I wrote this on a ranch. I wrote this at the radio station, late late at night. It’s a song of love. It’s a song about feeling alone.
On the day I finished it, I also finished On Chisel Beach by Ian McEwan. This music wrapped itself around that story, and both were planted deep into my brain. Both the music and that story complain and ache and worry, they both drag it out when it doesn’t need to be that complicated. Both improve with age, with patience, with repetition.
On the day I finished it, I drew this picture:
I also fretted about composing too slowly:
Writing words on sheet music is easier than writing music. Maybe I just need to write music as often as I write words.
This song reminds me of sitting up until all hours of the night, on a couch that wasn’t my own, in a strange house, watching WWII documentaries and checking to see if we’d accidentally let the coyote eat the cat.
It reminds me of the last grasping days of college. I was spending most of my time grasping, grasping at what?… grasping at something.
It reminds me of emerging from a dark cavern to greet the morning sun. It reminds me of waiting, waiting, waiting to grow up.
Years and years and years after I finished the music, I played it for someone. She said, “You’re really starting to get good at this.” I pretended that the music was truly new.
My first piano sonata took me over a decade to complete. Then Jack showed up and POOF, it was done! Strange how that happens.
I always call this piece “Jack’s Sonata”, but half of the music actually predates Jack by some time. In fact, the last two movements are my earliest completed piano music. I was working on the first drafts all the way back in 2006, maybe earlier, when I was still living in the dorms at Cal Poly, a time when I knew I wanted to be a composer but had no idea how to actually write music. I remember so clearly the frustration of having music in my head, but lacking the skills to notate it. Hence, I started this music with the best intentions, but quickly became frustrated when I couldn’t finish it and tossed it in the ash heap. Luckily my ash heap is just a folder on my laptop, so the music was easily resurrected. By the time I picked it up again 10 years later, I was more properly equipped to complete the task.
So why does this music belong to Jack if it was begun long before he was born? Because Jack got me to finish it. I write such better music when I have something meaningful to write about, and there’s nothing more meaningful than the birth of my first child. The gaps I had left in the music over the years were suddenly filled in by the waves of emotion I felt as a new father. Usually I write slowly and methodically, but Jack’s presence in my life lit a fire under me and kicked off an avalanche of creative activity. Jack gave me so many new things to think about, new ways of looking at the world, new experiences. Holding a newborn brought on such a strange combination of intense love and intense uncertainty, and all of that worked its way into my music. So even though the music is older than Jack, in a certain way he owns it. I’m not sure I ever would have finished it if it wasn’t for him. His little face is imprinted on every note.
Paul Dab, my former piano teacher, also owns a piece of this music. When it comes down to it, I had fallen out of love with the piano, and Paul rekindled that fire. He made me excited about the instrument and showed me new ways to explore it. That excitement drove me to finally finish this sonata (including the composition of two brand new movements from scratch). Paul showed me how to think like a pianist again. I put my hands back on the instrument after a long hiatus, not just to tinker with chords but to play, play, play! He gave me the tools to improve my technique, both as a performer and composer, and he showed me how to write idiomatically for the piano, something that is often forgotten when writing music directly into the computer. This work would not exist in its current form without his guidance. Therefore, even though I always call it “Jack’s Sonata”, it is officially dedicated to Paul Dab.
The Four Movements
Movement 1: Allegro con brio
Here’s what the first movement sounds like (computer rendition):
You might be thinking, “hmmm that sounds a little minor. I thought he said it was about his newborn son.” Well, yes and no. It was written right after he was born, but it’s not really ABOUT him. It’s really about me! It’s my musical reaction to some crazy-ass change happening in my life. It’s a burst of creative energy as my whole life gets flipped upside down. I think it’s fear of the unknown. It’s everything I felt when I held that precious, tiny, fragile, little nugget and pondered my place in the universe. This is an example of some music that just poured out. I had a lot of things to work out, and writing music is excellent therapy.
That being said, I still had to put a whole lot of thought into this movement. I spent hours and hours at the library hashing and rehashing ideas, experimenting and prototyping and testing ideas and staring blankly at the wall. Originally I had written an entirely different first movement way back in 2006. But when I picked this music back up in 2014, I realized that that whole thing had to go. There may have been some salvageable ideas buried in there, but I couldn’t help but see the whole thing as student work. I tossed it in the trash and started with a blank page. The music that came out of my brain belonged entirely to Jack.
This movement is highly structured, though it might not seem that way at times. Straight-forward, good old-fashioned sonata form. Ok, maybe not too old-fashioned. But really, it follows the same basic structure as the first movement of most Beethoven sonatas: Theme 1 in tonic, theme 2 in either dominant or (in this case) mediant, followed by an unstable gobblety-gook of the two themes all mixed around and intertwining, leading finally back to the first theme again in the tonic, and the lastly the second theme now transposed to the tonic. So though it may sound at times as if it contains a hundred different unconnected ideas, I assure you it is firmly rooted in classical forms.
For a first movement of a sonata, the music has got to be catchy, a bit flashy (but not decadent), and something the listener will want to hear again. For the first theme I got hooked into this angsty minor bluesy vibe that keeps falling into a mellow waltz. It can’t really make up its mind on what it wants to feel. The slightly slower second theme is cleaner, with a bass line reminiscent of a rock riff. I often find myself absent-mindedly humming this theme. It’s chipper, skippy, but never entirely major. Slices of it almost give off a pop vibe, though I made sure to end it on a sour note. These two themes are a microcosm of my psyche at the time.
Movement 2: Largo, but freely (“Jack’s Song”):
Here’s a computerized version:
And here’s a live performance from pianist Jun Cai, a student at the SF Conservatory (notice how much more flexible Jun is with the rhythm than the computerized version. There are infinite ways to interpret a piece of music):
This second movement truly does belong to Jack. As this music began to take shape, I was thinking a lot about what it means to be a father, which means my child shaped it. This music is a projection from my mind at the time, a reflection of my emotions and questions, my fear and love. The music fades in and out of coherency, at times directionless, until it finally lands on solid ground. It’s asking a question, and just as the answer comes within reach, it slips away again. This movement is tough to pin down, difficult to categorize. The music is searching, searching… It emerges slowly, pops in and out of view, like a distant ship in the mist. Sometimes it’s a love song, sometimes a lament, sometimes a hopeful look toward the future, and sometimes a lonely figure grasping for something in the dark.
I wrote a good chunk of this music in libraries, specifically the Richmond Library in SF and the Shaw Library in Washington DC. The whole ambiance of the library worked its way into this music. Libraries are bustling with activity: people walking around, searching, questioning, writing, working; children running around and older folks quietly reading the newspaper. Yet it’s also an environment where quiet reflection is of paramount importance. It’s a perfect mix of energy and silence, and I find it a very inspiring atmosphere to write music. This piece also feels to me like it is a mix of quiet and activity. I think this movement is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written… though when I first wrote about this music in my composition journal, I clearly wasn’t sure what I thought about it. (See below for the composition journal).
Speaking of my composition journal, reading the entries for this piece reminded me of how crucial sketching is when developing a new piece. I started this movement by jotting down various ideas without editing, then seeing where those ideas led. This was a period of time when the music was coming out rather quickly, and I think sketching had a lot do with that. When I’m feeling something and just need to write music, it is so important that I don’t edit myself, but instead just get everything out. Sometimes I don’t have the time or wherewithal to plan an entire piece in advance. Sometimes I just have to throw paint on the canvas then step back and figure out what shapes I created.
For example, this improv led to an important section in the piece:
And this one became the main theme (listen for Baby Jack in the background):
Movement 3: Minuet and Trio – Andante con moto
Here’ s what it sounds like, computerized:
This movement may very well be the earliest completed piano piece I ever wrote. I’m not sure exactly when I started it, because it predates my habit of keeping a journal. But I think I have a memory of working on it in 2004. I can’t be sure, but it was definitely in a semi-complete form in 2006.
The earliest draft of the minuet, undated but probably 2004 or 2005.
When I revisited this music in 2014, I mainly focused on adding some subtle touches to it (integrating some of the motifs into the fabric of the piece, rethinking dynamics, making it more playable). I originally picked it up again because I was looking for a piece I had written that I might actually be able to play well. This is why I give Paul Dab a lot of credit for inspiring this whole sonata. Once I started tinkering with this old nugget again, I realized I was ready to complete the entire sonata. This is the movement that jump-started it, even though it’s the simplest and more straight-forward movement of the four.
This movement is in a truly classical form: minuet and trio. A short set of Baroque dances, usually inserted into a sonata or symphony, allowed the composer to construct a stately, graceful, low-key moment of rest before the rush of the final movement. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and all those dudes used it many times. I really didn’t add much to the structure or push the envelope with this one. It is truly a classical piece, fairly conservative. The form looks like this:
Conservative does not mean bad though. This entire sonata is full of traditional harmonies and forms, yet it still expresses what I wanted to express in that moment. This minuet is more traditional than I would probably write today, but when I started it in 2006 and finished it in 2014, that felt right in those moments. Sometimes going back to basics can unlock all sorts of new ideas.
This piece has a slight drunken quality to it, almost like the music is slurring its words. It gets a bit heated, but in a restrained way. The Trio is a bit angelic, very light, with just a flash here and there of tension. Overall, I don’t want to read too much into this one. Not all music is strictly progammatic music. When it comes down to it, this is a simple minuet and trio. I think I was playing more with form here than with emotion. This little dance is really just a calm interlude before the energetic and weighty final movement.
The minuet is nice to play though:
Movement 4: Rondo – Allegro Molto
Here’s what it sounds like (computerized):
This piece is a classic. I have a vague memory of starting it way back in 2003, but I only wrote a few measures before I couldn’t find my way forward. That was when writing a simple chord progression was an uphill battle for me, so this piece was born from pure gut and intuition. Those tools will get you only so far, before technical skill is required to turn a fun little building block into an actual piece. Though I could vaguely hear this music in my head (or at least feel the emotional direction I wanted to take it in), I couldn’t figure out which chords I should use to actually express those vibes. In other words, I couldn’t compose my way out of a paper bag. This tiny nugget was all I had, so I put the piece down for a couple years and focused on learning.
One of the earliest little nuggets I ever wrote, undated but probably 2003.
I used to call this music “Tempestates”, I think because I wanted to write a series of pieces about Greek gods or something along those lines. Instead I forgot about this music until 2006, when I was about to begin work on a final project for one of my composition classes. My professor, Meredith Brammeier (who is more responsible for my love of classical theory than anyone else on Earth) suggested that I write a medium-length piece with a clearly discernible form. After pondering my options for a bit, I rediscovered this musical fragment and thought it might make a decent rondo.
Rondo form is another classical form, usually appearing at the end of sonatas and symphonies. It goes something like ABACA, otherwise known as the deli sandwich of classical music.
This piece is very classical-sounding, or early-Romantic to be more precise. Essentially it’s in the style of Beethoven, since that’s who I was obsessed with (still am) when I was writing most of this. Back during that time, when I was still working at the Cal Poly library, I would push the cart of books around the different floors, listening to the entire catalog of Beethoven sonatas on my iPod over and over and over again, until I could hum every movement of every sonata. This Beethoven binge gave me a very strong appreciation of classical form and harmony, but also how to stretch those forms to express something deeper, how to turn form into art. Form is absolutely crucial in classical music, but it can’t be everything.
This movement probably leans more toward form for the sake of form than it does toward pure expression. As a young composer, I think I had to become proficient at form before I could wrap my head around pure expression. But built into this very structured piece is a nice dose of angst, nervous energy, and questioning, the same turbulence that guided the first two movements.
The C section is a soft interlude that plays with a couple motifs we heard earlier in the sonata. But this was not the original C section. I composed the new one mostly over Christmas break 2014 at Erica’s parents’ house in San Diego, on quiet evenings next to the giant Christmas tree, while Erica chatted quietly with her parents in the next room. The old one from 2006 was short, jolly, and fairly tight (not a lot of room to breathe). When I picked this piece up again in 2014, I probably could have expanded that old C section and gave it a bit more flair, but I decided to scrap it and start over. I wanted to write something restrained, quiet, and a bit jazzy, exactly what I wanted to listen to on those chilly winter evenings when the house was quiet.
Here’s the old C section on its own:
It’s got a bit of pep to it, but it doesn’t quite tickle me. I might salvage that one day, but for now it’s on the ash heap with so many other forgotten musical fragments.
Just for fun, here’s a video game version I made a while back:
So that’s about it for my first real-life piano sonata. Is it a perfect piece of music? Absolutely not. The final movement is too tightly wound for my taste. Were I to work on it now, I would stretch it out and let some of the ideas (and the listener) breathe a bit. I do love the first two movements, as they match my more current writing style. But as it stands they don’t exactly fit with the final two movements. This is a lesson I learned while listening to Ozma’s “Double Donkey Disk”: two very different EPs jammed together don’t exactly create an “album”. The two halves of this when taken as a whole do not feel organically written; but instead they resemble a slightly awkward arranged marriage. Which makes sense, considering the two halves were written a decade apart from each other. They are, however, united in one important way: I finished them all at the same time, motivated by the changes fatherhood brought to my life. So though the two halves aren’t necessarily united thematically, stylistically, or even artistically, they are forever united in my memories, and therefore they will remain together for eternity.
Below you will find my composition journal entries for this sonata:
One chilly December evening in 2012, while I was enjoying a beer at the Riptide bar in San Francisco, listening to the soft tones of an open mic guitarist, I encountered a man who told me about a new songwriting club that had just started in the city. He said anyone can join, you just gotta write songs. Little did I realize that this encounter would spark one of the most prolific stretches of songwriting in my life.
This bar, a crucial landmark of the far west, shines like a proud beacon in the foggy, grey, windswept outer reaches of the Sunset district. It’s the perfect place to seek shelter from the ocean breeze and enjoy one of the chillest open mics in the universe. They even have a piano. The Riptide has since burned down and been rebuilt from the ashes, like a f*cking phoenix, and it’s still just as grand as ever! On the night I first heard about the Songwriting Club, I was alone at the bar, sipping a beer and reflecting on life, asking the universe for inspiration. When I learned a bit more about this new creative endeavor, something inside me clicked.
Best place ever
Here’s the gist: write one new song a week, based on a title assigned by the creator of the club (a local musician and concert promoter named KC Turner). Each week a new title and new song. Only rule: don’t miss the deadline. It wasn’t a competition, just a personal challenge. By the end of the week, a video of the new song must be posted on the Songwriting Club’s Facebook page for all the world to see. The first title was “Find Your Own Railroad”. Ready, set, go.
I’m not sure why this particular challenge burrowed so deeply into my head, but for whatever reason I went home that evening with an agenda: I had to write that song by the end of the week. I started thinking about that title and what it could mean, and a story began to take shape in my brain. An alcoholic father encounters his alcoholic son at a saloon after many years apart. The son realizes he has become just like his father, and pleads with the old man to come away with him over the hills. Together they can reform their lives, put down the bottle for good, rebuild their tattered relationship.
The jaded old man tells his son that that’s an impossible dream, wishful thinking. He’s going to do what he’s always done – drink until he passes out in the street – and his son had better go find his own destiny: “Find your own railroad, don’t get off until the track runs out. And if you ever come back to find your old man, you better look six feet beneath the ground.”
Here is the first performance of the song at the Hotel Utah Saloon open mic, with Erica singing harmony:
At the end of that first week, a TON of local songwriters had posted new work on the page, each with the same title. What a unique opportunity to listen to so many composers tackle the same theme. Everyone’s work was special in their own way. Some were blues, some country, some spoken-word, some undefinable. I left encouraging comments on various performers’ posts, and they did the same for me. I wanted to stay a respected part of this community for as long as possible, but the only way to keep that going was to write write write!
The next week’s title was “One Thing You Can’t Lose”. My first thought was to do a love song, something like “my love is the one thing you can’t lose”. I tinkered with a bluesy vibe, but didn’t love it. This is where a challenge like this can fall apart. You lose your confidence and that’s it, that’s the end. But this also happened to be the week of my ten year anniversary with my muse and life partner, Erica. I think her muse powers were off the charts that week, because this strange little love song just seemed to emerge from nowhere.
The song is about love aaaand also about the Titanic. Love is the ocean, and there’s no keeping it out. We sink into the black, deeper, deeper, into oblivion. We let it swallow us. We burn with a red heat that even the empty nothingness of the ocean depths can’t extinguish.
That song is called “Here Comes the Flood”. The lyrics really captured how I was feeling that month. It was such a mixture of dark and chilling with excited for life and full of love. In the previous months I had had a major falling out with an old friend and had not yet recovered from that sad episode. Yet celebrating a decade with the woman I love, and coming up on our first New Year’s as a married couple, I had much to be grateful for. I was swept up in love, but also questioning myself, my life, my purpose. Luckily I was able to harness some of this energy into a creative outlet.
I am thoroughly sold on the Songwriting Club method of art creation, especially for any artist struggling to find inspiration. Adding boundaries and restrictions can be a surprisingly effective way to force an artistic brain to create. When our options are limitless, sometimes our brain will languish in indecision and self-criticism. No idea is profound enough to satisfy the mind. Should I write a love song or a techno song or a classical piece? How can I say something that’s never been said (impossible)? Where do I even begin when I have no idea what the final product should look like? These questions equal paralysis for the artist, who will probably just walk away from his pile of half-finished work and go watch Game of Thrones, wallowing in self-pity, crying out for a bolt of inspiration.
That bolt rarely comes. The reality of songwriting is the reality of all things of quality: they take time, hard work, and patience to do properly. If an artist gets trapped in this negative feedback loop (“I suck at music, so I won’t bother finishing anything. Because I can’t finish anything, I suck at music”), the artist does not progress. Add a boundary or two, and suddenly the artist can eliminate many of those questions that dog him when he wishes to begin a new project, and focus all of his creative abilities on solving a much more narrow artistic puzzle. If the musician knows he has six days to write a song based on a title he didn’t choose, he can get to work without asking if what he is doing is “avant-garde” enough, or what genre his music falls under. Just shut up and write. And if this week’s project isn’t perfect, who cares! You finished something. Now do another.
The next week we had to travel to San Diego to visit Erica’s parents during Christmas. Time for a road trip! Would we be able to continue our song writing streak? We would have to write this entry while on the road, with nothing but my trusty melodica to assist us. Would it be possible? When faced with a creative challenge (and a deadline), the answer I’ve always found is just sit down and work at it. Brainstorm and create drafts and play stuff over and over until you isolate something of quality, then exploit that little nugget for everything it’s worth. Just don’t give up. Harness the anxiety that comes with a deadline, and turn it into creative energy. We prepared to set out on the road.
It was at this moment that the songwriting gods blessed us with good fortune. This week’s title was going to be “Rhythm of the Road”. Forced to write a song about the road whilst on the road… is there anything better than that scenario? The sounds of the road weaved themselves into the fabric of the song. It was inescapable: this song would completely embody the spirit of the title, no matter what the final product sounded like. Whatever we created we would be true to the theme!
It also helped that I got to tap into the mystical power of the melodica. This particular melodica was very special to me, because I had purchased it in Venice, while on my honeymoon four months earlier. To this day, I really don’t feel comfortable playing this song on any instrument except the melodica.
Driving from San Francisco to San Diego gave us lots of time try different drafts, practice harmony, and finesse the song until we were in love with it. The final version is one my favorite things I’ve ever created, though to be honest I really can’t take much credit for this song. Erica created the melody and wrote most of the lyrics. It’s a song about this time we found ourselves drinking and telling stories at a sleezy little campground in Cody, Wyoming, far far from home, lost in a never-ending road trip across the vastness of the American West. This song was really Erica’s baby. I contributed the chorus and basically just sewed the nuggets she had already created into a coherent piece. This is truly a song written by Adventure Cat.
Now we were on a roll. Three weeks, three songs. We were flying high and ready for anything! The next title was “Mailbox Blues”. This one needed something new: Evan. We invited our trustworthy travel companion and fellow Adventure Cat to help us compose this week’s song. We sat down in his apartment and started cranking out ideas. The ideas flowed together into this little gem:
I don’t know who created which part. I don’t care. This song makes me happy, and very nostalgic. I also love Evan’s little solo in the video. We wrote the whole thing in one night. What a fun time that was.
The next week I got robbed. On a cold, clear night right before New Year’s, somebody smashed my car window and grabbed the first thing he saw. I didn’t have much of value in my car, only my melodica from Venice, which the thief dutifully stole. When he realized it was just a cheap, plastic instrument, I imagine he left it on a bus stop bench and ran off to find a more profitable mark. I never found her, but the melodica’s magic lives on in my heart, and in the songs she helped usher into the world.
It was the last memorable event of 2012, a rough way to end. That week’s title was “Last Day of the Year.” I condensed all of my sadness and fear and bewilderment into a little seed, and let it blossom into a song:
This song I wrote alone. I wrote it quickly. It poured out.
We had celebrated New Year’s Eve at a party full of people we did not know, at an enormous mansion deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Winding roads, shots of tequila, strange faces, the brisk mountain air, the smell of the ocean in the forest… all of it found it’s way into this piece. I wanted time to freeze, for the world to stop. I felt like I was slowly sinking into the Earth.
Though I did enjoy trying my hand at low-tech sound engineering, “Last Day of the Year” ended up with a lot of pops and clipping. I wanted to experiment with recording more layers, but one week was no longer enough time, especially once I went back to work. I wanted to really do something fancy for the next piece. So when I learned the next title, I relaxed my one week deadline and took my time with it.
The next title was “Tiny Wings”. Actually, as I write this, I’m not entirely sure that was a title in the songwriting challenge. I might have made it up… Either way it took me about three months to put this together, chipping away slowly night by night:
I was thinking about my mom and how she must view me, what it must be like to see your child grow into an adult before your eyes. I didn’t have a child at this time, so I couldn’t truly understand it, not yet, but this was my attempt at it. Now that I’m a parent myself, I understand it so much better. I think writing this helped me wrap my head around parenting for the first time in my life.
As far as sound engineering goes, I really didn’t know what I was doing. Just a lot of trial and error. The whole thing was made with a Casio keyboard and Finale notation software. This was a HUGE learning experience.
By this point I had missed a bunch of weeks, so I had a lot of titles I could choose from for the next song. One that stood out to me was “Somebody’s Lie”. I decided to make it “Everybody’s Lie”. This is probably the most nihilistic piece I’ve ever written, but I don’t think it takes itself too seriously. In fact, the whole point of it is how humanity takes itself far too seriously and deserves a bit of mockery for that. In that vein, I created a music video to go with it:
And yes I understand the irony (or perhaps hypocrisy) of an artist spending hours and days crafting a meaningful art piece about how nothing really matters. But I’m only human… The beat is by David Neawedde, the guitar licks are Evan Owen. Everything else is Cassio keyboard.
I wrote some other rock songs during this period, but only one more really counts as Songwriting Club material. I went to the site one final time and selected the title “10,000 Hours”:
This song finally allowed me to express some of the anger I had been holding onto after that falling out months and months earlier. Sometimes it takes awhile for these things to work their way to the surface, but when they do they always emerge as a kind of muse. This process of creation through pain allows me to heal. After writing this, I really did feel better about the whole situation.
I also call this song the hypocrite song, because the speaker could be speaking from my point of view, or my ex-friend’s point of view. Since we both acted so terribly during the falling out, neither is blameless. I am guilty of every crime I accuse him for. And yes, that’s Evan on the guitar again, killin’ it.
After this song I fell away from the Songwriting Club for good. I still wrote new stuff when the feeling took me, but never at the same speed as during those late weeks of 2012. The artistic stars aligned for me during that brief period, everything worked. The new material not only allowed me to flex my creative abilities to their limits, but also to bond with my loved ones through the creation of art. And that is a rare and cherished thing.
By the way, if you want to work on your song-writing chops, find yourself a songwriting club. Or just grab a title out of the newspaper, or a billboard, or the babblings of a toddler. It’s your songwriting club, so do it however you like! The only rule is you have to finish whatever you start. You must not put the project down until it is done. And if you run out of time or patience, and you are forced to call it finished even though it isn’t a brilliant, earth-shattering masterpiece, good. You still finished a piece! Well done, seriously. You are creating art. Now do another one, and another. Some will be winners, some won’t quite ever feel right no matter how many times you tinker with it. But you are practicing, honing your craft. Every finished work gives you experience points. So good luck, and happy writing!
In the scorching heat of midday the villa was abandoned, deserted, post-apocalyptic. I hunted across the grounds, running my fingers through the golden Tuscan grass, snooping down dark hallways and looking out the ancient, cloudy windows that appeared to be made of clear honey, though they felt solid to the touch. I wandered into a giant barn. No farm equipment or hay, just faded wood panels and a colony of snoozing birds that had taken up residence in the rafters. The high ceiling and heavy, silent air reminded me of a cathedral; solemnly I knelt to inspect an old nail on the floor. Anxious to hear any type of sound, I lightly rapped the rusted door with my shoe, and the birds suddenly took flight in a panic of feathers and chaotic squawking, swooping down savagely at the invader, filling the previously silent space with noise and anger. I covered my face, perhaps in shame at how thoroughly I had destroyed something so serene, and ducked out the door into the burning sunlight, leaving the birds to return to their prayers. The hot, fallow fields and gentle hills in the distance looked on, unphased and without judgement.
A single gust of breeze meandered past the sweat on my neck, providing just the faintest hint of cool. I breathed deeply, filling my lungs with the air my ancestors breathed so many hundreds of years ago, when the villa at San Rocco was a powerful fortress guarding the countryside, a pillar of strength. Today the villa still stands a lonely guard upon its abandoned hill, but it’s empty and choked with native weeds, its only occupants birds who sing lustily from the treetops and build their nests in the red roof tiles. The outer walls of the buildings all have loops for tying up horses, but there are no horses that need tying up, and rusted farm equipment sits neatly in a line along the field’s edge, more as a creepy decoration than as tools ready for hard use. I dunked my head in a pool of cool water, and hid from the sun in a cobwebbed vestibule that no doubt once offered shade to a 17th century farmhand after a long day’s work. Sitting against a post in the shade, I began to dose. Two tiny birds flew in to get some shade and woke me from my brief nap, but upon seeing me there they departed in disgust. Wrapped tightly in the silence of the afternoon, I let my mind wander the fields.
Why do I find myself feeling jealous of these happy Tuscan birds? As I drift across the countryside searching for something that will lend meaning to my life, these small creatures are content to lay in the sun, to cool their feathers in a pond, to sleep the day away in the rafters of an old barn. Life seems to have purpose and no purpose all at the same time. One day I will disappear and be forgotten, perhaps as if I never existed, much like my ancestors who lived in Italy for hundreds of years, of whom no record exists, whose lives have been utterly forgotten by posterity, entire lives full of laughter and sadness and sex and longing and glorious moments and religion and debate and watching the sun set in the hills and babies born and tragedy and art, erased and forgotten; just as the two birds who flew into my vestibule might never have existed at all, and perhaps lived only in a dream, a dream which I am already beginning to forget. I’m sorry little birds! I don’t want to forget you. I want you to live forever, wild and free in the Tuscan sun. But if you must be forgotten, I want you to live your lives with reckless happy abandon. I want you to drink the air with hearty gulps and dance in the breeze and dive like missiles. I want to join you. Then we can be forgotten together, but we won’t care because we will be birds, smooth and fast, and we’ll make our nests in the tiled roofs of old villas.
Back inside the cool, dusky main house I glimpsed the curvy figure of a piano tucked away in the darkness. The instrument called my name, beckoned me seductively. I approached in a trance. Staring transfixed at the candlestick holders bolted to the wooden frame, I reached desperately for her smooth, white keys. But sadly when she finally felt my tender caress, she could only respond with the dull creak of decrepit age. Dust choked the arteries that once pumped sweet music down these old halls. The piano and I wept together as two lovers who have irreconcilably grown apart. I did not touch her again.
I wandered down a hallway filled with ghosts. A laughing cavalier smirked at me as I tried a locked door. Though the sun still boomed through the open window, the hallway grew more ominous as I crept down toward the dead end. This hall was different from the others, more silent, more deserted, painted differently – as if the craftsman rushed to complete his job and be away from this place. I felt something slide under my skin, an urgency, the instinct to flee. These old ghosts are not scared of the burning noon sun. They are Romans and Tuscans and hard men, and they can smell the softness of my pampered hands, the hands of an untried and cocky young man who fancies himself an adventurer. They mock and beckon. Feeling their presence, I fled in shame and with much haste. Put me on a train back to Rome, get me out of San Rocco, before I join the ghosts and become another smirking face in some faded painting, inviting naive tourists down well-lit hallways that reek of death and lead paint.
Somewhere among the dusty back-trails of Eastern Idaho, an old forgotten wagon road bakes in the sun. The prairie desperately wants to swallow it up, to make it disappear forever, just as the people who made this road have disappeared. Yet despite the countless rainstorms that year after year wash away the top soil, and the cattle herds that trample the ground into brown paste, and the prairie winds that threaten to bury this holy place in sediment, the road endures. It cuts across the frontier in a searing straight line, as if the land itself was branded with hot metal. Its rivets are clear and stark in the afternoon heat.
It was at this spot that thousands and thousands of pioneers, adventurers, families, wanderers, refugees, entrepreneurs, and thrill-seekers carved their names one by one into the earth, until all the names ran together and all that remained was an ungainly scar. A mighty river of people once flowed here, people willing to take bold action, people with new ideas. These people made the West, or at least changed it drastically. They are all gone now, their names and faces long forgotten, the names and faces of their children forgotten as well. But their road remains. An accident of history, the byproduct of something much greater than itself, yet it outlived them all. From the looks of it, this old road will be around for a long time to come.
I wish you all the best Old Road. And safe travels to any who may tread on you. May you once again serve a higher purpose. You were a good old soldier, and perhaps your best days are behind you, but there’s still a job for you, still a chance for your time here to have some meaning. Sure most days you’ll go completely unnoticed. None of the travelers who trampled on you will come back to honor you for the role you played in their lives, in our history. Alone in the wilderness, forgotten by the world, you long to be useful again. Old Road, today you were useful. You were necessary. You were exactly what I needed you to be: a quiet spot for a tired, windswept tourist to stare at the burnt grass and think longingly about the past.
I think I’ve finally hit my Rome stride. It takes me a good solid week to shake off jet lag, and perhaps longer to fully embrace the rhythm of a new home. Three weeks in one place is still a vacation, but it’s long enough to start to forget what it’s like in the real world. The vacation becomes all-encompassing. We have to go grocery shopping, and learn the layout of our neighborhood: drug store, metro stop, place that sells underwear for babies (our baggy full of Jack’s undies fell out of Erica’s backpack somewhere over the Atlantic). Today I feel like I’ve found my rhythm here. The right time to go out for a long walk in the sun, when to have a siesta, when to have an afternoon cocktail, when baby should go to bed; these are all crucial discoveries if one wants to prevent burnout. Today I have it down! I no longer have to try hard to feel at home here.
We took the number 3 tram on its long circuit from Trastevere to the North end of Villa Borghese. When traveling with a toddler, there is no better or cheaper way to keep them entertained than a long slow ride on a train. For 1.5 Euros, we basically got an air-conditioned tour of the entire eastern side of Rome, including a nice view of the Colosseum and Circo Massimo. I’m thinking perhaps sometime this week I will just hop on a regional train out into the countryside with Jack, with no particular goal in mind except to see what we can see.
An approximation of our route, based on memory.
Our goal today however is to rent bikes at the Villa Borghese and cruise around town. We arrive at the expansive park at midday, and quickly locate the little stand selling four-wheel pedal carts to tourists. With Jack perched in the front basket, we pedal our way across the park at a leisurely pace, stopping to play in fountains and listen to the random street musicians playing accordion music in the sun. The breeze in my hair makes me feel like a ship captain. Jack calls out “ciao!” to passersby, human and animal alike.
After the ride, we scarf down various sandwiches from a nearby café: spinach, egg, meat & cheese, tuna. These little white bread sandwiches are ubiquitous around Rome, very cheap, and very satisfying. Also easy to find in this city is amazing coffee. I never drink my coffee black in the US, but here it is just so rich and flavorful. Some guidebooks say that it is “un-Roman” to drink coffee all day, but I say drink it at every possible opportunity. My favorite is just a shot of espresso, with or without sugar. But also try machiatto, café freddo, and even café doppio (double shot) if you want a flavor explosion. We eat and drink coffee until we can’t move, then like amorphous blobs floating through space, we somehow drift back to our Rome Home.
Nap time for baby, siesta time for adults. Here in Rome, Jack naps from 3:30 to 6:30, so by the time we venture out again it is much cooler and the locals are beginning to emerge from the caves they hide in during the hottest part of the day. By 8pm, the piazzas of Trastevere are packed with people, eating, drinking, strolling, living the Roman lifestyle. I love this time of day here. Taking Jack for an evening stroll through the crowd of revelers makes every night feel like a festival, and maybe it is here. Jack likes to wear sunglasses at night.
I recently encountered a Roman who told me that people in this city don’t know how to work hard. I can’t comment on whether that’s true, but it certainly does seem like nobody is in a rush to do anything. I could sit at a café for three hours with one glass of wine, and the waiter will never rush me out the door. As an American, so used to immediate gratification, so used to a culture that teaches all young people that hard work for its own sake is a virtue, I sometimes struggle to accept this slower pace. But really, what is the point of hard work for its own sake? The point of work is to accomplish a goal, not to achieve a sense of soul satisfaction simply from the act of working. Here people have jobs, but they certainly don’t seem to value industry above all else. Maybe I’m buying into a stereotype, but they don’t seem to care all that much about getting things done. Joy is derived from the act of hanging out with friends, laughing, eating, and taking it slow. It’s almost as if I need to unlearn how to be an American in order to fully appreciate this life.
Yesterday I saw a group men in their thirties sitting on a park bench in the middle of a work day. These were not bums, but well-dressed men of working age. There they sat, with nowhere to be, doing nothing, without a care in the world (as far as I could tell). I watched them for sometime as Jack played in a nearby playground. They weren’t eating lunch, just sitting and watching. At one point, one man stood and wordlessly walked over to a child’s bicycle leaning against a post. He looked at the bicycle quizzically for a moment, as if he had never encountered such a thing before. Then he rang the little bell twice, turned around to look silently at his friends, and returned to his seat, his curiosity satisfied.
What is that life? How do I bring that home with me? Now granted, I do like to work, I love having a project. I couldn’t give up that Puritan work ethic, its baked in too deeply (even though I can claim no Puritan ancestry). But can I bring home a balance that includes just a piece of that Italian vibe? Can I still satisfy my insatiable need to create (that same drive that makes me write music, update a blog, build a website), but still be able to sit on a park bench for hours and find satisfaction in leisure? After all, why do I work hard if I can’t then put down my project and enjoy the finer things? Like lying around while my son performs a melodica solo.
Aren’t moments like these the most important moments in life?
After our siesta, we walk to Ponte Sisto, a piazza next to a bridge where young Italians are to be found every evening lounging on the steps, listening to the rotating street musicians who seem to work in 20 minute shifts. Down the steps to the banks of the River Tiber, a long row of restaurants and bars trace the curve of the river. More eating, more drinking, more sitting. By the time we get back home, it’s close to midnight, another Roman day well-spent.
Did we build great structures? No. Did we get richer? No. Did we relax and enjoy life, bond and laugh and lounge and live like Romans? Si! Right now, I couldn’t ask for more.
P.S. Jack made friends with an Italian waiter at a cafe today. The waiter was watching Jack from afar as Jack sat in his chair at the cafe, basking serenely in the sun like a cat, enjoying every bite of his chocolate cookie. Jack was in no rush to go anywhere or do anything. He was a master at chilling. His only job in the world was to savor good food, to people-watch, to close his eyes and rest, to just be. He was a true Italian. The waiter came up to us and said, “Now there is somebody who knows how to live.” I couldn’t agree more.
Tonight I am in Rome, cooking with my son. On the menu: antipasti plate, insalate, and potato gnocchi all’amatriciana (a traditional Roman sauce made from guanciale – find the recipe here). Jack is my special helper in the kitchen. I have found that one of the best ways to pass the time with a three year old is to cook a luxurious meal together. Jack loves to put spices in a bowl, fetch ingredients, sample the food as we cook it, and talk about what’s happening in the pan (“look Jack, bubbles!”). One of my primary goals on this trip was to cook a massive Roman feast for my family, so I intend to draw this out as much as possible.
Before we begin I open a bottle of Barolo, also known as “the king’s wine,” and let it breathe for a bit.
This particular wine goes very well with meat and cheese, so my first task is to craft the perfect antipasti platter. My particular version might not necessarily be “authentic,” but it includes everything I am in the mood to munch on. Let’s see, we have salami ventricina, prosciutto, pesto, crusty bread, soft bread, ricotta cheese, Romano cheese, green olives, anchovies, tomatoes, basil, olive oil with red pepper, and balsamic vinegar.
As I set each item out, I discuss the colors and textures with my sous chef, and we sample each item one by one. By the time everything is arranged, the wine is ready to drink! The flavors are warm and inviting, rich and complex. I especially enjoy the anchovies with bread, salami, cheese, basil, and tomato. These anchovies come pre-filleted and packed in oil and salt in a jar, perfect for eating or cooking!
Jack’s favorite is crusty bread and green olives. I’ve never met a toddler who loves olives as much as Jack (I certainly didn’t at that age, or even now to be honest). I think perhaps people are born either loving or hating olives. Perhaps it’s like a gene. Some scientist will probably study this in the future and solve this mystery once and for all.
Well I could eat this combo all night, but there is work to be done. Time for another glass of wine! I mean, time to cook more stuff. First we brown the guanciale just a bit, until it starts to shed some of its yummy fat into the pan. Guanciale is a type of pork made from pig jowls (mmm jowls). To say the least, it is succulent. It isn’t really a bacon flavor, but instead a buttery, soft, melt-in-your-mouth little chunk of fat that give any dish it touches a distinct porky flavor. A little goes a long way, so I decided to cook up a bunch! I’m not sure where I will find this meat in America, but I intend to hunt for it.
Now come onions, red pepper, mushrooms, and tomatoes, cooking together in the pig fat (with some olive oil too because why the hell not it’s delicious).
I’ve heard that Americans cannot tell the difference between rancid olive oil and fresh olive oil, so many of the olive oils in America are crap. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I can say that this jar I bought today is fresh and aromatic and flavorful! In fact, all of these ingredients taste so high quality, so fresh, so gourmet, as if I bought them at a five star restaurant. But they were all purchased with a 100 yards of my apartment in Trastevere. It makes me wonder what kinds of additives and impurities I eat every day in America. What is really inside a can of American tomatoes? What chemicals are sprayed on American basil? What hormones did the pig ingest? It’s sad to think about, so I’ll save that conversation for another day. It’s best to be mindful and live in the moment. My kitchen is starting to smell incredible, and I have lots more wine to drink. I am in Rome with my son, cooking traditional Italian food with authentic ingredients, sweating in the heat of the afternoon, drinking the king’s wine. Ah life!
I’m realizing that most of my favorite travel memories seem to involve food. On all of my road trips and journeys around the world, culinary experiences stand out in my mind like monuments. The fish eye I ate in Taipei, the fried pickles in Idaho, the lobster in Maine, the dumplings in Prague, the currywurst in Berlin… those are the experiences I take home with me, the scents and flavors I cherish when I reflect on past adventures. But I am more than a food tourist. It’s really about the whole ambiance, the vibe of a place. In Rome, it’s the food, but also the gentle lull of the dialect, the long relaxing meal, the exquisite wine, the hand gestures, the cigarette smoke, the cobblestones, the beautiful dresses and finely-tailored suits, the vespas, the crumbling buildings, the clothes hanging on wires, the all-encompassing heat. It’s all part of the package, all part of the magic.
The sauce has been bubbling for quite some time now, so I think it’s time for me to go boil some gnocchi. For now I will say ciao! As the Italians say, may you eat well, laugh often, and love much.
This ancient city will always hold a special place in my heart. The last time Erica and I were here, we had been married for exactly one day. Dazed and elated, as in a dream, we found ourselves gliding across the yellow countryside on an Italian train, bound for Rome. This was our first stop on a whirlwind European adventure through multiple countries. We only had a couple jetlagged days to soak in the magic of this place, so we followed the well-trodden path of the typical American tourist: running from monument to monument in the blazing sun, feasting on pasta and pizza and gelato until we couldn’t move, gaping in awe at the wreckage of an empire that once spanned the known world. We were two newlyweds in a very old place. We felt the weight of history. We woke at the darkest hour of the night and compared the sizes of our feet.
Now five years later we have returned, this time with a special traveling companion: our three year old son Jack.
Magic and wonder, those are the first words that come to mind when I picture traveling the world with my son. Some people write about the difficulty of flying across the sea with a young child, others provide strategies for what to pack and how to keep the little tyke entertained while you dine out. I just want to write the words magic and wonder, because that is what I feel.
Jack is the most amazing little person I have ever met. His curiosity and adventurous nature are contagious. He is easy-going and excited for life. He wears a fedora like he was born to do it. Watching him march confidently down a Roman alleyway, or try new varieties of food, or shout “ciao” to passersby (and dogs) fills me with such love I cannot describe.
Again the weight of history bears down on me. Jack is such a new little life, exploring his world, and I am his parent shielding him and teaching him and showing him the ropes. How many others have come before me, how many have walked these same streets, streets that were paved before Christ was a glimmer in his Father’s eye. How many parents have loved and guided their tiny children in this endless city, watched with trepidation as those babies took their precarious little steps over these worn out cobble stones? How many husbands and travelers and lovers and writers and artists and dreamers and musicians and businessmen (and all the other things I try to be) have thought these same thoughts while staring at the Tiber? Who has stood where I stand today, and what did they think and feel?
Practicing our Italian at the Trevi Fountain.
Being human means celebrating one’s own uniqueness while recognizing that everything we ever do has been done with endless repetition across the span of time. I love picturing the father who visited Rome with his wife and three year old son in the year 1291. The Pantheon and Colosseum were ancient even then. Did he watch his beautiful child play in a fountain and ponder his place in the universe? Did he squeeze his wife’s hand and whisper “I love you” as the sun set over the ruins? Did he keep a blog on some long lost scroll?
This is what history means to me, that we are all the same, that we are all connected by our humanness. Now that I have a tiny human of my own I feel more connected than ever.
Jack isn’t quite so philosophical as all that. He mostly wants to eat biscotti and splash in the fountains.
We have rented an apartment for three weeks in the heart of Trastevere, a restaurant-packed medieval neighborhood full of twisting alleyways and bars bursting with real-life Roman locals. No racing from place to place, no all-day walks across the burning city, no tourist track this time. We want to live like the Romans live. Jack and I go out in the morning and buy fresh fruit at the nearby street market. I drink coffee while he plays in the piazza, in the shadow of a 1,000 year old church. Erica and I eat at our leisure and people-watch and drink wine in the heat. We’re in no rush.
Jack loves to run up and down the alleyways. Up and down, up and down, repeat. He runs as fast as he possibly can, pumping his arms and scrunching up his little face into the very definition of (cute) intensity. Then he gets tired and plops down, mission accomplished. When he’s tired he sits on a stoop and looks around, taking it all in, storing up energy for the next sprint. For the moment he is perfectly content to sing quietly to himself, stare at the bright summer sky, and say ciao to any dogs that pass by. For Jack, it’s about the journey.
Cherishing the local cuisine.
Tonight we sat for two hours in the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere. Jack brought some toys and spread them all out on the steps of a fountain. I sipped a large beer and watched as young people gathered on the steps to laugh and smoke and gossip. Street musicians came and went, but we remained. Nowhere to be. Basking in the ambiance of a clear Roman evening, practicing the art of doing nothing.
When I return to California, I plan to bring this Roman style of living back with me. That will be my souvenir. Stop, cherish life. Eat well, love passionately. Laugh, drink, live!
