I’ve written a lot about my mom here on this blog, but today I’m sharing a story for Prodigal Mag about my dad. A little belated Father’s Day ode, or something like that.

I deeply love and respect my father now, but I wasn’t very close with him when I was a teenager. In fact, this story begins in a rather difficult place : the time I told him I hated him. I promise you, it gets better. This story of ours has been healed by Grace, but it took a long time to get there.

P.S. That super sweet photo above is of me and my daddy on my wedding day, and it was taken by this uber-talented guy.

Confession : I’ve never read On The Road by Jack Kerouac. After seeing the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation, I decided to snatch it up at the library last week so that I actually read the book before I see the movie.

As I get to know the characters, I find it really fascinating to know that many of them were based on real people, and that the plot is loosely based on Kerouac’s own life on the road. I’ve even found myself referencing a map as I read to see the route that Sal Paradise took on his journey.

Which is why I find it reassuring and fascinating that On the Road director Walter Salles made a documentary prior to the film, In Search of On The Road, in which he actually travels the Sal’s exact road trip, and speaks with Beat poets who knew Kerouac. I’m almost more interested in seeing Salles’ documentary than the film itself! It was screened at the 2010 San Francisco International Film Festival, but it doesn’t sound like Salles plans to release it for public viewing any time soon.

Have you ever read On the Road? Do you plan to see the film? 

[Photos : 1, 2, 3.]

~

book·ish/ˈbo͝okiSH/Adjective

1.  (of a person or way of life) Devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests.
2. (of language or writing) Literary in style or allusion.
3. (of art and all manner of lovely things) devoted to the written word as a form of art and as a way of seeing the world.
4. (of BethanySuckrow.com) anything of the aforementioned characteristics as they are found on the interwebs and reposted by Bethany, because bookish and writerly things always give reason for amusement.

Outside the birds chirp and the neighborhoods kids squeal and dive into the community pool. I eat fresh cherries from a bowl while I type, listening for the sounds of summer.

For every tart bite, I give thanks for one good thing that happened this week, and let go of one not-so-good thing.

I’m forgetting the ridiculous abundance of software problems at work and choosing to remember the sweet sound of my niece’s voice over the phone last night, “Love you, Auntie B.”

I’m trading the overwhelming exhaustion I felt Monday-Wednesday for the sweet relief of Friday and the luxury of having worked from home today.

I’m giving up my angst and anxiety over work and writing so that I can read Kerouac’s “On The Road” for inspiration.

What are you purging and gaining this Friday?

Enjoy these sweet morsels of internet goodness :

Sometimes the dream job is hard.

Don’t try.

7 Ways to Build Your Unplatform. (Number 4 is my favorite.)

Choose a life of harmony over balance.

Be idle and blessed.

[Photo.]

“So much angst! You need to just relax! Keep your perspective – as an amazing student, a daughter of God, a wonderful writer.”

Words from my professor, written inside my assigned journal for our nonfiction prose class. He gave me an A+.

Even with those words of affirmation and the grade next to it, I was beating myself up over the notebook full of angst I gave him to read. Angst about angst about angst.

I keep my journals and read them every so often to remind myself that my usual melancholy and desperate search for meaning are just a part of who I am, that I am not fundamentally broken in some impossible way, that things do, in fact, work out. That my worry often compounds a tough situation, making it seem worse than it really is. That there is no such thing as a time in my life that was “easier” or “better” or when I wasn’t worried, or when I was completely happy with every area of my life.

That in retrospect, I’ll understand why and how and when.

That Grace is real, even when I’m too close to recognize it.

That even five years later, those are the words I need to read –

So much angst! Relax! Keep your perspective.

You may have already stumbled across it, but I thought I’d share this rad infographic from The Slow Journalism Company. Longlisters of the 2011 Booker Prize wrote about a lot of things, but all thirteen books nominated for the award involved death.

Joe Bunting of The Write Practice asks really good questions about this :

Think about your favorite novels and films. How many of them involve death? Why do you think stories involving death are so popular?

Personally, I think that the mystery of death itself is one that humanity is constantly processing. What does death mean? Is death a spiritual experience? Is it just physical? Or is it both? Where does the soul go from here? Is it permanent or temporary? How do we, the living, cope with the deaths of those we love, and even those we hate?

You’ll notice that the second most common theme is love, which, similar to death, we can spend our whole lives exploring and never fully understand.

I think that when we write and read fiction, we are able to process these themes in a manageable, compartmentalized way. We want to master mystery, and there are clearly defined boundaries in fiction that help us do this : beginning and end, protagonist and antagonist, right and wrong. The authors hold all the power, and readers, desperate to understand these things, turn the pages hoping that the author holds the answer they’ve been searching for. Fiction offers a level of control that we will never experience in life.

What about you? Why do you think themes of love and death are so recurrent in fiction? Do you agree or disagree with my theories? Share your thoughts here or on Joe’s post over on The Write Practice.

~

book·ish/ˈbo͝okiSH/Adjective

1.  (of a person or way of life) Devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests.
2. (of language or writing) Literary in style or allusion.
3. (of art and all manner of lovely things) devoted to the written word as a form of art and as a way of seeing the world.
4. (of BethanySuckrow.com) anything of the aforementioned characteristics as they are found on the interwebs and reposted by Bethany, because bookish and writerly things always give reason for amusement.