On Beauty, Usefulness, and My Father
When I was very young, the certainty that I was adopted consumed me. After learning about adoption, I’d convinced myself that my parents were both biologically unrelated to me and keeping me in the dark about it, though I’m sure I’d never have been able to suggest their motives for this at the time. That my mother and I are nearly identical (and that this was apparent to everyone, even strangers on the street) threw a wrench in the theory. We’d check out at the grocery store and the cashier would say “you all could be twins; she’s your mini-me.” Though I considered the possibility that Suzanna had slipped the lady a nice, crisp, twenty prior to our arrival, the thought that my mom would expend the effort to drive to the grocery store twice in one day was implausible, even to four-year-old me. Aware of the basic mechanics of pregnancy, I submitted that I was at least related to my mother, but all bets about my father were off.
When I think about my father, I think most about his awareness of himself in space and time and his intentional appreciation of art. The former was a source of stress for me throughout childhood. My dad was constantly telling me “watch your back” in public as I stepped on feet and walked backwards into strangers. We couldn’t leave the house together without my eventual realization that I was in everyone’s way. Before the term “manspreading” entered our cultural lexicon my dad explained to me why I needed to hold my backpack on my lap on the subway, not put it next to me or on the floor. He explained why when we were only two people, we shouldn’t ask for a booth at a crowded restaurant, and why we stand on the right side of escalators and walk on the left. His awareness of time is similarly keen. He would, I found out in my teenage years, mentally block out driving time to have important talks with me. His travel time was never wasted; phone calls were never too lengthy. When we went on vacation he woke up early and polled everyone to find out what we wanted to see, then planned our routes through Epcot and Magic Kingdom with an eye for our desired rides, special park shows, and a convenient break time near the good restaurants and bathrooms. My stepmother and I, to this day, make fun of him for insisting that we all wear tennis shoes on family vacations so we can power-walk comfortably.
His artistic sensibilities are even more definitional in my understanding of him, and though I noticed them later, they existed before I ever knew him. When I was younger they disguised themselves as an ancillary part of what I perceived to be his type A-ness. He made us sit for hours rearranging Christmas lights for the family holiday card. He had oil portraits commissioned of me and each of my siblings when we turned six, forcing us to sit still while the artist took photos from which she might paint. As I grew up I began to understand that this attention to detail was less reflective of latent OCD and more reflective of my father’s thoughtful appreciation of beauty. In college he took art classes, and once when I was in high school as we ate lunch outside on a restaurant patio, he spent fifteen minutes explaining the concept of negative space through the example of the tree limbs surrounding us. I have one of his paintings in my room right now. When he was in high school, he acted; he went to the Governor’s School for theater, and has told my brother, sister, and me that he thinks everyone should try acting in a play or musical at least once. This summer while in New York, he pointed out to us that musicals that have been running for a few decades seem to have more elaborate sets; he’d noticed that lately the newer shows trended towards a more minimalist design. When we watch family movies together, my stepmother, siblings, and I are sometimes treated to a commentary on the intended effect of a particular Hitchcockian camera angle, details my dad learned to notice in college film classes.
As I mentioned, I assumed my father’s attention to aesthetic detail was a symptom of the same obsessiveness that led him to schedule every minute of his day and be so precise with his use of space. Though I think now that they may be separate things, the two work together in ways that have become familiar to me; they have shaped how I see and evaluate the world. My father sells houses for a living. This probably seems irrelevant, but in fact he has made his job into one that marries the two things I appreciate the most about him. He will notice artful crown molding — but he will also notice if a house does not flow properly, and suggest a solution. What good is beauty if it doesn’t make sense in space and time? I have memories of being on boats with him as a child as he described the best part about them: you have only as much space as you need. Everything folds up into itself. When he designs advertisements for houses he’s been hired to sell, he takes note to explain to me that he matched the color of the font to the color of the sky in the photo.
My personal conception of art allows for the idea that it need not have a purpose. An abstract painting is still a painting, and the song “Glass Onion” by the Beatles is mostly nonsense, but it is still a Beatles song. However, if beauty happens also to be practical, does that give it more worth? I came to college intending to major in English and math; though I had not realized it until I was asked in college why I enjoy these subjects, I always found both to embody this type of artful practicality I hold in such high esteem. When a sentence in a novel uses no extra words, it is certainly more beautiful than it would be were it longer. Mathematicians call proofs that are clean and nicely ordered “elegant.” How wonderful to explain an idea or solution in as little time as possible, taking up only the space that you need!
This past summer my parents and two younger siblings, like a large swath of people across the country, became obsessed with the musical Hamilton. During the month of July I regularly sat with my parents in our living room and watched my younger brother and sister rap-duet about the American Revolution along with the soundtrack. Still basking in disbelief that he saw the musical while we were in New York, my dad, once again, talked through the minimalist set, creative use of bodies in space, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s clever lyrics. “A lot of hip hop involves wordplay like this, Dad.” “I like that it teaches the kids something about history too, though!”
