Faith and Fiction

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Sean T. Smith

This is a story of triumph, so please bear with me because it might not sound that way at first. Happy endings aren’t worth a damn if there weren’t tears along the way.

I love writing and God. The love of those two intersect, in spite of my passion for other things. I love my wife and my children. I love to play music and dream melodies and yearn to create something beautiful and true.

I love the way the sun breaks when it’s rising over the Gulf of Mexico when I’m so far from land that the sea and sky are the world, and there is that perfect orange light born, glittering on the waves, and the hope of a good fish and that day sings in my chest. The best part, knowing that the next day will be just as good, infused with the same hope. For me, those moments have been few, and I’m blessed to remember them.

It is easy and dangerous to make the things we love God.

A mentor and friend, a brilliant songwriter far beyond me, convinced me that the only way to succeed was to be willing to sacrifice everything at the altar of writing. I listened to him and to my own demons and learned the wrong lessons. My friend would smack me in the back of my head now if we were sitting next to each other at a bar in Nashville. I have tears in my eyes remembering him and the way he made me a better writer, and I wish I could hear him say something sarcastic and kind.

Writing is not God, though we make it so.

Writers are not destined for pain unless they choose anguish. Joy is the lyric and the page and the melody and truth beneath. God is God.

Remembering Silver Hill…My Magnolia

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Sean T. Smith

The woods are lonely and empty there now, but in my mind there is a place which will always remain as it once was. A house on a hill surrounded by forest and filled with laughter and generations and love. My grandparents called it Silver Hill.

In the spring and summer the air of Upstate New York has a sweetness to it. As if the maple trees and rocks, the flowers and the sun breathe new hope into the land itself. Little things take me back. The smell of fresh-cut hay, the clink of ice in a glass of tea on a hot day, the aroma of pipe smoke, the sight of an old orange tractor.

For me, Silver Hill was magic. It was a place of safety and refuge, a constant in a childhood rife with upheaval. My folks moved many times, and I attended about twenty schools, but Silver Hill remained a beacon of hope and stability when things got dark and mean. I remember riding the lawn mower with my Grandfather when I was about four or five, and later being allowed to mow the whole yard myself, a thing I enjoyed. It’s where I learned to shoot, love the woods. I recall reading an entire series of Piers Anthony books over about a week, perched in a comfortable nook of a towering tree, surrounded by twittering birds, the wind whispering through the leaves, and the branches rocking me gently.

There were family reunions and birthday parties during the warm months, and I’d roam the woods and the yard with my cousins, all of us with skinned knees and dungarees. Catching frogs and tadpoles down at the pond, always on the lookout for a snake or Bigfoot, who was rumored to inhabit the area, and whom I was fairly certain I’d seen at least once. Building forts of increasing complexity. The adults would join in games of softball, and football, and there was this wonderful togetherness. That’s how I remember it, and that’s the truth which remains.

We ate blackberry pies, hot-dogs from the charcoal grill, and stacks of steaming pancakes from the griddle, my Grandmother making them as big as we wanted. Eating was a kind of celebration.

In the fall there was a bittersweet, fleeting explosion of color, as the woods came alive in red and yellow and every breath held the promise of the coming snow, a sharp, tingling sensation, a singing feeling in my soul.

Winter meant vast snowbanks, crackling fires, and Christmas. The aunts and uncles and cousins would migrate to Silver Hill, and we’d eat turkey and stuffing and tear into presents, savoring each one. We opened them one at a time, and it was a joyful thing, anticipation and wonder all wrapped together. We built igloos and had snowball fights, epic battles when the wind was cold and the snow was deep, knowing a warm fire, hot chocolate, and a slice of pie waited inside.

Silver Hill became a part of me, and looking back I realize that it’s because of the people, my family, my blood, and the memories which live there for all of us. We’re spread out all over the country now, but Silver Hill, and those black and white and faded picture still recall.What I remember most is love, unconditional and true.

Before every meal, my Grandfather would lead us in a short prayer, the same one every time,and it is etched indelibly into my heart.

“Lord we thank you for this food, and for thy many blessings.

We pray you will bless this food to our use and us to thy purpose.

Amen.”

kinned knees

To Simply Be… A writer looks at fifty

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Sean T. Smith

I’ve struggled for decades to be happy. It’s a character flaw, and while sometimes I believe this makes me a better writer, I think at the end of the day, at the end of a lifetime, it means I’ve missed much, moments of contentment when I could simply be. I’ve been poor, and raged against the poverty, and let chances slip away. I’ve been fairly well off, and then there was always something else… the desire to have children, the yearning for recognition and success at another level. Always living with the feeling I’m missing some vital piece, which if I could obtain, would make me whole at last, make me smile down deep in my soul.

Maybe with the recognition of it, I can change on a fundamental level, but this flaw runs deep. I am blessed with wonderful children, and when I walked home alone from the bus stop a few minutes ago, the sun bright and the air cool, missing my boys already, I began to reflect on this thing within me. How it will feel in the not so distant future to be me.

When the swing set is silent and rusted and I am grey, when the patter of little feet no longer graces my life and the light in my eyes grows dim and I have those memories and pictures, what is it I will recall? How will I feel on those mornings, drinking a cup of coffee at my desk and staring at a computer screen and bleeding onto the page, remembering the things I should have paid better attention to in those fleeting moments, the things that matter. Trying to get the memory right.

My five year old coming to me with a Bernstein Bears book for his bed time story, happy and shining with pure love for me, a love I can never deserve because it is so true. Holding my baby, his head in the palm of my had because he is no longer than my forearm, dancing around the living room at three o’clock in the morning with him to sooth him back to sleep while Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons plays on the radio, and I am sleep deprived and worried about getting to work on time the next morning, but still dancing, still infused with a sense of wonder at this life I hold in my hands. My boys, the oldest ten now, decked out in army gear, complete with helmets, load bearing vests, holsters and assault rifles, running around the house shooting the attacking Russian zombie horde. In a year or two, he’ll be too old for that, and I miss it already.

Walking through the woods as a family, a tiny hand in mine, questions about the trees and wildlife, and the sunlight filtering through the canopy of Live Oaks and Spanish Moss and the air fresh and cool and golden. Such joy, such fleeting perfection.

Christmas morning, together with grandparents, all still with us now, the excitement electric in the air to see what Santa brought, toys and paper flying all over the floor beneath the tree, laughter sweet music. But was exhausted, stressed about money, tired of long days working in the cold and the rain, and I did not let that music in me the way I should have, not in a way that fills the soul. Looking back on it, it fills me and brings tears to my eyes, but when it was happening, I did not appreciate it enough.

There will always be another thing. A better job, a nicer car, keeping the lights on, selling more books, writing a masterpiece, drama with jerks, stormy weather, and bad traffic. Somewhere along the way, even the joy of writing itself has been dampened by the need to promote, to sell, to succeed. I resolve to do my part, but I am sure I can’t do it alone.

I’ve got a God-shaped hole, and the only way to find true, lasting happiness is to fill that with Him. Unless I do that, the world will forever be bereft of its proper color, faded and less vibrant.

When I look back years from now, I want to remember things as they were, not as I wish they had been. I’ve still got a chance at happiness, and it’s time I start living.

Earning The Gray

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Sean T. Smith

I recently had dinner with an uncle I had not seen in about four years, and the first thing he said was “Wow! You’re old!. Shave the beard, man.”

My wife noted that I should have replied, “well, you’ll always be older.”

But I wear the gray without shame, and indeed a kind of pride, for the salt and pepper and the emergent wrinkles are earned. Some years are harder than others, and the last few have been especially tough. I’ve aged. Stress, two jobs, four kids, and unrequited dreams will leave a mark upon any man. I accept it.

While I miss the physical strength and regenerative prowess of my youth, I can look in the mirror and grin at the gray. I’ve made it this far; I can keep going. Wiser, more compassionate, more faithful than I was in my younger years. I appreciate life more than I did, and as time grows shorter, I am conscious of the fleeting preciousness of it. The hard times still grind, yet there is hope in me for those moments of peace and sunshine, and as I grow long in the tooth, I hope to find more of them.

Objects of Wrath will be released in a couple of weeks, and I’m thrilled, humbled, and grateful in a way I would not have been ten or twenty years ago.

The gray is earned, a constant reminder of the sand in the hourglass. I’ve put in the work and the years. I won’t be shaving my beard.