 These are trying times. We tell ourselves they are unusual or unprecedented but given my 50 years of life, it’s pretty clear that some version of chaotic, world-defeating, testing of justice and bastardization of American principles is perpetual. These are unprecedented times like all the other unprecedented times – but, these are really unprecedented.
These are the times that drive us away from our country, our neighbors, and even our families. These are times when passions are so high, we can’t talk about - or even find - our commonalities. These are times when we can’t seek to understand because our sources of information seek to radicalize – while disparaging those who get radicalized on different soil from different sources. These are times when our leaders are so vocally and so visibly dehumanizing toward anyone who disagrees with them, anyone with differing physical abilities, anyone who loves someone other than who they think they should, anyone who is wrestling with identity issues they could never truly understand, anyone who – god forbid – was born in a different land that it challenges all of us to come home to our common humanity – and at the same time, makes it seem that much more difficult to do so. Our common humanity is not, in fact, grandiose. It is not a sweeping statement or a newsworthy act. And, the sooner we can realize this fact, the sooner we can live to be the decent human beings I think most of us actually want to be. Here’s my proof: The other night I took my girls and wife to the Nashville Predators hockey game. Near the end of the first period, the “Preds Energy Team” started shooting off t-shirt cannons. My younger daughter, at her first Preds game, had a flying, tightly-rolled, t-shirt hit her in the hands but drop to the floor in front of us to be gathered by another group. She was disappointed, but it was all good fun. After the break between the first and second periods, my older daughter got a strange sense as an elderly gentlemen with gray hair seemed to be walking right toward us among 15,000 other fans. I looked to my left as he approached. He reached out toward my younger daughter with a plastic Preds pro shop bag folded neatly in his right hand: “You deserved to have that shirt.” He handed her the bag and turned around and walked back to his seat two sections over in the arena. He had given my daughter not only a t-shirt, but a dated, commemorative puck from the game. We were all four so stunned that we got teary eyed processing it in the moment, the shear kindness of a stranger. The profundity of the feeling, of the simplicity, deeply moved us all. A simple gesture of generosity. A simple gesture of love. A simple recognition from a man from near the other side of the arena of the disappointment in my daughter’s face and the willingness to do something about it - because he could and he wanted to. I do not know that man’s political party. I do not know that man’s religious beliefs – or absence thereof. I do not know that man’s position on abortion or border walls or capital punishment. I do not know that man’s perspective on church and/or state. I do not know where that man gets his news. I do not know where that man came from or where he went after the game. I do, however, know that man’s kindness. I do know what it meant to my family and to me. I do know that we spoke of it restoring some faith in people, some hope in humanity that we all agreed we desperately needed. I do know that it moved us to tears. I do know how much we needed that reminder – that gift of simple kindness that blasted right through the protective shields we’ve all four built around ourselves to survive these times. Kindness is so easy. It is so profound. And, in its absence, everything else manifests askew. We are living life askew. Thank you to that man from my wife, my daughters, and me. Thank you for the reminder. We promise to pass that kindness along. And, thank you in advance for whoever receives it from us. Even with bombs falling and cities flooding and democracy stressing, kindness matters. It matters a lot. It always has and always will. There is nothing unprecedented about it.
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 I had been sensing it for a little while and then I got this note when my wife and girls went on a weekend trip without me. Dad. There it is. Not Daddy. Dad. And this from my younger daughter!
I wrote a blog back in January of 2020 titled “I am Daddy” as I came to the realization that this was no longer just a role I was compelled to play because I had children but a part of my identity – in fact, it was the primary way I finally saw myself despite years of having children. Now, officially according to this note, I am Dad. So, what does this mean?
I am Dad. I am someone who sees them as beautiful inside and out in all the ways I used to think were cliché and corny. I am the one who must know and show them that their value is inside, that their inner beauty is controllable and not merely a function of surface perception or genetics. The beauty they control is the one that is most profound and can also last a lifetime. I am Dad. I am a man who must never and will never comment on women’s bodies, their weight, their looks, or demean them in any way. I have to know and accept and defy implicit gender bias including my own that they don’t yet recognize or have words for. I am Dad. I am someone who genuinely finds them fun and funny to be around and am at my happiest when I am with them. I don’t want to experience new things without sharing them with my girls. I am Dad. I am someone they miss on a weekend away and someone who misses them. I am Dad. I am someone who allows them to give me the bird when I’m goading them about something in good fun because I know they are finding their confidence and showing their trust in me as they lightly test the boundaries (by doing something I undoubtedly taught them). I am Dad. I am someone who above all else must show my girls that I am willing to listen without judgment or shame, no matter what the topic. I am Dad. I am someone who must know the time for answers and the time for more questions to help them arrive at their own answers. I am Dad, and I love it so, so, so much.  One of the reasons I write is for my daughters. I want them to know me at some point, perhaps when I’m gone but hopefully before that, in a way I can only write about and can’t always express otherwise - thoughts from my more intimate moments of personal reflection. I try to capture funny anecdotes about the shit-show times of parenting. I try to capture the sweet moments I don’t want them or me to forget. I talk about my own life and particularly the loss of my Dad to suicide in ways I just want them to understand but can be difficult to verbalize.
Just a few minutes ago, I wrote in a reply text to an old friend who was just checking in that I was "drunk on being Dad" right now. I wrote it, read it, and it seemed like something I should be sharing with my girls. So, here we are. Lately, I’ve found profound and irrational joy in the young women they are becoming – which includes the flashes of the little girls they used to be, glimpses of emerging teens, and flash-forwards to the women they will be. And, even as I write this, I realize I should really be speaking to them, telling them directly the things that have me feeling a little woozy. Girls,
Parenting is hard and it is relentless. Sometimes, it helps to stop and have a drink of the good stuff. Cheers!  Just because the clock strikes midnight, and the calendar turns to January 1 doesn’t mean some magical transformation happens in our lives or that we’re suddenly ready or able to make such a transformation happen for ourselves. Pretending the passage of time is somehow also automatically the turning of a page is a setup for disappointment, self-doubt, and lingering unease. Suggesting that this mirage of an annual milestone called New Years is magically the time for starting things anew and changing course in our lives explains why most of the stuff we start in January as a year-long resolution has stopped by February.
I don’t mean to sound negative. I mean to sound honest, to be realistic about growing and changing rather than merely being hopeful or delusional we will grow and change. I suspect, if you are like me and like most humans, 2024 wasn’t all peaches-and-cream, and that didn’t change on January 1, 2025. My friends (4) from their 30’s to their 80’s are all still dead, and I am still mourning. My family member is still fighting cancer and managing a difficult recovery. I’m still raising my children in a world that many days frightens me, and most days frightens me for them. What I am reflecting on as I enter this new year is that it’s ok to let the New Year inspire goalsetting. In fact, it’s a good, symbolic moment for it. It’s ok for a New Year to be a time of optimism and planning for something better. But, it’s also a great time to look back at all the stuff that sucked about the previous year, to evaluate the scars we earned, to see what we can control and what we can’t, and to name the stressors and anxieties we are carrying into the next year. Knowing what past we need to let go of or what present we still need to work through is the only way we know what future we can honestly and freely run toward. If we are resolved to work on these things first, our New Year’s resolutions will become a lot more resolute. So, I want to offer a few atypical tips on New Year’s resolutions with the understanding that they will likely be far more meaningful than magical.
May we all be resolved to find peace and love and hope in the New Year knowing that it starts within us. Image: https://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/a-college-student-s-guide-to-new-year-s-resolutions  Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
This teaching from Buddha changed my life and put me on a healing path after my Dad’s suicide. And, as I was thinking about what to write on this the 18th anniversary of his death, April 27, the day before his 62nd birthday, April 28 – the celebration of his life, I was blindsided by a sudden and devastating death of a young coworker and friend. (That’s his picture of totality above.) What the fuck do you do with this? Why the fuck? How the fuck? So young. What happened? He didn’t seem that sick. It can’t be. It is. It just is. Pain. I am suffering for him, his family, his wife, my other coworkers, myself. And then, there’s this word – totality – that has been agitating my brain ever since the solar eclipse a few weeks back when we were all consumed with the “path of totality” – millions packing up their families and their cars with totality as their destination. What a word! Totality! I couldn’t decide if I feared it, or I was seeking it. Whether it is closed and final and finite or the key to transcendence and the eternal. Totality. What is the lesson to be learned beyond a neat, stellar phenomenon for a couple of minutes? Surely, it’s more than cosmic entertainment, cheap cardboard sunglasses, and a media bonanza! It wasn’t coming to me though. But, that word – totality - wouldn’t leave me alone. And then, Andrew died. His photos of totality still in my texts from him. He had flown home to experience the path of totality with his family. Is death totality? I don’t think so. Or, at least, that’s not what has been bothering me with that word for all these weeks. What is totality in life? In the living? And, while I was running yesterday trying to burn off the overwhelming suffering energy that has had me wrecked since I heard the news of my friend’s death, it suddenly became clear to me again, like it did when Dad died, and I read those words the first time from Buddha. Totality is just the sun and the moon together. Both light and shadow. Source and reflection. Love and loss. Joy and sorrow. Fullness and loneliness. Presence and absence. Life and death. Totality is not a celestial moment that happens once in a generation. It is existence. All of it. In totality. And, in human existence, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Thank you for the light. It will always be part of my darkness.  I’m doing the dishes. I like to listen to music while I do the dishes. Tonight, I needed some Pearl Jam. Alexa hit me with “Yellow Ledbetter” out of the gate. So, I obviously asked her to turn it up! The luxury of hands-free Alexa when your hands are covered with dish suds! I am almost immediately sing-mumbling at the top of my lungs about a porch and a wave and a boxer or a bag. Who knows what the hell that song says, and who really cares! Just sing! And, do it loud! Like I’ve been doing it for 30 years!
My sweet and lovingly spiteful younger daughter in defiance of the volume of both my music and my voice – which could never be mistaken for music – decides she suddenly wants to practice her piano and asks if I will turn the music down. I politely decline. I return to my vociferous sing-mumbling: “Ohhhh….ohhhh….yeah…yeah…can you see them…” She turns and heads to the piano. I turn it up more. Still, I start to hear her piano notes through the grungy wash of Pearl Jam at its most melodic and confusing and wonderful. I can tell she’s playing as loud as she can, pushing my grandmother’s ivory piano keys to their limit. But, she will be heard. She’s playing Taylor Swift. “All Too Well.” Taylor will be heard. Pearl Jam or no Pearl Jam. Oh shit. Alexa follows with “Alive”. I am a teenager. And now, I actually know all the words and all the badass air-guitar riffs. But, I’m down to my last dirty bowl. My time and excuse for extremely loud Pearl Jam on a Thursday night, a school night, are running out like the sudsy water down the drain. Taylor via my daughter via my grandmother’s piano keeps audibly peeking in as I reach 1990’s musical euphoria. “Oh, I, oh, I’m still alive.” I reluctantly stop Alexa at the end of “Alive.” I didn’t want to stop. I could have kept doing dishes and jamming all night. Just as Pearl Jam soothed my angsty, teenage soul, so can they soothe my wrinkly, dishpan hands. But, alas. The dishes were done. Taylor takes over. But, just for a few more bars. With the good-spirited spite of my singing and Pearl Jam diminished, my daughter suddenly decided she had practiced enough. Little shit. I love it. I love her. So grunge. But, in the end, I suppose Taylor wins again. So be it. As Eddie Vedder mumbled: “I don’t know whether I’m the boxer or the bag.” It doesn’t matter. Postscript: I decided to look up the lyrics to “Yellow Ledbetter”. It doesn’t make any more sense than the glorious mumbles I hear clear as day in the music. But, for what it’s worth: Yellow Ledbetter Unsealed on a porch a letter sat Then you said I wanna leave it again Once I saw her on a beach of weathered sand And on the sand I wanna leave it again, yeah On a weekend wanna wish it all away And they called and I said that I want what I said And then I call out again And the reason oughtta leave her calm, I know I said I don't know whether I'm the boxer or the bag Oh yeah, can you see them Out on the porch Yeah but they don't wave I see them 'Round the front way, yeah And I know and I know I don't want to stay Make me cry I see I don't know, there's something else I wanna drum it all away Oh, I said I don't, I don't know whether I'm the boxer or the bag Oh yeah, can you see them Out on the porch Yeah but they don't wave I see them 'Round the front way, yeah And I know and I know I don't want to stay I don't wanna stay I don't wanna stay I don't wanna stay, oh no Yeah Oh, oh Oh, oh Images: https://lifeonacocktailnapkin.com/eddie-vedder-in-the-house/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/taylor-swift-live-performance-in-st-louis--785174516257828659/  But, don’t tell anybody, or it won’t come true.
I was recently at my 90-year-old aunt’s belated birthday party and as they brought out the cake and candles, my cousin reminded her: don’t forget to make a wish! My aunt is 90. She has dementia. She lost her husband a year ago. She can’t walk freely. She can’t manage all body functions. She sits mostly. And, laughs. Some days sharp as a tack. Others, not so much. And, somehow she is still the same old, crazy, wonderful aunt we have all always been crazy about. What did she wish for? This is the first time I’ve ever really wondered much about someone else’s birthday wish - and then almost immediately feared my wondering. What do you wish for at this stage of life? At this stage of health? At this stage of loneliness? Only the day before, I had my own birthday, so my wish was still fresh in my mind as it’s the same wish for every birthday, coin in a fountain, blown dandelion, or clock striking 11:11. I wish for my girls to be happy in their lives. That’s it. Whatever that means. That’s honestly all I wish for. I’ll just have to trust that my wish can still come true despite sharing it here. And, this week, turning 12, my daughter will be prompted to make her own birthday wish. And, like a thousand others before, I won’t really wonder or care too much about what’s in her heart and her mind and in her wish. She’s a kid. Her birthday wish is not for me. But, there was something about my aunt. Something I’m still not settled with, or I wouldn’t be sitting here writing. What do you wish for when life is in its final chapters? Do you wish to see your spouse again, to be reconnected with the love of your life? Do you wish to see your parents? Do you wish you were healthy enough to get around on your own again? Do you wish you could still drive? Do you wish you could still live alone? In the home you built for and with your family? Do you wish you could talk to the friends and family you’ve lost? Do you wish for more years, more life? Or, are all of those wishes really out of the realm? Unreasonable wishes? Lost causes. So, you wish for something that might actually be possible? Do you wish to be done with this life in hopes of moving on to the next? I think I’m troubled by the question because I fear that if I learned my aunt’s answer, somehow it would provide some prescient insight about life that I may not want to know. It’s like being able to predict the future or read someone’s mind. When you’re a kid, maybe it sounds fun. As an adult, it sounds horrifying. I don't fear death, but perhaps I do fear wishing for it. There’s simply no doubt that I would do anything I could to support and help my aunt realize her wish. She’s earned whatever it is. And yet, what can I do? Almost nothing. And, this may be exactly why she shouldn’t share her wish and exactly why I don’t want or need to know it. I’ll just wonder for myself – if I am lucky enough to live to 90 years old and to have lived the life and loved and lost the people that she has, if my mind is fading, if my body has faded, and yet I still love, and yet I still laugh, and yet I’m still alive, and yet…what will I wish for? Please nobody tell me.  I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting on a delayed flight for a trip I could have never imagined taking when I was a child. I mean, it makes sense, but for most of us we don’t let our minds go certain places until we have to. For this trip, I had to. I was flying with my two girls and wife along with a dozen or so other family members coming from different directions to see my Uncle Roy who is dying of bone cancer. And, while he is 90, he’s a man I’ve known my whole life to be as full of life and intellect and spirit as anyone you could find. A scientist, an educator, a father, grandfather, and great grandfather. I hadn’t seen him in years and wasn’t really sure what to expect. He’s been suffering a long time. But, when I sat down next to him, I found it was only his body failing. The rest was intact. “I picked up your book again, Creating Matters. I read it when you first wrote it. I can’t help but believe there is a connection to God there.” He continued talking about Biblical creation and we made the connection to where and how I had found myself and my connection to a higher power through the process of creating art, how while I do not go to church, my family and I go to the mountains – our way of touching transcendence. I immediately had a feeling this was how he used to talk with my Dad. I sensed in my gut he may have been hoping for this conversation with me. But, I wasn’t sure what his stamina was at this point, so I just let it all sink in as things fell quiet between us – the splashes and laughs of my kids playing in the pool resurging to their rightful place in the moment. “I used to love to talk with your Dad.” He stated quietly as he broke back into the moment without looking at me. He continued matter-of-factly and affirmatively. “I know I’m not long for this life now. I loved your Dad. I know I’m going to get to talk to him again soon.” He gazed forward almost longingly. These words would be powerful regardless. But, Uncle Roy is a steadfast Christian. Something my Dad was not, and something I can only imagine they spent countless hours discussing and debating – a scientist and an attorney, a Christian and a victim of the Church’s guilt and judgment. My Dad died by suicide 17 years ago. I know this part of my family loved my Dad for who he was in life and death. But, I never asked what any of them thought religiously about his suicide. I honestly never considered it. I didn’t really care. So, it was surprising how much Uncle Roy’s words about talking with my Dad again hit me. They landed as more than words. They were a pronouncement, a proclamation. They were a beautiful and hopeful vision of two very different lives and spirits rejoining in an afterlife to continue their conversation – probably, in part, about whether or not there’s an afterlife. The weekend was a joy and a celebration with cousins I’d grown up with but rarely see, with their children, and with the child of one of their children – the great grandchild, the great nephew, four generations together. A two-year-old for all of us to love and dote on as we wittingly or unwittingly sought to hold on to life and light despite the cause for our gathering. It’s only been a matter of months since we also said farewell to another dearly loved uncle, Uncle Ty, of the same generation, who added an accountant’s perspective to the dialogues of the attorney and the scientist. I’d visited Uncle Ty just months before. And, it was the last time. This is 47 years old, I guess. This is the generational shift. This is the cost of a lifetime of joy and love and connection (and the invariable dose of dysfunction) with a big family. The fortune. The pain I must reframe and reposition in relation to the size of the gift. I’d already broken down in tears before it was time to go to the airport and had mostly regrouped with the love and hugs and kindness of my daughter. She gave me strength. She gave me grounding. She made me feel better as I deal with losing my past. She and her sister are my ultimate present and future. But, then there’s still that moment. It’s finally time to go to the airport. Which means you line up with other family members at the foot of the wheelchair to give a hug that everyone knows is the last time. The moment starts to consume me. Its potency is magnified by the mutual recognition. And as I leaned over to hug Uncle Roy, I wasn’t sure how long I could contain myself. I was just trying to hold on long enough to get my sunglasses back on and get out the door where I would feel free to lose it again. “I love you.” I whispered haltingly to my uncle. “BUTT PASTE!!!” A tiny but loud voice came shattering through the moment. The great grandchild and 2-year-old had been enjoying a new audience during the weekend. He’d been saying “butt paste” for two days and getting a laugh from all ages and directions. But, this one he brought with conviction, louder than he’d said it all weekend, an exultation for all to witness! A call to the altar of life. It was the youngest spirit in the room reminding us – “Hey! I’m here. You’re still here! Butt paste!” And, it continues. A life that is so much more than us and so much bigger than we can conceive. A spirit that connects us, came before us, and lives after us. An energy that can lift us and break us and lift us again. A life so wondrous that it begs for an afterlife, but still grounds and humbles us with butt paste. I hope Uncle Roy tells my Dad about butt paste. He’ll think it’s hilarious.   When an artist dies, the path we travel through the woods toward remembrance and celebration softly, fully thuds beneath our feet, the peaty, pungent soil reminding us it has been formed over millennia through life and death; it is solid; we are solid. But, we should step forward with intention.
When an artist dies, the wind rustles the treetops soaring above us, flickering the earliest yellows of Fall against an azure blue sky, whispering a message without words that she is still with us. The wind is now ours. We must make the meaning; we must deliver the message. When an artist dies, the sun darts through the trees casting light on her work so we can see her hands in it; we see her labor; we see her mind; we see her heart. And, there it all is, right there before us. The artist is among us. She is not gone. When an artist dies, the air cools in contrast to the sunny warmth of the light, enlivening and spiriting our bodies from head to toe, reminding us we are alive. We are still here. We have love to share, miles to travel, things to create, life to live. When an artist dies, the doctrines and diocese and dogmas of the world’s religions come home to find their essence in the woods, among love and loss and celebration, with friends and family, under the gaze of a god you understand and who understands you. When an artist dies, her work lives. In the untethering from the life of the maker, her art takes a life of its own, creating stories and memories and inspiration for all who encounter it - organically, in the universal life and narrative we share as people, perhaps along another’s peaty path toward remembrance and celebration. Through her art, the artist reminds us that it is indeed what we do - not what we say - and what we create – not what we consume - that give form and meaning to our lives, that connect us to the regenerative spirit of the world, that give us all access to the eternal. In loving and creative remembrance of (Aunt) Peg Van Brunt, whose life was art and whose art lives on. May 27, 1941 – August 2, 2022  Last night, I pulled my kids back out of bed so they could come outside and see the fireflies that were practically swarming in the fields around our place. I wanted them to see the wonder, but what I saw felt far more profound.
After they finally went to bed, my mind swirled with what I’d just witnessed as they bounded and ran and jumped and laughed and frolicked and screeched through the near darkness. The wisdom of my children and the fireflies they chase:
Image: https://enchantedmountains.com/events/2019/06/natures-lightshow-synchronous-firefly-allegany-state-park-8647 |
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