I wasn’t as curious about the inner workings of tactile things as much as I was concerned about the inner workings of nebulous constructs like society and political systems.”

NEDERLAND - My parents divorced when I was so young I have no memories of them together. As far as I knew back then, visiting my father once a week was a normal thing. I didn’t know yet that I was a product of a “broken home,” mostly because my father never made me feel that way.  

But despite how he tried, he couldn’t shield me from others, or from society’s cold tongue; not with just one day a week visitation. I’d eventually be made to know that my home life was different, that it was not the norm. I’d eventually be taught to feel shame about this.

I never felt shame when at my father’s house, though. 

Those Sundays were an escape from a cruel reality, not because I was kept disillusioned, but because I was given respite; I was given the opportunity to be a kid, I was allowed to be inquisitive, I was permitted to feel my feelings, and most of all I felt cared for, and therefore I felt a part of a “normal” family. 

Every Sunday was a learning experience. Whether it was the world of cartoons and comics, or mechanics and electronics, or music and computer games, every week I was introduced to not just the concept of these new worlds, but to the tactile reality of them. 

My dad, Paul Kelley, while being an extremely imaginative person, expresses that imagination through what is tangible, through what his fingers can reach, touch, and fiddle with. I didn’t just learn from him the “what, where, and when” of things. My father arrives at answering the “why” by analyzing every aspect of the “how.”  

So I didn’t just learn the concept of using a computer to play games, I learned how to build a computer. Throughout my childhood, all the way to adulthood, my father dedicated his Sundays to nurturing me, instead of tolerating me. 

Legos were toys we’d play with together, but it was also engineering. NASCAR was a sport on television, but it was also internal combustion mechanics in action. Raking the lawn was a chore, but with a golf cart, a tow hitch, and a tarp, it became a game.   

Music was more than just the sounds emitting from a speaker; music was the speaker, it was the turntable, it was the recording equipment used for the album, the instruments chosen and how they were tuned, it was who played those instruments and how they played them, it was who produced that music, who wrote it, where the ideas came from, who influenced them, what came before. 

I remember when I was a moody teenager, I still loved to escape every Sunday to my dad’s; to a place where I wasn’t a burden. I wasn’t as curious about the inner workings of tactile things as much as I was concerned about the inner workings of nebulous constructs like society and political systems.

My father never scoffed or shied away from these heavy topics either. He’d provide what answers and context that he could, all while riding a line between seriousness and lightheartedness. 

As I got older I would “discover” things, like music, movies, cartoons, comedians, or books. I was always excited for Sunday to come so I could tell my dad what I had discovered, because he actually listened, despite being forced to endure some questionable things, such as Police Academy movies and the band Korn. 

There was one time, though, when I asked him if he had ever heard of the artist Nick Drake. I had heard the song “Pink Moon” on a Volkswagen commercial, and it propelled me into buying and obsessing over the album of the same name. The album became very personal to me, as it dealt with dark and depressing themes of isolation and loneliness, while also highlighting a naive sense of beauty that lies beneath the pain.  

As usual, my dad taught me all about Nick Drake, where he had come from, the trials and tribulations of his life as a recording artist, all the way up to his tragic suicide at the age of 27, just like Kurt Cobain, another artist my dad and I shared a love for. 

Unknowingly, or perhaps knowingly, my father provided me with the context for my own feels of depression, isolation, and loneliness, and it was the light of that clear definition that helped to guide me through it. 

Years later, as a stepfather helping to raise two kids who had visitation every summer, though I did not realize it immediately, I had provided them with a safe space to be themselves because I had been given that by my father. 

I had all the resources I needed to help make the time we had with them meaningful and fulfilling because, like my father did before me, I wanted nothing more but to give them love, patience, and understanding. 

When Jho, the youngest, hit those difficult later teenage years, they asked me for music recommendations. I recommended a lot of 1990s metal and 1970s prog, but I also mentioned “Pink Moon” by Nick Drake, which would go on to become one of their favorites, something they still listen to and love to this day, and which meant so much to them that they gifted the album on vinyl to me on Father’s Day.  

I cried when I opened that gift, as it had shown to me the cyclical nature of a father’s love, of letting your child feel their feelings, of truly hearing them and understanding them, of teaching them through their bright-eyed wonder, and guiding them through their darkest thoughts.   

“When I was young, younger than before

Never saw the truth hanging from the door,

Now I'm older -see it face to face,

Now I'm older -gotta get up, clear the place.

And I was green, greener than the hill

Where flowers grew and the sun shone still

Now I'm darker than the deepest sea,

Just hand me down, give me a place to be.”

• “Place To Be” by Nick Drake