We Are
For years Rachel and I would meet for a humorously serious late-spring breakfast meeting where we would plot out things we wanted to do that summer. The things we wanted to do devolved with our age and our parenting responsibilities. We focused on the achievable, yanked the piece of paper out of Rachel’s notebook and shook on it. She’d put it up on the fridge and we’d chip away at the fun throughout the summer. On a pre-kid summer we’d probably knock out 90% of the fifteen or so things on the list. In the throes of the pandemic we’d list eight things and maybe do three.
I find raising children to be a tremendously rewarding and overwhelming deal. It overwhelms a lot of the rhythms of childless marriage. It overwhelms the rhythms of one’s personal life. At some point the overwhelm is the rhythm. The previous rhythm is an afterthought or is just a weird pulse like when you realize the acoustic guitar from a quiet part of the song is still strumming all the way even though now all the distortion pedals and choir have been flipped on.
This year we changed things and we came out with statements. Statements about who we are as a family that could inform the smaller choices we made for activities. It all felt a little Jon McTaggarty. Jon McTaggart was the head of MPR for the lion’s share if the time I worked there and was a real piecharts spreadsheet values summit direction guidance type o’ leader. But boom, the meeting with Rachel was a success. We walked out with a nice little list: We are Jewish people, we are reading people, we are boating people, we are biking people.
What did that look this summer? We biked to breakfast a lot of Sunday mornings. I took two Fridays off from the job to actually go do temple stuff, not just drop the kids off at temple and go get coffee with Martin. I took two days off from the job to spend about thirty minutes on a canoe at Lebanon Hills. With reading. . .well more problems there. Even though I am not Jewish, that does not present as tangible a challenge to the “Us” being Jewish as my youngest not reading presents to “Us” being reading people. But we are getting there. And I am happy to say that now halfway through kindergarten, my youngest is well on her way to becoming a reader.
Why am I telling you any of this on December 26th, 2026. I don’t like New Year’s resolutions. I don’t like New Year’s resolutions because for too long I loved them. I loved the idea of a line in the sand. That line in the sand could be that I now take pictures of every receipt in my life. The line in the sand could be that I only drink on the weekends. The line in the sand could be that I’m vegetarian or that I practice bass an hour a day. But all these lines in all this sand don’t recognize that I am a beach. I will cross back across a lot of these rules and change them and evolve them and I like the image of progress, not of failed resolutions. And I am not even against resolutions, but parking them somewhat arbitrarily on December 31 seems defeatist.
As I was nearing the end of my time with my dear old therapist Kelly it was probably November and I told her that I thought I might wind things up with her by December and try yoga in the new year. Kelly said “why wait, if you think we’re almost done just start doing yoga.” I popped into Gentle Yoga with Laura at the Y that next Tuesday and I haven’t looked back. Life requires resolutions. Life requires north stars to follow, but I don’t think affixing those to just the turning of the year is wise. I write this now to think about some identity things that I either aspire to, or believe are already true about me.
I switched from Jazz88 to City Cast Twin Cities in the fall and the new job is much more self-reflective than the last job. It’s the first job I’ve had where on any given Wednesday at 9am somebody might say “Sean do you want to talk about Italian food in the Twin Cities at 10?” “Sean do you care about cross-country skiing?” “Sean do you want to talk about gift giving?”. It’s weird. It’s great. And my conections to these things need not be thorough, but it must not be fake or scripted. My integrity relies upon me being true about my level of connection, enthusiasm to any given topic. This has been clarifying and frankly, it is doing for me what City Cast Twin Cities aspires to do for our listeners and readers: be a better neighbor. It’s working for me. I’m doing things I wouldn’t have done before, I’m connecting with people I wouldn’t have connected with before. But it also has me thinking about what are my personal statements akin to the family statements that Rachel and I put togteher this summer. These values are all different sized but they matter to me and on this strip of non-work days ahead of me (not making a podcast again until January 5) I am thinking about them.
I read. I’ve been on magazines and newspapers and off phones for my night reading for years. But I never read in the daytime and struggle with books in general and fiction in particular. But every time I do read fiction I am grateful and I am enriched. I read fiction. I read in the daytime.
I am a James Baldwin completist. I’ve read I think three James Baldwin books and I loved them all. He is also the best clip artist of all time on social media. James Baldwin clip shows up? I’m watching. I’m forty-four years old. I can read every major word James Baldwin wrote before I die and why not? I think he is one of the world’s great thinkers and writers both in fiction and non-fiction. I’ll be chipping away.
I am active. I am an active motherfucker. My best friend Martin was pointing this out when we were talking about physical activity. But this is one of those things that I have to recognize isn’t in the process of changing for me, it has changed. I am generally involved in some amount of aerobic activity most days. Might just be walking the dogs. Might be my legendary slow one mile runs. Might be some biking. But this is not a plan, this is not an aspiration. This is a reality but it’s one I want to keep up with. I love moving my body. I love lifting weights with my trainer Michael on Thursdays. I am active. I am saying it now to stay active as other things shift.
I tell the truth. In a self-reflective job like being a podcast host I am expected to tell the truth. I acknowledge there will be editing, there will be self-censorship, there will be times when I keep my mouth closed. But I can’t actually keep my promise to myself and to the life I want if I lie in meaningful ways. Not every view I have is out in the open, but I know my truths and omitting them, adjusting them or ditching them when it’s convenient is not an option. I’ve known this for years but you have to re-teach it to yourself from time to time as you age and soften.
I music. Being a DJ gives you this direct relationship with music, multiple hours a day. Pick the song, listen to the song, hear the song next to another song. And now I’m not a DJ. I listen to the radio a ton. But I listen to a lot of podcasts too. This is undoubtedly the least music I’ve listened to in my adult life. Right now my primary connection to playing music is working with Big Trouble once a month over at White Squirrel. Heiruspecs is retired or on a monster break. I need music in my life. I need it in my life even if it makes no appreciable impact on my finances. I need it in my life even if it makes no appreciable impact on my public facing identity. When I am closer to music I am closer to the cosmos and I am better for it. I need to pursue music and I need to not make excuses for why I don’t.
I improve. I need to get my hands dirty in making my home and my community better. I have the capacity to learn how to improve things in my home. I have the capacity to improve things in my community not as fancy Sean McPherson but just as someone who cares and who wants the world to be better. I have enough of a moral compass to know what I think will help and I don’t have the excuse of being 100% overwhelmed by my schedule and my parenting duties. People far less resourced than me have helped far more than I have.
That’s my Ted Talk. Happy new year! Let’s celebrate the end of the year over at the White Squirrel on Saturday December 27 from 6-8 with Big Trouble.
And please give some listens to City Cast Twin Cities and No Brains, No Lightbulbs during your winter break!