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.

The Tree of Life

Some thoughts about The Tree of Life.

The Father: The embodiment of a certain type of man from the 50s. He's not exactly the abusive authoritarian but he's surrounded by a culture that tells him he should be the ruler of his home. That he should demand respect and obedience from those whom he protects under his strong wings. So he lashes out, reaching for those things but all the while what he wants most is to be loved by his boys. But that love is tainted by the oppressive demanding style by which he asks for it, the only way he knows how to ask for it. I am your father, so it must be. The movie hints at the softer side of him, the side that wants to love for love's sake, that loves beauty as shown by his love and talent with music. He himself regrets after his sons death that he could never love the boys like their mother did. This is a man in a sad state, a state most often overlooked when appraising what men were back then. Sensitive men existed, but they were meant for another time.

The Mother: An angel practically. As much a child as the boys in some ways. An innocents, the father would call it naivety (more so out of jealousy than any actual spite). She forms a unit with the three boys. Something foreign and all but impenetrable to the father. She lets us know that there are two paths. The path of grace, to love everything. And the natural path, the path to struggle, the path to make other things as you want them.

The Boy: A dark storm. Learning from his father exactly that which he never wished to teach him. To be cold, to be hard. To be distant with his future wife. To lean hard upon his younger siblings. To require forgiveness out of them at such a young age. To reach for glory in money and power. To know regret. To forget all that his mother taught him.

The story as I understood it was a study between the natural path and that of grace. The father and the mother. The mother's struggle begins with the notion that if you follow the path of grace you'll be spared hardships. A misinterpretation of grace, as we find out. The father's journey is more overt. His hardness is like a beacon of light that only fall always upon the death of his child. When he realizes so much time and energy was wasted on the constant struggle to shape life, to make it just what he thought it should be.

At church the only sermon we hear is that on Job. The righteous man who still suffers greatly. Pain and hardship is meant for all. The father is pious in the church but steps outside and concerns himself with his reputation and his connections, with prospects of money. The wife meanwhile appears much the same in church and out. I suspect the scene is not only meant to inform us of where the mother is off-base on her understanding of grace but also to show that religion and grace are not the same thing. The father, however sincere he is in the building forgets to take the important parts outside with him, to apply them to his life, to his family's life.

The mother eventually sees that grace doesn't protect her from loss and pain. It protects her from devastation and permanent sorrow and suffering. To love everything one must must even love the loss. To accept it. To return her child to God.

I've heard people complain about the beginning and the end, but without both the middle is just pretty scenery. The beginning and the end give that story a destination, some where to go and a purpose. Personally the movie is one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed. I could probably watch the mother return her child to God for hours without growing bored of that imagery.

While watching the movie I was shocked. I thought, to dislike this movie someone would have to have a very different interaction with the world, with life, than I do. It romanticized life! But if we can't romanticize life then, well, then there is nothing worth romanticizing, so I'll keep doing it.

Granted, the dinosaurs were too much. I get what was going on there but I still think it was a little unnecessary in the bigger scope and I think it lost people that needn't be lost. Which isn't to say the creation scene wasn't glorious. I truly loved it, I just think it could have skipped over the dinosaurs and been more powerful, less distracting.

When I struggle to create art, usually in writing, in my head it looks like this movie. In practice it rarely turns out anywhere near this, but I think similar goals were imagined. This wasn't always the case but shortly after Berkeley was born I went to a funeral. And as terrible as it sounds somehow sitting there, grieving for people I barely knew, surrounded by those greatly affected, I discovered something. I remember sitting there thinking, feeling, knowing, that THIS is life. Somewhere in the tragedy is the work and the glory. Those grieving people were so filled with life, I could see it spilling from the pews and out the windows, sweeping across hills and water. Here was human connectedness. Here was humanity. And somewhere in that is God too and the ever present struggle with grace. It was the most profound experience I've ever had at church and this movie brought it back to life for me sitting in the dark on the couch next to my wife while my baby slept upstairs and above her the stars crossed the sky and we were (are) all but the most important specks.

Love Stumbled Upon

Some thoughts have been floating around my head lately that I've been wanting to articulate, but feel like I lack the proper words.

It mostly started with the first song in this video (Sorry Jeff if you're reading this).


In particular let's focus on these lines:
Stall your mother
Disregard your father's words


Two years ago those words would have meant something incredibly different to me. They would have been me pleading with my love to give me just that one more minute of her time. It would have been a look back at the past, of those great moments that encompass falling in love. But no longer [not entirely true]. My eyes turn toward the future now. One day I'll be the father whose words are disregarded and Robyn will be the stalled mother. These are songs that no longer belong to me in the same way they use to.

I suspect the cliche feeling I should be having, especially with these particular lyrics, is to be "Not with my daughter!" Maybe when she's sixteen and not one and half I'll change my mind, but as of now I look forward to her having these sorts of experiences. I look forward to meeting her future and all the people she brings into it. I look forward to her future love as much as I look forward to anything in life.

Of course, I don't think for a second I'll ever be witness to these events, but I hope some day she gets her late night shooting star and I hope some boy (or girl) writes her songs (regardless of how asinine and terrible they are). I can't wait for the day we stumble into each other walking down the hallway--she's oblivious to the world, beaming--and I get to ask, "What's up?" And she gets to grin and claim, "Nothing." That will likely do.

Home

Finished this book and aside from the obvious ideas that were dealt with: how we often try to return home to avoid or deal with problems in our lives only to realize that many of our problems and issues stem from that home, so going back doesn't do much to offer relief; it also had me reflecting greatly on what home is.

The word home doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. I think this is often taken for granted. We imagine everyone has this place where they can return to, that encompasses their childhood, a place that we can inspect and see first hand how much the world has changed, a marker not only of the past but of the present and into the future as well.

But then there are people like me and my brother and his family. People who moved around a lot because of their parents' work. There are a myriad of other reasons why one might not have a place they call home but I suspect many of them lead to similar experiences when reflecting back upon the concept.

When I think about home I think of two things, well three really. These two things are a shrunk (which is a large piece of wood cabinetry built in Germany) and a nondescript plush lazy boy style recliner. The third thing is sort of an extension of these two, or the root of them really. My parents. Their house, though I've never lived in it, still feels something like home.

This lack of grounding in a place is a peculiar feeling. There's no returning to an old neighborhood and feeling the pull of nostalgia as I walk beneath the trees or down familiar streets. No beloved playground. No best friend's house. No high school to revisit. No movie theater where my first kiss took place. Visiting Idaho is like floating free across space until entering my parents' house. Once there things make sense, but looking out their front door, onto their front yard and at the fields across the street, invokes no more emotion or memory than looking at a picture of the Martian landscape.

As time passes the inside of their house changes. They get different furniture, buy different rugs. At this point even the dogs we had when I left after high school are no longer alive. But the shrunk and some version of the recliner always seems to stay around.

After leaving home I moved as much if not more than ever. I think I averaged a move once a year for the first six years after high school.

But now I've lived in one city for ten years and the same house for almost nine. Just a fraction of the time one might spend in a single home growing up, but still more than double anywhere else I've ever lived.

With Berkeley with us now I can't help but look around and think about what sort of place this would make for her as a home. Her youth will be nothing like mine (forgetting even about technology). Will she run these streets with the few other kids in the area? Will she love the beach? In my mind I see her as a young teen standing on the dunes looking out at the waves, taking in the vastness of the ocean, contemplating it for the first time, wind blowing her hair into her eyes. This image alone convinces me here would be a good home.

Robyn sort of hates our house. I can understand this. It has its issues. The electrical outlets, its general age, the impossibility of keeping it warm, it's only two rooms, the kitchen is small and a little gross, sometimes there are mice. I get it. But since I lack a childhood home of my own this one that I adopted when I was 25 feels special to me in ways that probably don't make sense to a lot of people.

One day, assuming we are here long enough for Berkeley to feel like it is home, she'll probably leave at the first opportunity. While San Francisco and California have the air of freedom and independence to me they'll be the exact opposite to her. A place to escape, to get away from in order to see the world. To be her own person. But equally as likely she'll come back one day and stand on the dunes, put a hand to her head to shade the sun from her eyes, a tangle of gray hair blowing around her head, and she'll marvel again at how big the ocean is and how lucky she is to call this place home.

Space Filler

Along the nerves of nothing, where not begets naught, where seconds are years are millennia, the thought occurred: I Am. A stirring of ether, a silent revelation: I am all. The second, less profound but more disturbing. I, a pillar holding up nothing, standing on nothing. Others were made. Reflections, so alike that they too were I. These things, too much like the I Am, were pushed aside, discarded as useless, left alone to find their own way. Later, further attempts: angels, devils, cherubs, demons. Less like the first but still a part of the I Am. Saliva and dead skin instead of brains and heart. Let them do what they will, but there is no doubt what they'll do--a war, a hero, a victory. The I Am recedes, tries to become small. Everything collapses with it. A pin-point encompassing everything. Here the I Am rests and thinks. How to get out of the way? The hero, still there in the point, whispers a new word: We. The Word is born. With a big bang a new space is created, cleverly crafted and hidden from the creator. Rules invented. Light, gravity, atoms, fission, life. Pools of water and crystals spread across millions of planets. The Word speaks to each of them but they do not stir, until at last. From the other place the I Am decrees. They will have two legs, as not to look like pillars. They will have a brain, so that they may have free will. They will have a heart, so that they will love more than they hate. They will walk upright, so that they may not lack pride. They will have eyes to weep from, hands for crafting, knees for bending, mouths for singing, tongues for confusing, ears for understanding, wombs for recreating, and death for meaning. And it was so.