, and who is going to go out in protest the evil Celtics when they don't re-sign KG or Ray Allen next year?). Sure, The Decision was a mistake, but the underlying reasoning wasn’t. And now the world hates LeBron and unfortunately for those that hate him they’re missing out on getting to watch and appreciate one of the greatest players to ever play the actual game of basketball the way we claim to want the greats to play it. I feel bad for the haters and what they're missing.

And finally, why mention Bill Simmons in the beginning? Two reasons: one I’m reading his Book of Basketball right now and he says if he gets super rich from the book he’s buying a black convertible M6, which is exactly what I would do if I were rich, so I feel like we reside in the same mental space somehow, and secondly the book sort of helped me see how I interact with sports, which is nearly 180 degrees opposite of Simmons. He is the ultimate team guy. Right now he’s very likely rooting against LeBron not just because of The Decision but because he’s playing the ever changing entity known as the Celtics. A team Simmons loved as a child and that he loves now even though the only thing those two teams share is a location and the color of their jerseys. Perhaps when LeBron moved to Miami Simmons made the usual complaint about how a real player wouldn’t switch teams, they’d muscle it out in whatever situation they found themselves in. Jordan never moved, Magic never moved, Bird never moved. Even Kobe never moved. He likely has written articles about how you can’t just throw a team of good players together and win championships (like maybe his most recent article praising the Spurs), you can’t just throw money at the game. And yet he probably cheered last year when the over achieving and over spending Mavericks beat Miami, and when his Big Four take the court tonight¹ against Miami’s Big Three he’ll miss the irony of his complaint against LeBron (I actually believe he’s too smart to miss the irony). He’ll forget that KG and Ray-Ray won the first year on that team, the one year they weren’t doing it the right way, not because sports has anything to do with logic but because these games are really played out in our hearts, and I’m sure his bleeds green.²

So that is one reason why I feel like an unconventional sports fan--I root for players instead of teams. The second reason is also 180 degrees different from Simmons: I rarely actually watch sporting events. However, I can tell you at any time during the year exactly what the standings are in basketball and football, who the leading passer and rusher are every week, who is on track to win the scoring title. I can tell you who was the last person (both women and men) to win a major event in tennis. I can tell you the last time Tiger Woods won a tournament. Maybe this mostly indirect interaction with sports is the cause of how I view them generally, even the root of why I like players more than teams. And I’ll likely be stuck in this position, not fully understanding team lovers, until the Internet does a better job of delivering real-time games since television hasn’t been a consistent part of my life for sixteen years now.


Footnotes:
1. Last night really, but I wrote this when "tonight" made sense, but didn't have time to edit and post it.


2. Also, in all likelihood I wouldn’t have written this post at all if not for Bill Simmon’s chapter on Wilt Chamberlain vs Bill Russell (which convinced me LeBron is playing the game correctly, even if not the Meta-game) and Grantland (which generally makes me want to write more about sports).

Friday Night Lights Revisited

I don't know that I've ever expressed my love for Friday Night Lights here.

With the noted caveat that I haven't actually seen a lot of really good shows on TV (Sopranos, The Wire) it's my belief that FNL is the best show to ever be on TV. When I finally get around to watching The Wire I'm willing to give it space in my mind to usurp FNL, but no other show I've heard described really has any hope of taking its place.

I'm currently watching season one again (the first rewatching), with the aim of watching all five seasons in a much more compressed time period than the five years it took to make it through the series originally. I recall when I watched it the first time through that there was usually some moment in each episode when my body would tingle with joy and emotion in ways that film or TV had never been able to affect me before (you can read that as usually once per show I was on the verge of tears if not crying outright). On second viewing it happens even more, but at different moments. It's all the little things between Matt and Julia when they first start to date. It's the joy and giddiness in Matt's eyes as he introduces his dad to coach for the first time. It's Mama Smash cupping Smash's face in her hands. It's Tim and Billy breaking furniture as they curse and fight each other. It's Tim standing in Buddy's office asking a favor for the first time not for himself, but for someone else. It's watching Tammi and Coach work through everything. Each of these little moments now come with so much built in history. On the one hand it's sad not to be able to experience the show the same way all over again, on the other hand it's so much better this way.

I think more than any character the experience of watching Matt has been altered the most; I see the seasons sprawl out before me with every move he makes. Each individual joy, triumph, heartache, and challenge cease being singular events, instead they encompass a lifetime, like looking at a picture of a child when just a baby and instantaneously missing their childhood and looking forward to some grand event that they've yet to attain (graduation, marriage, their own children); what you feel in that moment isn't a moment at all but a lifetime, a life, a person. And though it probably sounds delusional I'll say it anyway, I care for and about Matt like a real person, or as close as I ever have for a character I know is 100% fictional. Which is really to sing praise to those artists who created him, the writers, the director and Zach Gilford (by the way, on rewatching it becomes plainly absurd that he never won an Emmy for his acting.)

I know it's just a TV show, but it's also great art.

Dad is 60

This is a gift I gave my father for his 60th birthday. I went old school and made him a biographical mixed CD.

Dad,
I don't know how much you'll appreciate this CD. I never got the sense—from you or mom—that music was a big important part of your lives. Clearly you enjoy music, but it always seemed peripheral in your lives. From my point of view there is no greater gift than the gift of music. A music compilation from the heart of a loved one, even if I hate the music, is something I would always cherish. I've picked a set of songs, most of which you've probably never heard, that I think you could like because they have close roots to country music, which is the only music I've know you to listen to (besides Elvis). The songs are in approximate chronological order of when I first heard them, or when they became important to my life. Although I spent most of high school and college listening to music that bore little to no resemblance to country music, I believe its constant presence in our home greatly influenced the music I love today as well as affected some very important parts of my life that aren't really related to music directly. So this CD is a tribute to you and mom, a thank you of sorts, for not raising us on shitty music. The list of songs also represent things in my life that I find important and I think you would want to know about your son, even if the song isn't exactly something you would appreciate on its own.

1) She Is His Only Need by Wynonna Judd

This first song was picked partially to set the mood of the CD. In addition I probably have an overly romanticized ideal about how love is suppose to work; I attribute many of these ideals to the country music I grew up on, and this song I would say is one of the best (if not the best) country song ever written. When I heard it, before I ever knew Robyn, I hoped and prayed I'd one day have a love like that. That I could love some one so well, too well. To whatever degree I'm succeeding at that aim, this song deserves credit for some part of it.

2) Sullivan Street by the Counting Crows

From the 11^th grade until I graduated college I probably listened to this album four to five times a week. I have fallen to sleep listening to these heart felt melodies more than any other. They've latched onto my soul and found a permanent place in my life. A union born of dreams, born of dark nights, born of a great aching belief that one day I'd share in a love big enough to fill the Earth. Each song represents in my mind some stage of mine and Robyn's early courtships. A lot of failure, a lot of hope, and some really great moments. This particular song is my favorite on the CD, but the CD is so good (probably my all time favorite) that over half the songs on the album at one time or another have been my favorite.

3) Hurt by Nine Inch Nails (performed byJohnny Cash)

I feared I'd have to leave Nine Inch Nails off the CD because they don't match the tone at all but then remembered I had this version of the song around and rejoiced with the perfection of it. It's probably hyperbole but I feel that without Nine Inch Nails getting through high school would have been much harder than it was. With this music I was introduced to lyrics and music that spoke to my frustrations and pains. I felt a sense of belonging that had been missing in my teen years. It filled a large painful void that our exit from Indiana created. So a compilation CD from me without NIN on it is inconceivable. I don't know how you guys felt about NIN and Marilyn Manson, but I'm eternally grateful to the freedom and trust you placed in me to allow me to select the music I listened to and I assure you that the net affect of their music upon me has been incredibly positive. I don't know if you realize how important that was for me and how it wasn't a common thing amongst my friends and their parents. So again, thank you.

4) Wild Horses by Garth Brooks

Another great country song. Included here because it is the reason Robyn and I became good friends so fast. The first time she met me I was at her neighbors house with Jason. We were out front and I was singing a version of this song but I changed “horses” to “turkeys.” Robyn came over in the middle of it and was interested in the gothic/industrial kid who knew country music well enough to sing it and alter it on the fly. It took about seven years of major convincing after that, but this was the first little hook that tapped into her heart and eventually bound us together.

5) Winter by Tori Amos

There's too much piano and not enough guitar to be really country, but here it is. Tori was the first music Robyn introduced me to, so this album is tied to her and our courtship in my mind as well. Most of her songs from this album deal with a lot of issues that girls seem to identify with better, but this song I think captures a certain aspect of growing up that belongs to both genders. We were all little kids once, with our hands in our father's glove. And we all let go at some point. Eventually we all skate on our own, and bare the winter alone.

6) Sodom, South Georgia by Iron &Wine

The thing about this song is that I partially love it because I'm convinced that the singer/writer loves it more than any other song has ever been loved. I don't know how to explain it, but his voice just tells me that he knows that he has something amazing here, something to be cherished. There is a minor religious tone that meanders through the song and all the talk of snow and old men reminds me of Idaho and family (even though it's about South Georgia).

7) I Am Still Here by Damien Jurado

Country music has made me a sucker for sad songs. I don't know that I've heard a more heart wrenching song than this. The last two line slay me: “tell him I love him, but I am not returning.” Part of the greatness of the song is that it embraces the complexity of life. Some of our hardest decisions come about because we do still love those we leave behind. Life would be easier if all separations were spurred on by hate and anger. But life isn't lived as such.

8) There Goes My Life by Kenny Chesney

I probably don't even need to say anything about this song. I mean it's so obvious. It's almost an embarrassing cliché to include it. I don't know what it was like for you “becoming a man.” But I've always felt like a kid. I mean even now, with a child in my house, I feel like a 34 year old kid. This song captures the awkward process of really growing up, a process I'm still in the middle of, and captures a new type of love that I can honestly say I didn't expect to enjoy so much. I can barely listen to this song without crying. That little girl, man, she, she, she makes me speechless. I stand amazed.

9) Golden by My Morning Jacket

As I've grown older I've enjoyed abstraction and metaphors and literary depth more and more. If the previous song was the epitome of obvious this song is its polar opposite. It's dark, it's beautiful, it's vague. Without hesitation I'll say it is my all time favorite song. It resonates with me, it causes feelings in my soul I've never felt before. Or that I'd felt, but been unable to name. It's a song that overwhelms me with emotion. Check these lines: “you always told me. No matter how long it holds. If it falls apart or makes us millionaires. We'll be right here forever. Go through this thing together. And on heavens golden shore we'll lay our heads.” To me that is perfect. It's what I want out of life. A sense of joy and wonder and struggle, that no matter the results, if the trip is with the right people, then in the end we'll have our reward (because the the journey is the reward).

10) Glósóli by Sigur Rós

Don't ask me how to pronounce either of those words. This is one song that veers away from the country music feel I had going, but I think its worth it. The band is Icelandic. I couldn't tell you anything about what the lyrics mean. I don't want to know what the lyrics mean. But when I want to soar, when I want to feel alive, this song (and their music in general) does it for me. Somewhere in their music is the meaning of life. It feels like you're riding on the back of a whale, or flying like a bird, or running like a human through a field of wheat. The music feels alive, consistently, like little else I've ever listened to. If I were to send a piece of music out into space in hopes that it would one day reach an alien land and that the music would tell those aliens something about what it means to be human, this would be the song I would choose. Hear this, and be filled by humanity.

11) Nobody's Cryin' by Patty Griffin

I have a great wife. One of the best I'm certain, for a lot of reasons. I don't know why I've been so blessed, what I've done to deserve such a quality life. Sometimes I feel guilty at how good life has been to me. Robyn is a large part of why I feel that way. Jason once said that you learn a lot about someone by looking at the person they love. So if you want to know me, then know Robyn. This song, and its main theme of forgiveness, I think is Robyn put to music. Understand this song and you understand her, and me by extension I guess. “May the voices inside you that fill you with dread, make the sounds of thousands of angels instead.” … “your swinging off those gates of hell, but I can tell, how hard you're trying” … “somewhere on the steepest slope, there's an endless rope, and nobody's crying.” The world would be a much better place if we all had Robyn's capacity to forgive.

12) Idaho by Josh Ritter

Idaho. Josh Ritter is from Moscow, Idaho. Born and raised. So his relationship to it is different from mine. But the place, it will always remind me of you. Thinking of it makes me think of you, even more than it makes me think of mom. I don't know why. But you and that state seem inexplicably connected. It's nice to see someone with that sort of relationship to a place. I can appreciate that it means so much to you even though I don't know that I've ever had the chance to get quite so attached to a place. It's full of our family history. So many dead bones there. It's a shame I suppose that I have no desire to live there, but one place isn't meant for everybody.

13) Lawrence, KS by Josh Ritter

This is sort of an extension of the previous song. I know you're not a “real” farmer, but your desire to be on the land feels farmy to me. And if I were you (whatever that means) I imagine this song would reflect well the struggle of staying in a place I love while my kids (and grandchildren) were elsewhere, out there. And I'm almost jealous of the feeling of being so attached to a place that you just can't leave it behind. It sounds magnificently painful. :)

14) Murder in the City by The AvettBrothers

I think one of the most overlooked, or under represented relationship in popular music is that about child and parent. This song nails that relationship perfectly I think, from both sides. It looks at things from the child's point of view as well as the parent's. The family make up in this song, two brothers and a man who has a wife and daughter, fits perfectly into the shape of my life. I mean come on, “make sure my daughter knows I love her, make sure her mother knows the same.” I see me in Berkeley and I see you in me. I'll know your pains and your joys. And in turn, one day, she'll know them, too. It's a beautiful chain.

15) Salvation Song by The AvettBrothers

This is a love song, but I think, it serves just as well as a celebration of family in general. “We came for salvation. We came for family. We came for all that's good. We came to break the bad. We came to cheer the sad. We came to leave behind a better way. If I am walking through the rain. And I hear you calling out my name. I will break into a run without a pause. And if your love laughs at your dreams. It's not as bad as it seems. If you take of my soul. You can still leave it whole, with the pieces of yours you left behind.” I don't know what it means to have a perfect family. But I'm so greatly pleased with the one I have. I'm grateful to you and mom and Frank and the love and life we've all shared.

MCA

Once upon a time I was a child. Like all children I was eventually introduced to the strange and mysterious world of adults. And, like many once-upon-a-time-children, that introduction was made by “three bad brothers.” These gentlemen, if I may, introduced me to a considerable and powerful set of concepts: pornography, violence, hypocrisy, girls, partying, drugs (legal and illegal), parable, and of course music and rhyme.

I was in early elementary school the first time I heard License to Ill. As a mostly innocent child eager to take in the world, to grow up fast, to be cool, I was highly receptive to their words. It’s been argued--and one might still argue--that the content of that album wasn’t suitable for a child of my age. But in retrospect I don’t think the messages I received from their music shaped me in any negative fashion. I’m grateful that my introduction to a lot of these concepts were accompanied by the silly and playful lyrics of the Beastie Boys rather than the more cynical (regardless of how true to life) lyrics of Ice Cube, Ice-T, EZ, and Dr. Dre (all of which I did appreciate later in life). 

License to Ill was likely the first tape I ever owned. I probably only listened to it for a year before moving on to other musics. But that year in Germany is inseparable from that album. I can’t listen to anything on it without recollecting fond memories of wandering the German countryside or riding my BMX around our neighborhood like I was some kind of badass (which I wasn’t). And so the album has forever had a place in my heart and the Beastie Boys have forever felt like big brothers to me, big brothers who had already gone off to college but who sent letters back telling of their wild tales and who, when they did visit, were always more than willing to hang out with me and my friends even if they were a hundred times cooler than I’d ever be.

I’m not qualified to speak to the quality of their music, I’ll leave that to others. But they own a place in pop culture that is amazing in its reach and power. I can’t imagine what it’s like for kids now to grow up with Slim Shady instead of the Beastie Boys. Sure the albums are still out there but you can’t expect kids to listen to License to Ill and get the same thing out of it any more than my parents could have expected me to have learned much from Elvis (sorry dad). 

I never bought another Beastie Boy album after that, so don’t confuse me for a great fan. But I do greatly appreciate their little place in my history and the much bigger roles they’ve likely played in thousands of their hardcore fans’ lives. I just want to pay homage to that greatness, that social importance, and the general manner in which they accomplished it. Bravo gentlemen, bravo. And at the same time I want to say goodbye to one of my early educators.

Two last thoughts. When I moved to Indiana there was a bully in our neighborhood who deplored me. I have exactly one memory of interacting with him that wasn’t negative. I traded him my License to Ill tape, my heritage, for his copy of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. It was a bizarre transaction on a lot of levels and I can’t help but force meaning into it. Clearly we were both going through a shift in music taste, but perhaps something else was happening as well. The Boys and Metallica made a bridge over a gap that I never thought could be crossed, and never again was. Perhaps I gave Adam that tape hoping he could learn about all those concepts in the same fashion I'd been taught and thus he could become a little more like me, a little softer. And perhaps Adam thought I could use a little metal in my life. Who knows? But it feels like a significant event.

And finally, there is a line from one of their songs that pops into my head all the time. I find myself singing it often, and smiling. It’s an odd song for me, and an odd line. I’ve never been in a physical fight (other than with my brother). I deplore violence, especially senseless and random violence. Yet, I can’t help but love these lyrics, which are now slightly melancholy, for they represent the loss of not only a big life but also a little piece of my childhood. “MCA was with it, and he’s my ace, so I grabbed the piano player and I punched him in the face.” R.I.P.

Love Lingered

If you've spent much time in the ocean you're probably familiar with the lingering feeling you get later in the day, when you lay your head down to rest and close your eyes. You can still feel the waves pushing your body around, up and down, in gentle lulls. It makes you feel dizzy but relaxed all at the same time.

I discovered something similar the other night when I went to bed. A physical manifestation of love lingered. I'd spent most of the day carrying and playing with Berkeley. Rolling around on the floor with her, throwing her in the air, hugging her tight, laughing together. I put her to bed and then put myself to bed a few hours later. And there it was. I could feel her little body still near mine, my mind tumbled across the floor, up and down we went. It was one of the most unexpected but pleasurable things I've experienced in quite some time.