wright Thompson – Serenity Through Sweat

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I wrote a few weeks back about Pappyland, a book following the van winkle family and their generational story through the booming bourbon market. The writing even after just a small snippet struck such a chord with me that I bought the book and could hardly put it down. After finishing it, I wanted to share my thoughts especially as they fit in with the overarching themes of the blog.

Whright Thompson spends a few years researching the book getting to know Julian Van Winkle, the bourbon industry as well as the family’s complicated history. The story follows four generations from “pappy”, Julian’s grandfather, all the way to Julian’s son Preston, who is learning at his father’s side.

Maple syrup lollipops from Vermont (what does a father, especially one who travels, owe a son?)

Thompson weaves his own relationship with his father as well as his journey towards becoming a new father into the novel which becomes more about family than it does about bourbon.

“Meeting with Julian and making him talk about his family made me ask myself the same question I’d been asking him: What did I owe my late father? What did I owe a grandfather I never met? What is demanded of a son or a daughter? What was demanded of me?”

Both Julian and Wright’s fathers died of illness before their time. Both sons felt the weight not only of the loss, but of the pressure to live up to family expectations. To succeed and press on in ways that the previous generation was unable to, for one reason or another.

The idea of raising a child, makes you reflect on those questions. If you are fortunate enough, and live in enough comfort to be introspective, having all of your needs met, you inevitably owe a debt to your parents. One that I’m not sure can ever be repaid.

Even if that debt is never tabulated, called in, or otherwise made tangible, it exists. It is an unspoken calling across generations to fulfill potential. To create, and affect, and change, hopefully in a positive and lasting way some part of this world.

In the acknowledgements Thompson writes to his young daughter telling her “let me save you some soul searching: you don’t owe me anything”. He goes on to say that he loves her unconditionally and that the book is for her.

I love his work, and I am inspired by it. Especially as I tackle my own literary project. Still, I think he misses the mark. After his deep and moving coverage of the VanWinkle family, it seems to.me there is always some form of generational debt.

The unconditional love and the debt are not mutually exclusive. If your parents did right by you, whatever their faults and failings may be, a debt is owed. It may not even be payable to them. It may be payable to yourself. But, a debt is owed.

My own feeble attempt then, to answer those questions.

Mom and Dad, I cannot thank you enough for the foundation you laid for me, and especially now for my family. There are lessons that are poignant in my mind, that I feel obliged to pass on. Traditions and relationships that I vow to maintain. An idea, of a fulfilled life that I will strive towards. These are the things I feel are demanded of me as a son.

Speedy and El Duderino, you are loved unconditionally. Your mother and I will support you to the best of our abilities in your endeavors. But you owe a debt, mostly to yourselves, but in a small part to us. To try, to engage, to grow, to explore and experience. In short, to live a life with purpose.

These are broad strokes intentionally. There are innumerable paths you both may choose. Following any of those paths in earnest, with intention, grace, and maybe even a touch of serenity, will clear any debt that may be owed.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’ve been reading a lot about America’s favorite drink since my wife and I visited Louisville last week. And while on a lonely Thanksgiving overnight I found this gem by Wright Thompson.

The following is an excerpt from his book Pappyland (which I ordered immediately upon finishing the article). Multiple times throughout the short read I was struck not only by Thompson’s prose and command of language and imagery, but by the deep and meaningful themes he connected to bourbon.

The beauty of the holiday season in FL, you can look at Christmas lights in the park and still enjoy a snow cone

“A career that aligned with my deepest wants and protective urges, both in how it would let me roam and how it would let me avoid myself by diving into the lives of others. I’ve always been happiest when dreaming of escape. From my earliest memories, my greatest solace and focus came while moving, or planning to move, from small actions like pacing while answering flash cards to planning elaborate road trips I knew I’d never take. When I look back at my early life, everything I read and watched and love and hoped and even feared came from this desire to fly far away.”

The idea of avoiding oneself by diving in to the life of another is something I think journalists and maybe actors can relate to, but as Thompson points out everyone can get out of their own way by immersion into their craft. And if that craft is movement based (pilots, journalists who have to travel, or athletes) so much the better.

I wrote back in May about restricted movement. Whether it is injury for an athlete or quarantine or lockdowns, I think there is a part of all of us that wants to rebel against movement restrictions in any form. This is what led me to the world of endurance sports and specifically to IronMan FL 70.3 taking place in less than two weeks.

But more than just wanting to move when we are otherwise unable to, Thompson’s words capture an emotion that I think most triathletes and most pilots live with but struggle to balance and convey.

I look at my work schedule when it is posted each month and plan out adventures that may or may not happen in the layover cities I’m supposed to visit. The schedule often changes whether by my action, my company’s, or external factors like weather or maintenance, but I’m still always moving to a different city and some new adventure awaits.

Most of those adventures involve some sort of movement, a hike, a running path, a walk through a different city to a restaurant or bar I like. My next trip has a layover in Chattanooga where I’m hoping to get in a scenic fall 5k before stopping at a local diner with a desert case that would make the Cheesecake Factory blush.

Rode the first half of the IM FL 70.3 bike course virtually, and some zwift miles through the foothills of France

There is something protective about movement, or maybe there is something vulnerable in stillness. Either way, flying to another place, running or biking, even if it is stationary, moving always has a net calming effect for me.

There is a magical effect when I walk into an airplane that my problems seem to melt away. The airplane doesn’t solve any problems, and they are always waiting for me back on the ground, but flying has a way of lowering the volume on everything else in life.

Athletics have always held that same powerful effect for me. The wrestling mat or the jui jitsu mat has always been a special place almost spiritual. Like stepping into another dimension, where all your baggage gets checked at the door, I grew up Catholic and seldom felt that way walking into church. There is a special mental space only attainable by forgetting your fixation on first world minutiae, and trying to avoid being choked unconscious.

A similar state of mind occasionally becomes accessible to me after long miles on the road or in the saddle. No one is trying to choke me, but the mental struggle against my weaker thoughts, my faults and failings, match the physical struggle to just keep moving.

I’m excited to read the rest of Thompson’s work, and I’m grateful already for his illumination of an emotion that I can so keenly relate to and at the same time, have struggled to express.

I hope that you the reader can find the same solace and focus in whatever your craft may be, that many of us find in movement.

Thanksgiving day treadmill brick run that came after 2hrs on a spin bike

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Tag: wright Thompson

Debt

Bourbon dreams