Summer Vacation - Dad

 

 When I was a teenager, living at my parents house, I spent a lot of time on my Dad's blue leather couch in his office.  I spent hours talking to him in the late hours of the night.  I realize now that I was most likely distracting him from completing a deadline, but he never treated me like an inconvenience.  While I was home this summer, I found myself on the blue couch again.  It takes me to a place that is difficult to describe.  Listening to and being around music is such a part of my childhood, that it is woven into the fabric of who I am.  Being around my Dad this summer and around "living music" brings me back to my center.  My Dad once told me that the smell of sawdust can bring him back to his roots faster than any other thing.  (His Father was a carpenter).  He reminded me that I once called him from an outdoor concert and held the phone up in the air as the symphony was tuning up and said, "Hey Dad, this is my sawdust!"  I had completely forgotten that I had done that, but it is true, music is my sawdust.  He will probably kill me for posting these photographs of him but I love them.  They speak to who I am because they illustrate the very nature of  who he is, and so much of him is in me.    I was able to listen to many of the new projects that he has worked on over the last few years.  I was really in awe of the body of work that my Father has composed throughout his life.  It is inspiring to see someone who has searched the depth of their talents and labored to become a true artist of their craft.  Every once in a while, I can see that is what he has become, but most of the time, he is just Dad. 

 

 

 

 

Another one he will kill  me for.  The man literally works himself to the bone.  I have never seen anyone work harder in my life.  He has worked all through the night and into the next day time after time.  I have seen this happen over and over again.  He doesn't know this but I always smile to myself when I find him crashed out.  It makes me happy to finally see him rest.  However, this would be more accurately portrayed if he were on the couch.