In March 2003 I had been working at Good’s of Evanston for about 18 months. I worked there after earning my undergraduate degree, and at the time was getting ready to get married and head to grad school.
I worked at Good’s with an amazing cast of characters: Ronnie Boykin Junior, David Gracie, Micah Ebbe, Fred Sturkey, and so many others. One of the people there was Jeremiah Ketner, a man who has gone on to a long and fruitful art career. One day I saw Jeremiah’s coffee cup and we mused together about coffee sometimes being a main meal during the work day. I decided to paint a view of his so-called lunch.
Jeremiah’s Lunch 3/14/2003. Watercolor and graphite on paper. 5×6 inches on 14×11 sheet. 2003.
As the Shipping and Receiving Manager, I often had some time between shipments to make art in my little office. I loved that space. Did a lot of thinking back there.
A picture of me in my shipping and receiving office at Good’s of Evanston. 2003.
During this time Alison and I lived in a 3rd floor apartment that had this amazing accumulation of paint and interesting architectural details. Of course, anyone who has lived in Chicagoland is familiar with paint slathered over outlet holes, quirky entryways, specific brick hues, and questionable back stairwells. We had arches throughout the apartment, and I found myself ruminating on them between doing more “important” work. I made my whole portfolio to apply to grad school in that apartment. It’s strange to think that these two small watercolors ended up being special to me. I wouldn’t have guessed it at the time.
Arching Corner. Watercolor and graphite on paper. 12×11 on 14×11 inch paper. 2003.
Anyway, as we round out another year I find comfort in these small contemplations. Maybe the lesson is that all of my grand attempts to make statements or contribute to important conversations weren’t the best or most effective offering I could make. Maybe it was the fact that I noticed and paid attention to the poetry of spaces, moments, in-between time, and life being lived that really mattered.
Growing up I found intense comfort in the music and lyrics of the iconic Canadian band Rush. Rush hold a particular place in the history of rock music, as they were both iconoclastic and unapologetically moral and humanist in orientation. Their songs were not the realm of edge lords or shock rockers. They didn’t make songs about sex, drugs, violence, or stupidity. Much to the contrary. They thought deeply, expressed those thoughts intensely, and were able to stand out in completely unique ways because of the quality of their unified talents.
Rush pioneered rock music as an intellectual pursuit. They were compelling because they stood on principles, and communicated deep commitment to human concerns without couching it in schmaltz. You can sense honesty in their dedication to their musical craft and in the meaning embedded in the lyrics Neil Peart wrote.
John Dewey, a central philosopher of the pragmatist movement, established much of the foundation surrounding art as a moral structure in society. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean propaganda or dogma being used within art to influence or instruct. I mean deeply human values translated into actionable expressions of yearning and awareness.
“Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind We marvel after those who sought Wonders in the world”
–Anthem
In Rush we see full expressions of a world where reason, empathy, and the better angels of our nature have had free reign. We find artifacts proving the best human capacities for love, attention, and hope.
When I think back on what inspired me and what stuck with me for all of these years, I think it is the sense of hope and expectation that they created. Actually, maybe hope is the wrong word… I think yearning might be a better way to describe it. Hope, in a sense, lacks agency. It sees life as something that happens to a person rather than what a person chooses, navigates, or constructs for themselves and alongside others.
“They travel on the road to redemption A highway out of yesterday, that tomorrow will bring Like lovers and heroes, birds in the last days of spring We’re only at home when we’re on the wing On the wing
We are young Wandering the face of the Earth Wondering what our dreams might be worth Learning that we’re only immortal For a limited time”
–Dreamline
Yearning, on the other hand, is motivational and self-actualization in process. It’s visualization. It’s being the change you want to see in the world. The ability to reflect, imagine the world you want to inhabit, and take real steps to make it real in some way… that’s yearning. It’s the combination of instinct and clear-sighted determination.
In some very real ways, Rush was the soundtrack to my own determination to at least TRY to expand my world. To get educated. To travel. To live as an artist. To read, think, and feel deeply. Songs like Middletown Dreams and Subdivisions called me to broaden my horizons. The lyrics of Dreamline and Ghost of a Chance made me dream, and then helped me transform those dreams into practical plans.
“Dreams flow across the heartland and feeding on the fires Dreams transport desires Drive you when you’re down Dreams transport the ones who need to get out of town, out of town”
–Middletown Dreams
“Like a million little crossroads Through the back streets of youth Each time we turn a new corner A tiny moment of truth”
–Ghost of a Chance
One of the other realms that Rush inspired me to think about and explore more fully was science. As a young person I was exposed to young earth creationism and other forms of science denial. Songs like Natural Science and, later on, Earthshine, prove that transcendent awe and appreciation for the wonders of the universe are not the purview of religious belief. As I read about the science behind everything from evolution to astrophysics, I unlocked a sense of astonishment and pure joy that had not been available to me before. In reading folx with diverse perspectives, from Stephen J Gould and Annie Dillard to Douglas Adams and Ellen Dissanayake, I found that there was a way to be excited about the glories of space, time, and biology without appealing to supernatural explanations. There’s so much that we can see, hear, touch, measure, and practically explore without needing to imagine things outside of the universe to justify them all.
“Wheel within wheels in a spiral array A pattern so grand and complex Time after time we lose sight of the way Our causes can’t see their effects”
–Natural Science
In some way, the feeling that I’ve always had while listening to Rush is a kind of nostalgia for a past dream of a future where good truths prevail. Where the right thing is done, and everyone can see it. Where the light of knowledge is appreciated. Where attempting to understand “life, the universe, and everything” is given the highest of accolades, appreciated more than fleeting beauty or physical ability. Where honesty, good faith, and mutual aid are seen as true societal values. I think that future is possible, and I think we are actually closer to it than we’ve ever been as a species. In a time where this country is divided and anxious, it’s easy to think that future is not possible. But it objectively is. This is the best time to be alive for most human beings.
This Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful for the world, for life, for music, and for Rush. Here’s a link to a playlist of some of my favorite songs they’ve made:
Today, exactly a year later, Madeleine CaiQun is ours.
Feels like a kind of divine symmetry. Seriously. Click the link above and read those words.
That line about how “even after all this time, the sun never says to the Earth, ‘you owe me'” encapsulates what I believe about Love. In just a few hours more, when we hold CaiQun and really become a family of four, she won’t owe us anything. Instead, we get the privilege to live out what we believe and value in becoming her family. It’s awesome (serious face rain here, Catherine!).
Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.
Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a stranger,
Only to someone who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.
Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.
Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.
Even after all this time the sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me”
There is no pleasure without a tincture of bitterness.
A long time ago, while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I became pretty obsessed with a few World War 1 era artists and poets, specifically Siegfried Sassoon (bio here) and Paul Nash. Nash was a great artist (see examples of his work here and here) who worked from a deeply-felt conscience regarding his painting. This is what he thought about the work he did during World War 1:
“I am no longer an artist. I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on forever. Feeble, inarticulate will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth and may it burn their lousy souls.”¹
I encourage everyone to seek out the poetry of Sassoon as well (here and here). Here’s an example:
A Mystic as Soldier
I lived my days apart,
Dreaming fair songs for God;
By the glory in my heart
Covered and crowned and shod.
~
Now God is in the strife,
And I must seek Him there,
Where death outnumbers life,
And fury smites the air.
~
I walk the secret way
With anger in my brain.
O music through my clay,
When will you sound again?
Every year on memorial day I think about these two men and the legions they represented. And then I think about Second Lieutenant Arthur Conway Young of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He died August 16, 1917. Below is his grave marker. Read the inscription at its base.
eikonktizo 
