MAY 2018 - He inspires me.
I'm sitting here at my keyboard fighting back the tears as I listen to the mellow, slightly sad, somewhat haunting voice of my firstborn singing about love, lost and found. My boy is releasing an album May 4. Entitled "To, From," it is the culmination of a year's worth of struggle, work, creativity, and, apparently, heartache and anxiousness. It. Is. Beautiful. OK, so I'm biased, but I dare you to listen and not enjoy it. The tears are here because I know him. I know how hard it is for him to be this vulnerable. I hear his soft tenor or the occasional strain and I remember the late-night phone call from the road when life had dealt him a gut-punch. I sense a little hesitation, and I'm immediately beside him in Nashville on the day we dropped him off for his freshman year in college. I hear a low moan, and I remember the frustration that followed the broken leg that I swear took away an extra year off my life. This is more than music. This is his life. And now he's wearing it on his sleeve, opening up for the reception or rejection of others. It's a huge step. I still haven't written the novel I swore I'd write because I fear the rejection more than I embrace the desire to put ink to paper. Not Ethan. He's brave. He's incredible. He has his dream firmly in focus, and he's not letting go. He's pursuing his vision with passion while enduring college, working at a bakery and living with the best roommates God could ever have assembled for him. This is not how I envisioned his life or mine, but my vision pales in comparison to this wonder. It didn't occur to me when I saw that two-year-old toddler with the world's coolest hair and the cutest dimpled cheeks, dressed in his green-striped "Steve" shirt sitting in his Thinking Chair where he could, "think, think, thiiiinnnk," that one day he would inspire me, but he does.
He absolutely inspires me.
If I'm being completely transparent, then I need to admit that I was surprised at what I heard on this album. I had heard "From New York" and "To Geneva," and I thought they were good. But, when "I Don't Know" and "To Nothing" hit my ears, I was blown away. These are the songs you will take with you. You'll listen to them from a low-lit stage at your favorite coffee house, and you'll play them in your car when you drive with the windows down. You'll go back to them when you want to recall the poignant little riff that is still resonating in your ear.
It will become part of the soundtrack of your life.
I think I know why. It's because it's the soundtrack of a life, and really, so much about this life is a shared experience. The angst, pain, fear and whatever else Ethan felt in writing this music, is something we can all identify with. That makes it real. That moves his lyrics and melodies from song and art to masterpiece.
He's 21, and he's released a masterpiece.
I'm crying because God chose me to be his dad.
Like I said, he inspires me.
If you'd like to get a preview of ethansroom's music, follow this link to Substream magazine, which featured him this week and provided a special preview of my boy's music.
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