Tag: parenting

rest

Rest. This is a big one because I don’t get much of it. I don’t allow myself much of it because I take on roles that are relentless, but those roles are important.

Fatherhood doesn’t relent. When they told me 17 years ago that the next 18 years of my life were spoken for, they undersold it by a country mile. I am something that I will never not be, and I wouldn’t have it any other way… even when I feel like complaining.

I’ve been split with my daughter’s mom for a good long time now. It’s fine. The kid is supposed to spend a week at my place and a week at her mom’s but in reality it looks more like 11 days with me and 4 with her mom. It’s not the end of the world. as a matter of fact, I play lots of gigs out of town, and need her help managing the dog.

I love it, even when my old introverted ass is yearning for an empty house with which to play loud music and loud guitar, sometimes simultaneously.

Rock & Roll doesn’t relent. We’d like to think it gets easier when you ascend to the next rung of popularity. That’s bullshit. It’s glorious and all encompassing… but it’s a mountain of work that nobody’s ever going to do for you. The best you can hope for is to have people do that work for you, but the reality is that you only pay people to do things you can’t or won’t due… which means you stay busy.

Then when you’re not busy, you load up a trailer full of gear and drag it down the highway for several hours where you and your equally old (if not older) band members unload it, play all night, and then barely make it to a hotel room to collapse before we repeat the cycle. We get home a couple days later and go to work… which is the closest thing to relaxing we get to do, regularly.

I love it, even when my old introverted ass is yearning for an empty house…

Endurance Sport is relentless. The very nature of endurance sport is that it is something to be endured, so it shares some common ground with parenting and rock & roll in that it takes up a bunch of time and I can’t live without it. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your old tired self is to get up early and go for a run. it makes me a better parent and a better rock & roller so it stays…

The rest of my life fills in the gaps. Being a boyfriend and a dog owner are not particularly taxing, though they do have their moments, just as I have my moments when I need the attention of my family members.

… my life straight up rules. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I have a music career, and day job, and a family and none of them seem to interfere with each other. I have a lovely home, dog, kid, girlfriend… I have cool stuff… I’m winning this game.

But it can be a lot.

We have to take our rest when we can get it. I was reminded of this when my body all but shut down on a monday morning recently. It was the kind of thing where I got up to go for a run and anytime I would turn my head, my eyes took a few seconds to catch up.

I went back to bed. I woke up in time for work, and after work I took a nap. Then I went to bed early. There was no other choice… and sometimes that’s just reality.

I would love to tell you to prioritize rest.
But I don’t do that.
The best I can do is tell you: Listen to your body.

Speaking of rock & roll… today I’m in Drumheller, AB playing a dinosaur’s birthday party. It’s an outdoor, free event, so if you’re not otherwise engaged on this long weekend, it’d be great to see you.

balance

I am always searching for balance.

I have goals to look a certain way, perform to a certain level, run certain distances, eat a certain way, write songs to a certain standard… in amongst working and sleeping and being an attentive adult / father / partner / employee, it doesn’t take much to knock it all off kilter.

So, I have to stop and take stock of where I’m at.

It comes down to what kind of life I want to live.

If I could have everything I wanted, I’d be a Ironman Triathlete who played 250 shows per year to 10,000+ audiences, and have a personal chef, and would train 6 days a week… but it would be a solitary life, surrounded by people and close to noone.

If I trained for an Ironman, I’d have to put my rock & roll band on ice for a while. Any vacation time I had would be spent training. I’d hardly have time for my family because all I’d be doing was training, eating and sleeping.

If I were to chase bigger crowds with my music, I’d likely have to scale back my training, and spend more time at the right parties, socializing, and I’d compromise my health and the quality of my art.

If I lean into my daytime career, I’d likely crater my band, and possibly alienate my family doing so. I wouldn’t train much at all and I’d eat in restaurants and sleep in hotels far too much.

So I try to live my life in the middle… and my life in the middle is pretty great.

I’m 43 years old. I am on 0 medications, and have 0 health complications to be concerned with. I am available to people who need me, including my employer, I have great artistic output with top tier musicians and we do things the way we want them to be done.

All this to say, I am grateful for what I have, and I am happy where I am – because where i am is in a state of progress. I am moving forward in my life and in my art, not backward. I train hard, and I eat like an athlete… but there’s still room in my life for a vegan donuts. I play rock & roll and write songs constantly… but I’m still home for dinner and a dog walk. I work hard, but I’m still available to my family and my friends.

I’m serious.
But I don’t take myself too seriously.

I’ve been trying to find balance for so long that I almost didn’t recognize it when I found it.

aging

I turn 43 this year.
Actually, I turn 43 this weekend.
Tomorrow.
Star Wars day.

43

Ultimately I’m good with it. I’m not in the shape I was in when I turned 40 and ran a triathlon, but I am on an upward swing in that regard. I’d love to spend more time in the pool and round out my tri-sport fantasies once again, but the advent of a fresh tattoo about 6 weeks ago, followed by another tattoo appointment this coming week keeps me on dry land. Submerging fresh tattoos is a good way to get an infection. But… That’s okay. Running and biking are filling my early mornings in the same way creative endeavours seem to fill my evenings.

43

I’m in the early stages of making another great record with The Confusionaires, I have a busy summer ahead of me with festival performances, long runs, sweaty bike rides, rock & roll recording sessions, and a couple of quick trips out of town with the family if fortune smiles down on us before the snow flies again. Summers are so fuckin’ short here.

43

When my daughter was born, and I was 26 years old, I recall doing the math and determining that I’d be 44 when she turns 18. That’s still true. It’s true every time I check, and the math gets easier each time… that’s a year from now, but it might as well be now. She’s grown up well, and smart, and strong. She has ambition that surpasses me at that age. I’ve very proud of her. She’ll be 17 this summer (obviously) and although she’s not done turning into the person she’s going to be, I can tell that person is going to be awesome. We got matching tattoos last month – an honour I share with no one else, and one I don’t take lightly.

43

I’m 43 tomorrow. Where does the time go? Well, I know where my 20s and early 30s went. Kinda. They’re hazy and were largely fuelled by intoxicants. Not sure how I lucked my way into finding my girlfriend. We’ve been together for 14 years or so. Like I said… hazy. She’s great, and has either joined me or guided me on several journeys that led both of us to places we’d never imagined… like veganism. She’s just begun a sabbatical of sorts, as she’s between vocations and has found herself with a month off before starting a new job. Having her around is pretty great. I think I’ll keep her for another 14 years.

43

I don’t know where this leads.
Wherever it’s supposed to, I guess.
But wherever that is, I hope they allow dogs.

when it’s no longer yours

There’s a strange thing that happens when you create something, and I don’t know that people really talk about it very openly. Maybe they don’t talk about it at all, but there are so many examples I can point to, and many of them can be triggering for creative people. I hope my perspective; however, is not triggering.

When you make something – anything – there’s a certain point at which it stops being yours, and starts being part of the fabric. Which fabric depends on what you’ve created, I suppose. I’m fortunate to have been part of many creations in my life, and over time I’ve learned that although I’ve been integral in the process, these things no longer belong to me.

The biggest and most obvious thing I’ve had a hand in creating is my daughter. She remains my daughter, and I suppose that will never not be the case, but as far as being part of the creation process of another human being goes – she is very much her own person, and is learning to self-govern by the example of the people around her; because, yes, it takes a village.

In a similar yet different way, I create music with my close friends. I write songs. I take a blank page, fill it full of words that rhyme, ideally with some poignant message about love or life, and I set it to music… and at some point after smoothing out the rough edges at loud volumes in a rehearsal space, it becomes what it’s going to be. Eventually it’ll be performed live, and/or in-studio and recorded, and released.

I may have some rights to it as has been carved out by intellectual property lawyers over the past hundred years or so, but if the magic and the timing line up, the song will take on a life of its own. In a perfect world (in which we do not currently live), someone with a higher profile than me will hear it and want to record it and release a version of it, and it will go on to reach more and more people. It will have taken on ‘a life of its own‘ the same way my daughter has a life of her own, and I the time will come when I have no real governance over what it becomes.

At what point does this happen? Probably when the record comes out, (though some pro-lifer may examine the parallels I’ve made so far and argue that it’s when pen meets paper… please understand that this is not a conversation I intend to have). After all, a painting is not a work of art until it’s finished.

And… making an album available for consumption is called “releasing.”

Regardless, my daughter will always be ‘my daughter’, and my songs will always be ‘by me’ if only as a point of reference: Davey’s daughter. Confusionaires’ songs.

The tendency with these artistic works, to further the parallels, is to be precious about it. To protect and conserve this music so nobody steals it and copies it before you get notoriety for it… and but this is where the parallels stop.

It’s important to let go of these things, and let them become what they are to be. Most of them will go nowhere, and become nothing – possibly ever, possibly just for a long time – while some of them might get picked up by the wind and travel the world. To put a finer point on it, if Bruno Mars heard one of my songs and loved it, and wanted to make a hip, modern r&b version of it, I’d be elated and honoured. However, I’d have to get comfortable with the fact that the majority of the world would know it as a Bruno Mars song because his version of it would easily travel further than mine.

A solid example of this if Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt, which was originally written and recorded by Trent Reznor under his project name ‘Nine Inch Nails.’ Though NIN has a far reaching fan base, that song has become a Johnny Cash song to more people than it is a NIN song.

Trent Reznor also knows that he can write more songs.
I can write more songs, too. And I will.

So to be precious about a string of words and notes that were arguably dropped on me and picked up by my antena from some unseen energy that has deemed me a good conduit for these messages seems selfish to me… especially since if I were to not write the words down, and not conjure up the melody and structure, that the song would keep floating, and be picked up by someone else.

witnessing growth

So I don’t talk about it much without being intentionally vague… BUT… I have this kid, and in her 16 years on this planet – an occasion celebrated somewhat recently – she’s done all kinds of growing up and maturing. She’s done things or the smart variety and of the dumb variety and has learned from both. Her unique worldview is something that both inspires me and causes me to stop and think, and she’s masterfully funny – the kind of funny that people are when they’ve had real life experience.

Not only has she already accomplished things I may never accomplish, and lived experiences I may never live, but she has dreams and aspirations of being something important and moving away from her hometown to see what the world has to offer her and although I’m in now hurry to shoo her out the door, I am genuinely stoked.

In the grand scheme of things, although she’s several years away form completely cutting off her dependence on me and her mother, she’s mere inches from (legal) adulthood. Other parents I talk to seem to be genuinely worried about this time for their kids – and while in a financial sense I wonder how she’s going to do what needs to get done with late-stage capitalism casting a dark shadow on all of us, I am; again, genuinely stoked.

Her small army of parents have taught her how to think analytically, and aside from the tangible actions of parenting: scraped knees, dental appointments, food & shelter, et al. – that’s the gig. Nobody’s throwing us a parade, and I know the job is far from over but while I talk to so many parents who are worried about their children growing up, all the while, longing for the bygone days of excited christmas mornings and saturday morning cartoons, I have to say I loved those days, but I don’t really miss them… because looking at the road ahead, I am; again, genuinely stoked.

I loved having a little girl at every phase of life, and as this father/daughter relationship continues to grow, I can say I love this phase that we’re in right now more and more all the time.

I am: again, genuinely stoked.

discipline

I’m occasionally complimented on my discipline, and while it’s true that a 4:30am wake-up call is not for the faint of heart (nor is the notion that I occasionally wake up before I alarm goes off) I have to say that waking up at 4:30 is the easy part.

I drink tea, eat oatmeal, breathe, and sit quietly before going to the gym for anywhere from a 60 – 120 minute body pummeling, all before the work day starts. I frequently get my 10,000 steps in before the rooster crows for most people and it feels really good to get that done. Aside from the caffeine in my black tea, I don’t consume alcohol or smoke anything, and work my damnedest at not eating too much sugar or fat through a given day.

A lot of what I do sucks… but whatever. I need rules.

I don’t like rules, but I need them. Me without rules is a nightmare, reverting back to the 300 lb. oaf with bad skin who bitched complained about how the world wasn’t fair… and well, at least I was right about that part – the world isn’t fair. So no, I don’t like rules. I just need ’em.

Chances are pretty good that you need rules, too… but that’s your journey. I’m not responsible for you journey. I am; however, responsible for my child’s journey for the next few years.

My child. My kid. My little girl, who I want to be safe and warm and comfortable. And while safe is certainly a priority for me, warm and comfortable are things that I don’t need to worry about these days. Warm and comfortable are terrible teachers, and my duty as a parent is to prepare my child for the big, ugly, mean world… and to greet that world with a kind heart.

Sound hard? It is.

What’s more is that I won’t be there to enforce the rules… so I have to trust her to do it. It can absolutely happen, but it’s not going to happen over night. People like to tell me that “we went through that and we came out alright” and when people say that I want to pound my fists on the desk and say: “For starters – no we didn’t have to deal with that. We didn’t have to deal with any of the garbage that kids have to deal with now. And secondly – no we didn’t turn out alright. We made a mess. I fucked around for 25 years and ended up in a recovery program in my 40’s.”

So let’s take another look at my discipline then. People throw words around like ‘extreme’ and ‘drastic.’ “It’s extreme to run for 2 hours straight” and “it’s extreme to weigh your food” – well… drastic times, friends… drastic times.

No, I won’t be holding my own child to my standard.
If she wants to level-up later on, that’s her call.
But some serious goal-setting, and the removal of distraction is a solid place to start. She’s a kid, so she’s still got her dreams intact unlike the majority of adults do these days. She can literally do anything she wants to.

But it has to start today. In this moment.
Tomorrow is a fictional place.

diagnostics

I’m familiar with the concept of digging deep. Chances are pretty solid that if you read this blog semi-regularly that you are, too. We’re all just trying to do a little better, aren’t we?

That’s why whether I’m sourcing a peculiar noise coming from my ’62 fairlane or I’m trying to assess why I can’t run as far today as I could last week, I know that a certain amount of deconstruction is required – in some cases, the literal taking-apart of a machine in order to assess the internal issue, and often repair some damage before careful reassembly is done so that you can find out if your hunch was right or not, totally risking the fact that you might have to do it again in the event you were wrong (because after all, being wrong is part of learning).

I have 100% been there and I will 100% return there at some point, but I am also certain that I will be a better person for it. If I can’t come away from the situation without some nugget of knowledge to share, or compassion to extend to someone else who’s also struggling, then opportunity was lost in the process.

We’re not talking about cars anymore, are we?

Sure we are – but that logic extends beyond 60-year old steel. Beyond skin & bones & calories & deficits, and into our connection to each other as human beings. Sure, I’ll gravitate towards like-minded people with similar hobbies to myself but I’m not always sure I have any real influence on them. I’ll wonder if I am honestly enriching the lives of the people close to me, or do I have a better effect on people who don’t know me, and aren’t aware of my laundry list of flaws?

Sometimes this is referred to as ‘hometown prophet syndrome’ and I experience it as a musician constantly. I’ll always love playing shows on tour more than in my hometown, because my hometown has seen me at my busiest, most distracted, worst, drunkest, and most debaucherously defunct, whereas a few hours down the road, they know me as someone who’s always been good, always been present, and has never had a conflicting engagement keeping me away. I imagine that it’s for the same reason that my own kid will never really think I’m cool… that’s not my role.

I have no resolve for that, it’s more a steam of consciousness flowing out of my fingers as I sit here. I didn’t really even intend for this post to go in that direction – but I will continue to peel back the layers, and try to do better, and be better.

I suppose it doesn’t matter who I can help, as long as I can help.