I’m a father, and a husband. I love my wife and daughter so much, and can never have enough moments with them. It’s almost hard to remember life before them. On more reflective days, when the sky is heavy and the rain falls (like today), when I think about a someday where I’ll no longer be in physical form, I care less about my own final page then I do about the pain it will cause to those who remain and the fact that I’ll no longer be around to help ease it. Can’t go there without crying. So I just come back to the moment, get present and savor it all. They are my everything.
My innate mode of moving through the world is that of a maker. I open my eyes and see possibility. Things to be made. Sometimes, annoyingly so. And, while I’ve spent many years creating in the digital realm, what moves me most is working with my hands, lost in the process of shaping physical materials that lead to a touchable object. I painted as a kid, built bikes, businesses, and houses in college. Even when it comes to words, I still prefer the form of a printed book than digital or audio. When I can’t live in that space, I get, well, a little bit ornery.
I feel things. A lot. Cry at Hallmark movies. And, dear God, totally lost my shit at the end of One Day. So much that my wife thought I was making fun of her, instead of sobbing my own uncontrollable tears. When I hold myself open to it, the world tends to pour into me, and sometimes tear through me. So, I often move through it in a heavily boundaried way. Good thing, bad thing? Yes to both. It’s more about self-preservation. As a longtime friend once told me, “you know, it’s brutally hard to get to know you.” #duh.
I’m a slow processor, and an introvert. It’s probably why, for so long, I favored writing over talking. I’m the one who’d leave a conversation and, in the car ride home, find the perfect comeback. Which is weird, since so much of my professional life has been behind a mic or lens, or on stage. But, those are controlled scenarios, drop me into a cocktail party and I run toward snark, or the door. Often, in that order. Both are protection. I’m working on just being okay as the quieter one in the room. Likely will be for life.
I find joy in family, friends, music, art and nature, and in making. Sorrow in both lived and vicarious loss. Peace in movement, water and woods. Laughter, more often than not, in wildly inappropriate things, jokes, and moments. Nearly pee’d myself listening to David Sedaris worshop essays that, but for his self-deprecating wit and delivery, would’ve landed as wildly offensive. I find meaning in love, and seeing those I love flourish. And connection in equal parts solitude and doing anything and nothing with those I can’t get enough of.
I’m what some might call quirky, tend to see people, moments, the world a bit differently. This caused issues as a kid and young adult. It made me a little weird. My sixth grade nickname was Freaky Fields. But the further into life I get, the more I realize what makes me different is also what draws people, the right people, to what I create. My offerings become a window into how I see the world and piece it into patterns and things, and an invitation to participate in that vision.
I try to be present, but spend a lot of time living in my head. Though, through some strange yet thankful quirk, not often in the form of self-doubt, anxious spin, or chatter. Maybe it’s delusion, but my head time is more about being in the space of what can be.
I struggle with my body, not so much from a place of shame about what it looks like as I lean toward 60, but with how it sometimes betrays me, and the sense of uncertainty that comes from owning where it’s been, working with cards I’ve been dealt, and how much agency I have in where it all heads.
And, yes, behind closed doors and off the page, mic, or camera, my NYC shows in a pretty dry, snarky, f-bomb-laden, but hopefully never mean way. Working on finding the courage to bring more of that to the forward-facing me. Not for shock or show, but because it’s just who I am. And I’d rather not keep hiding behind $2 words when fuck is what I really want to convey.
Jonathan - thank you for being you - the maker, feeler, introvert, quirky observer of the world. I see you! As more people follow your lead, the world will shift from alternate reality to truth. Instead of "Asleep at the Wheel," we are awake, alive, and aware.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful writing, reflections and intimacy of how you see yourself. I’ve been illuminated in so many ways over the last four weeks as it relates to identity, mostly as I was preparing to teach a meditation class (a new venture for me, so humbling). So, I watched the show and wondered if my next piece is about identity and how we so easily take on the limited sense of self in the absence of self-possession. Then I said, “nah”. Then today, my daughter-in-law recommended I watch a “feel good movie” called “Mrs. Harris goes to Paris”. And of course, it was all about identity, yet again. So, I’m going to take your writing prompt to explore this subject. I’ll let you know where I land.
I’m a father, and a husband. I love my wife and daughter so much, and can never have enough moments with them. It’s almost hard to remember life before them. On more reflective days, when the sky is heavy and the rain falls (like today), when I think about a someday where I’ll no longer be in physical form, I care less about my own final page then I do about the pain it will cause to those who remain and the fact that I’ll no longer be around to help ease it. Can’t go there without crying. So I just come back to the moment, get present and savor it all. They are my everything.
My innate mode of moving through the world is that of a maker. I open my eyes and see possibility. Things to be made. Sometimes, annoyingly so. And, while I’ve spent many years creating in the digital realm, what moves me most is working with my hands, lost in the process of shaping physical materials that lead to a touchable object. I painted as a kid, built bikes, businesses, and houses in college. Even when it comes to words, I still prefer the form of a printed book than digital or audio. When I can’t live in that space, I get, well, a little bit ornery.
I feel things. A lot. Cry at Hallmark movies. And, dear God, totally lost my shit at the end of One Day. So much that my wife thought I was making fun of her, instead of sobbing my own uncontrollable tears. When I hold myself open to it, the world tends to pour into me, and sometimes tear through me. So, I often move through it in a heavily boundaried way. Good thing, bad thing? Yes to both. It’s more about self-preservation. As a longtime friend once told me, “you know, it’s brutally hard to get to know you.” #duh.
I’m a slow processor, and an introvert. It’s probably why, for so long, I favored writing over talking. I’m the one who’d leave a conversation and, in the car ride home, find the perfect comeback. Which is weird, since so much of my professional life has been behind a mic or lens, or on stage. But, those are controlled scenarios, drop me into a cocktail party and I run toward snark, or the door. Often, in that order. Both are protection. I’m working on just being okay as the quieter one in the room. Likely will be for life.
I find joy in family, friends, music, art and nature, and in making. Sorrow in both lived and vicarious loss. Peace in movement, water and woods. Laughter, more often than not, in wildly inappropriate things, jokes, and moments. Nearly pee’d myself listening to David Sedaris worshop essays that, but for his self-deprecating wit and delivery, would’ve landed as wildly offensive. I find meaning in love, and seeing those I love flourish. And connection in equal parts solitude and doing anything and nothing with those I can’t get enough of.
I’m what some might call quirky, tend to see people, moments, the world a bit differently. This caused issues as a kid and young adult. It made me a little weird. My sixth grade nickname was Freaky Fields. But the further into life I get, the more I realize what makes me different is also what draws people, the right people, to what I create. My offerings become a window into how I see the world and piece it into patterns and things, and an invitation to participate in that vision.
I try to be present, but spend a lot of time living in my head. Though, through some strange yet thankful quirk, not often in the form of self-doubt, anxious spin, or chatter. Maybe it’s delusion, but my head time is more about being in the space of what can be.
I struggle with my body, not so much from a place of shame about what it looks like as I lean toward 60, but with how it sometimes betrays me, and the sense of uncertainty that comes from owning where it’s been, working with cards I’ve been dealt, and how much agency I have in where it all heads.
And, yes, behind closed doors and off the page, mic, or camera, my NYC shows in a pretty dry, snarky, f-bomb-laden, but hopefully never mean way. Working on finding the courage to bring more of that to the forward-facing me. Not for shock or show, but because it’s just who I am. And I’d rather not keep hiding behind $2 words when fuck is what I really want to convey.
Jonathan - thank you for being you - the maker, feeler, introvert, quirky observer of the world. I see you! As more people follow your lead, the world will shift from alternate reality to truth. Instead of "Asleep at the Wheel," we are awake, alive, and aware.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Kathryn. 🙂
Thank you for sharing your beautiful writing, reflections and intimacy of how you see yourself. I’ve been illuminated in so many ways over the last four weeks as it relates to identity, mostly as I was preparing to teach a meditation class (a new venture for me, so humbling). So, I watched the show and wondered if my next piece is about identity and how we so easily take on the limited sense of self in the absence of self-possession. Then I said, “nah”. Then today, my daughter-in-law recommended I watch a “feel good movie” called “Mrs. Harris goes to Paris”. And of course, it was all about identity, yet again. So, I’m going to take your writing prompt to explore this subject. I’ll let you know where I land.