Welcome to my flurry of new subscribers this week! I’m beyond moved to feel you here; thank you for joining this hearth of inquiry and reflection as we explore living well, instead of living “fixed.” On Sundays I share chapters from my memoir and for those who are new here, I recommend starting from the beginning with the Preface. I’ve conveniently linked successive chapters at the bottom of every page so you can binge read and catch up easily. Or visit the Table of Contents to pick up where you left off. My Thursday posts explore “living unfixed” through voices in the community—videos, quotes, poetry, resources and prompts—providing opportunities to reflect on your own life experiences and cultivate strength, resiliency, solidarity and meaning from the messy and unfixable.
I wait, rising each morning with an impatient, singular focus—check email. But weeks pass. Notifications disappoint and my dopamine receptors eventually look elsewhere for more fulfilling, reliable hits. I thicken my skin and prepare to hear nothing from the Brauer’s, or worse, a resounding “Leave us alone.” I have no idea what to expect so I try my hardest to expect nothing.
I turn back to research, something I can control. The inner hound I put down during bedrest has been resurrected, tracking clues that lead to the vulnerable prey of my own identity.
I learn Charlie had just hand-built a rural, two-story home in Ferryville, Wisconsin before his disappearance. On the mailbox, not far from the Mississippi River, he wrote, Charles Brauer, Home and Away. According to one journalist, he liked to say “That’s where you’ll find me—home, or away.” Way to commit, dad. I google map the location and make a mental note to visit it someday.
I also email an acquaintance of mom’s, a well-known harpist who, on occasion, spoke about Charlie and their friends-with-benefits relationship. Turns out, he had a lot of girlfriends, often at the same time.
She shares,
I heard about his death long after the fact and was shocked and saddened. I never told this to anyone before but I harbored a secret fantasy that he had staged the sailing accident to fake his death and was living happily ever after with his girlfriend across the lake who inherited his life insurance policy. As farfetched as it seemed, at the time it made more sense than imagining the senseless death of someone so young and talented. I’m not sure his girlfriend(s) knew about each other but he was very handsome, charismatic and hard to resist, as your mother can attest. Beside all his obvious charms, he was a very soulful and tender person, a man’s man with a poet’s heart.
I ignore “faked his death” and the sandwiched “s” after girlfriend and I hold onto “soulful” and “poet” instead.
Why do I need him to be good? What if he was a philandering misogynist? What if he staged his death for insurance money? Would it make a difference? Did he marry? What was he like in relationship? Was he kind?
Short of trying to locate this growing list of ex-girlfriends, I decide the second best way to learn about Charlie’s heart is through his music. I order all three of his albums on Ebay and study each one carefully, dutifully—the cover art, inserts, graphics, band members, and most of all, his lyrics.
The self-produced albums are a blend of folk and bluegrass with a hint of goofball. (That’s a genre, right?) A multi-talented instrumentalist, he accompanies himself on guitar, banjo, harmonica or jaw harp, and sometimes it seems, all at once. I dissect his lyrics, trying to decipher my own genetic code. Ranging from heart-felt and personal to lively, regional ballads peppered here and there with a poem, the albums are as close as I may ever get to not just feeling my biological father near, but knowing his soul.
I study, listen, let his timbre, lilt and intention fall into me. His voice is music I’ve never always known.
From the poem The Blanket I’m reminded of the quiet comfort of strangers when traveling, buoyed together by wheels or wings: / A thick blanket of random humanity / bordered by the silk of implicit trust /
And the song Attic Window mirrors my own love of solitude: / I’d love to go there when it rained / just to sit and look outside / you could hear the rain upon the roof / and feel so satisfied
The Wren, a kind bow to our shared love for feathered friends: / oh hear her sing from the the green jack pine / a song so sweetly there / no sad songs of pain or complaint will you find / her place in life is clear
And Birtha, the one that makes me want to weep and be the stray that accompanies his loneliness: / we sat down together the cat and me / won’t forget the night she was a friend don’t you see / it was my birthday and nobody came / except a black and white cat without any name
Through song and poetry, a 2-dimensional snapshot of Charlie begins to move and breathe; he grows a beating heart with longing, preferences, humor and hope. He is a creative spirit, a wanderer. He doesn’t like being boxed-in or labeled. He prefers solitude. He scorns city life and romanticizes the past. I feel so much resonance, like an echo finally returning after a lifetime of waiting.
I know that man. He is the stranger I’ve known forever, living inside of me.
Was I a stranger living inside of him? His banjo tune Have you Seen hauntingly sings, “Yes.”
In the chorus, Charlie pleas— / Oh have you seen my love of two years / since we parted company / I fear that she is carrying our child / our child that never will be / […] / though in my mind it is the best for all / though my heart says no let’s wait and see / to think I’m the father of a daughter or a son / and to know that it never will be.
Love of two years? Either Charlie is taking poetic liberties with lyrics, mom is a great historical revisionist, or I have another half-sibling out there. Whatever the truth may be, it’s clear that he felt something. He intuited his own flesh and blood was roaming the planet, enough so that he wrote a song about it. The line “to know that it never will be” puzzles me though. How could he be so certain? Was he reflecting on his own desire (or lack-thereof) to be a father? Or was the mother in a situation she couldn’t escape?
Or is it something more, a sense that his own life would end too soon, that when the truth finally surfaced, he would already be long gone?
I’m driving back to Atlanta today and binge listening to this. This chapter is so haunting. I can’t imagine how you felt listening to these obscure, dusty albums of songs written by The father, you never knew. The downside of listening in the app is the flat, emotionless voice of the AI.
Darn interesting. I stumbled onto you via Nadia. You might like this about building our cabin. https://westonpparker.substack.com/p/between-two-trees