Families, fathers, and fall: A syllabus
Music from Radical Face, the comfort of 'Onward,' the necessity of Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road,' and the economy of "Nothing Gold Can Stay."
A huge thanks to all of you who took the time to leave comments and send thoughts in response to my previous email about our interactions with James's biological father and my reflections on my own family / father history. It is a joy to hear from you. It is courage-giving.
On a recent family vacation, I found myself on a stage at Big B's Orchard near Delta, Colorado. This was by far the coolest and yuppiest orchard I've ever been to. Because in Colorado you can't just have a plain ol' orchard. You have to turn it into a theme park, with a wine-slash-gift shop and restaurant and dispersed camping and giant rope swings and hard cider—lots of hard cider—and a stage for karaoke nights.
As Providence would have it, the night my family was there (along with two of my brothers and my parents), it was karaoke night. And after a handful of lame classic rock numbers, I had had it. Another guy had had it, too, and he went on stage before me and absolutely slayed (slew?) "Callin' Baton Rouge" by Garth Brooks. It was an inspired choice. He was amazing, and actually a good singer. The crowd started awaking from its classic rock slumber. And bolstered by "Baton Rouge," I made up my mind that I was going to get up on that stage and sing "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer.
And I did. I am not one for self-aggrandizement, but if you've been around these parts for long, you know that I value honesty. I value vulnerability and being real. So I am being real with you when I say that I straight killed it. I sang "Sat It Ain't So" with very imperfect pitch but with lots of feeling. I even played the air guitar during River Cuomo's guitar solo. I was so good that a complete stranger came up to me after I sat back down and asked if I would sing "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog with her because she had never done karaoke before. My dad said that that was as good as getting asked by a girl to dance with her.
(Pro-tip: never do "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog with a total stranger unless you meticulously go through who is going to take Eddie Vedder's part and who is going to take Chris Cornell's part.)
Before the opening bars of "Say It Ain't So" started playing, I introduced myself by saying, "This song is for everyone with daddy issues." Because, for the uninitiated, "Say It Ain't So" is about River Cuomo's issues with his at-that-time estranged father. A woman at a table near the stage who had had a few too many hard ciders laughed out loud—like really loud. She laughed like she had daddy issues and was trying to compensate for it.
But I knew something that she didn't know. I knew that everyone in the crowd at Big B's Orchard that night has some level of daddy issues. Or at the very least, I knew that everyone in that crowd has had at one time or another experienced and felt and suffered through daddy issues (or parenting issues generally speaking).
How do I know this? Because at one point in the space-time continuum, Jesus hung on a cross and asked, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
I hope that wasn't too heavy handed. But if Jesus and the Father have had moments like that, then you better believe that everyone else—even all those yuppy-types sipping on hard ciders at Big B's Orchard—have had to deal with this on a wide spectrum of intensity. (I once heard or read a quote from a pastor that went something like, "When you have more than one person in a relationship, it's a dysfunctional relationship.")
My last email dealt with father issues—and biological father issues. And because I can't simply talk about my son's history and my own family history, I had to make references to Thoreau and Cormac McCarthy and an obscure indie band called Radical Face. I had to talk about fall and leaves and share photos I took of a majestic ash tree. I had to get all orchard-theme-park on you.
Why? Well, because it's a rich world. Full of good gifts from our Father. Gifts that help us make sense of our dysfunctions and heartaches. A lot of things didn't make the cut with the last email. Other allusions, quotes, songs, etc. So that's what this here email is for: it's a syllabus—a bibliography—of cultural artifacts that make up some of my mental, emotional, and spiritual furniture in this room about fathers and fatherhood-adjacent things.
This is my way of inviting you to share in the things that have helped me to process these dynamics and questions—in the hope that these things are also a blessing and a gift to you as you process and sip on the hard and sometimes bitter cider of life.
Music: Radical Face
Schroeder, set the mood for the first scene!
If you need a vibe to help you move further into the emotional state necessary to sift through your dad and your family and all of the everything that comes with it, then you can't do any better than Radical Face. Radical Face is a "musical act" whose principal member is Ben Cooper. His best song is the first song ("Welcome Home, Son") on his first album (Ghost).
The Radical Face song I included in last week's email is from the second album in a four-part album series called The Family Tree. The Roots, The Branches, The Bastards, and The Leaves tell a multi-generational narrative about a fictional family in the 1800s. The tapestry that these albums form is haunting, moody, poignant, beautiful, and hopeful if you squint. It's also fantastic fall music. Sublime for gray-day drives while the leaves are changing and falling. They will help prepare your heart for winter.
Film: Onward
As I was writing about my dad not ever getting to meet his biological dad and my son getting some glimpses of his, it was impossible not to think about Pixar's Onward. A Covidtide release, Onward flew a little under the cultural radar. It's a story about two brothers, elves Ian and Barley, who realize their deceased father left them the tools (spell, staff, magic stones) to bring him back alive for one day. The opportunity is especially significant for Ian, the younger brother, as he never knew his father. Of course, things go awry, and Ian's quest to get a glimpse of his father doesn't go as expected.
We've only watched Onward once, and James did not like it. Understandably so. It is a Trojan horse kind of film that sneaks up on you, that makes you work a little bit. That asks you to check your vision. It's worth your time. And so is this Rabbit Room article that understands and draws out the counterintuitive yet comforting truths at the heart of the film.
Literature: The Road
In my previous email, I briefly mentioned how essential Cormac McCarthy's The Road is to this dialogue about our fathers. It is essential. And you should read it. I would suggest going with All the Pretty Horses before The Road if this is your first foray into Cormac Country, but there's no wrong answer here. The last paragraph in The Road contains some of the best lines in modern American literature. But I'm not going to spoil those. Here's a memorable snippet from early in the book, because at this point in his career, McCarthy stopped believing in chapters (and quotation marks).
The road was empty. Below in the little valley the still gray serpentine of a river. Motionless and precise. Along the shore a burden of dead reeds. Are you okay? he said. The boy nodded. Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.
Poetry: Chlorophyl kenosis and "Nothing Gold Can Stay"
On the last perfect day in October, after we visited James's bio dad, I was sitting under a giant ash tree perfectly and fully yellow. I was reading about what it meant for Jesus to empty himself, to give up his home to become human. His kenosis. I scribbled some lines that maybe you could call a poem.
To sit here
underneath the ash trees
catching leaves,
to think and be still,
letting the sunlight change me
from green to gold
or a burnt orange,
a kenosis of chlorophyl
that every tree
willingly submits to
is not something I'd choose,
to let my glory go,
to restrain and not stay.
Tomorrow comes the wind.
A couple days later I sat beneath the same tree, now mostly stripped of its leaves. The ones that were left looked to me like yellow trout wimpling in the blue current, trying to hang on against the inevitable as long as they could. But they will be gone before they can be caught. It might be cliche, but Robert Frost does get it, and says it so economically, in "Nothing Gold Can Stay":
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.