Fatherhood has ruined peace and quiet for me



I’ve been in Italy for the past 10 days, and I’m bored.

Yes, I’m bored, but not in the way you may think, and not for the reasons you may suspect. I haven’t been bored my entire time here.

My tolerance for input has increased since becoming a father, and now anything less than chaos is kind of a boring breeze.

The first week was packed to the gills. I was co-hosting a retreat centered around Josef Pieper’s "Leisure: The Basis of Culture." The days were full of stimulating, productive discussion with like spirits. Great food, great cigars, great beer, great sights, great minds, great insights, great developments. It was a busy week, a fruitful week.

But the retreat is over, and now I’m bored.

Missing the bickering

Why am I bored?

Because I am dull and just want to sit inside and watch television all day? No. I don’t like TV. Because I can’t entertain myself? No. I’m pretty creative. Because I don’t have a job or any obligations and thusly suffer from a kind of postmodern ennui? No. I have a job, that’s what I am doing here. Just yesterday, I drove eight hours south and will be here for the week taking photos for a photo book, writing, and working. I’ve been working ever since I landed.

So then, why am I bored?

Because I’m alone. My wife and kids are at home. All the yelling and screaming that I have become so used to over the past few years are on the other side of the world. The bickering over who stole whose toy first is still happening I am sure, but it’s out of earshot.

The endless questions about cars, trees and if we are going to get ice cream later have been paused. The nagging feeling about safety — that feeling that wears you down over the course of the day — is absent from my quiet mind.

Off-duty dad

I would think I would love this trip all alone: the chance to be free of fatherly responsibilities for a couple of weeks; the opportunity to focus on work without distraction; the chance to be by myself again. But I don’t love it. It was fine for a couple days, novel in a way, but now it’s just kind of boring.

My tolerance for input has increased since becoming a father, and now anything less than chaos is kind of a boring breeze. My love has expanded in a way that isn’t so easy to explain. It might be summed up by that feeling you get at the end of the day. You can’t wait for your kids to go to bed because you are exhausted and fed up, yet 25 minutes after they are sleeping, you feel the need to go into their room again and give them a kiss because you miss them.

What the hell is that? One of the strange feelings that only parents know.

Been there, done that

I’ve seen all this stuff before. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve already taken in all the vistas I’m taking photos of today. I’ve already experienced all this, and it doesn’t really interest me doing it alone. When I was 25 and single, sure. When I’m 38 with a wife and kids, not really. I’ve seen enough; I would rather show them.

Some guys have a fear of settling down and starting a family. They are afraid of getting trapped or stuck with no way out. In a sense, they are right. When you have children, you are trapping yourself. You are forced together as a man and a woman. You are stuck forever as a father. You cannot go back. Your life is no longer only yours. You will never be as free as you were once before.

Stretching the soul

It’s true in all the shallow, obvious ways. But it’s true in a deeper, stranger, more emotional way, as well. My soul has been expanded outward. It's broader than it was when I was just me. Yet, somehow, it didn’t become more shallow in the process. It’s actually grown deeper at the same time. It's one of the mysteries of love. It grows.

I am no longer contained in a tight little shell that follows me wherever I go. I want to bring my kids with me, not out of duty — though duty is, of course, important — but because I am kind of bored without them. Because I want to share my world with them. It's not because I love them — though I very much do — but because I like them.

From island to archipelago

I know that as soon as I get home, the chaos will hit me like a two-by-four right in the face. I will be forced to dole out instructions and mediate arguments. I will be exhausted by the time 8 p.m. rolls around. I will snap my fingers once and sternly tell them to stop whatever it is that they are doing. But in all of that, I will be whole as I know myself to be at this stage in my life.

Having a family means you are no longer only you. Your children are also you. Your sense of wholeness is deeper, yet more terrifyingly fragile at the same time. You are no longer protected and self-contained. You stop being an island and grow into an archipelago. What it means to be you means more than merely you.

That’s why I am bored here in Italy. I’m here, but it’s only one part, and I miss the whole thing.

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Morning sickness, Italian-style



My wife and I were in Italy when we found out she was pregnant with our first. We were so happy.

Then the nausea came. And it was bad. Real bad. It turns out my wife experiences something called hyperemesis gravidarum during her first trimester.

I remember standing in the bedroom telling her in quite forceful language, 'You have to eat. There is no other option. You need to eat to survive.'

Basically it’s extraordinarily terrible morning sickness. We didn’t know it was a thing at the time. It was only years later and another kid later that we realized there was a name for it and that what she experiences isn’t just normal morning sickness.

The technical jargon doesn’t really matter, though. That there is some designated medical term to describe her grueling morning sickness isn’t really relevant to any of this. The point is that she gets it bad, real bad. And we had no idea what we were in for when we found out we were going to be parents.

Italian for 'bagel'?

It was February. We were staying at an Airbnb in a small town named Loiano about 40 kilometers from Bologna. We were there for three weeks. Every day I would walk to the little grocery store in search of anything my wife could stomach. She felt like she was going to vomit constantly. All day, all night. That’s how it is for her during the first trimester. All she wanted was a bagel, but there are no bagels in Loiano. The closest bagel was probably somewhere in Paris.

I walked to the pharmacy a couple of times to try to get her some medicine to alleviate the sickness. Pitifully fighting through the Italian language, I tried to communicate to the pharmacist what we needed. He gave me some stuff a couple of times, but it never seemed to work for my wife.

She didn’t want to eat at all. I remember standing in the bedroom telling her in quite forceful language, “You have to eat. There is no other option. You need to eat to survive.”

Bed rest

She didn’t leave the Airbnb for 10 days. My job was basically running around town trying to find food she could eat, medicine that might make her feel better, returning the rental car to Bologna, working, cleaning, and trying to figure out some way to make her anything other than miserable.

Everything was melting down. I remember one night her telling me that she didn’t know if she could handle a plane ride because she felt so terrible. We sat there trying to brainstorm any kind of solution. “How are we going to get back home?”

I think about that trip a lot. It was a turning point in our relationship. It was the last trip we took as people without kids and the first trip we took as people with kids. It was the first time we had to really work together in a different, more adult kind of way.

We had to solve these problems together in a way that we never had to before. It was the first time I really saw her in a bad state. Really worried. Really just not herself.

Welcome to the team

It was our first introduction into what your life is like as a parent. You are part of a team in a way you never were before. You’ve got to get the job done, and your feelings matter less than they used to.

We have different feelings about that time. My wife hates thinking about Loiano. When I dare utter the name, she winces in pain. All she remembers is being sick. I have different memories. It was hard, of course. I was busy doing everything I could on my end to try to help her while also getting my work done. Someone needs to pay the bills. But I wasn’t suffering like she was.

I have fond memories of walking in town to get more groceries in hopes of finding something she could stomach. The low winter sun. Long shadows. The brown grass and bare branches. The quiet streets in this small Italian town.

Standing on the balcony at 2:30 a.m. after I had finally finished my work, drinking bourbon, watching the lights of a car heading down the small country road far in the distance. The big, bright moon overhead.

Growth mindset

That was six years ago. I’ve grown a lot since then. I feel like a different person in a lot of ways, because I kind of am. I said that time was hard, but it wasn’t really. It only felt hard because I was pretty weak. I wasn’t used to solving real problems. Now, after having a couple of kids and managing a lot worse stuff, Loiano would be child’s play for us.

But we can’t go back and live life again with the knowledge we have today. To look back and see our past worries as simple or our old stress as quaint is a good thing. It’s a blessing to remember and realize that we were different then from what we are today. We’ve grown, learned, lived, and aged. What wonderful gifts those are.

The Talented Mr. Malaparte

Curzio Malaparte was the Ernst Jünger of the Italians. They were born three years apart, Jünger in 1895 and Malaparte in 1898, and the outlines of their biographies are oddly similar. The son of a bourgeois businessman becomes the soldier who fights with honor in World War I. He returns from the trenches as a wounded and decorated veteran, and an enemy of democracy. In the 1920s, he is acclaimed as a writer and develops his own theories of national socialism, but he is at odds with his country’s dictator in the 1930s.

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Italian soccer player collapses on field after attempting to play with head injury



Fiorentina forward Moise Kean was taken to a hospital after he attempted to play despite taking a knee to the head.

During a match with Hellas Verona on Sunday, Kean was battling for the ball when he was pushed to the ground by an opposing player. While on the ground, Kean was struck in the head by the knee of oncoming Veronas player Pawel Dawidowicz; Kean immediately fell to his back, holding his face in his hands.

According to reports, the Vercelli, Italy, native was treated and then allowed to return to play.

However, video later captured Kean stumbling before eventually collapsing on the field as teammates and opposing players urgently called for medical staff to come onto the field.

Kean was soon put on a stretcher by a group of paramedics and carried off the field, then was immediately taken to a hospital. He was seen, according to Reuters, wearing a neck brace.

"Fiorentina announces that ... Moise Kean, during the match against Verona, suffered a head trauma. [He] is in hospital for tests," the team announced following a 1-0 loss.

Photo by Image Photo Agency/Getty Images

'... tests all produced negative results.'

Fiorentina revealed early Monday that Kean had been discharged from hospital less than 24 hours after he was admitted. He was tested for unknown conditions and subsequently released.

"ACF Fiorentina can confirm that Moise Kean was discharged from hospital in Verona overnight and has returned to Florence," the team said, per the Guardian. "Medical and diagnostic tests all produced negative results," they added.

The incident occurred a little over two months after Fiorentina midfielder Edoardo Bove collapsed during a game after losing consciousness. He was soon subjected to emergency surgery to implant a removable defibrillator to prevent future cardiac arrest.

The implantable cardioverter defibrillator is reportedly not permitted in Serie A soccer, where Fiorentina plays, and would need to be removed for Bove to play in Italy.

Kean is second in Serie A in goal-scoring this season with 15 goals. He is just 24 years old while, Bove is just 22 years old.

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A post shared on Facebook claims billionaire Elon Musk said the Japanese should stay in Japan and Italians should stay in Italy. Verdict: False There is no evidence for this claim. Fact Check Social media users are claiming that Musk said that Italians should stay in Italy and Japanese should stay in Japan. One user wrote, […]

Migrating Mona Lisa and a $50 van Gogh: Two controversies that have the art world in hysterics



Two controversies have just flipped the art world on its head: The “Mona Lisa” is apparently leaving the Louvre in Paris, France, and a long-lost van Gogh painting has experts at odds.

Pat Gray and the “Unleashed” team unpack the reports.

The Louvre — once “the most famous, most exclusive art museum in the world” — has apparently become “a run-down dump,” says Pat. “Paint is peeling off the walls; the temperature control system isn’t working … which can ruin the art.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has announced that renovations are under way, with a special space being created for da Vinci’s masterpiece.

However, Francesca Caruso, the regional assessor for culture of Italy’s Lombardy region, has since suggested that the painting be returned to its original home in Italy.

“Leonardo represents Italian genius. Milan would be an ideal location to display the work,” she wrote, noting that the Winter Olympics, which Milan will host, is just a year away and is sure to elevate tourism.

On the other hand, a French king — Francis I — purchased the “Mona Lisa” in 1519. It has been hanging in France’s Louvre for over 200 years.

Regardless of who ends up with one of the art world's greatest treasures, it’s likely that this tug-of-war wouldn’t be happening if France were a thriving nation — that is, it did not open its borders and implement socialism.

“You open the door to socialist policies, you put your country in a position to pay for everything, you don't have a big enough tax base for this utopia, so … you have to import cheap labor from third-world countries, and here they come from North Africa and the Middle East, and what do you got? You got an entire continent that's been overrun,” says Keith Malinak.

The second controversy that’s shaking up the art world involves a long-lost van Gogh painting that was purchased for $50 in 2016 at a garage sale in Minnesota. It took expert analysts at the New York-based LMI group years and $30,000 to verify its authenticity, but their recently released 450-page report has declared that it is indeed a product of the Dutch Post-Impressionist master.

Titled “Elimar” after an inscription on the front of the canvas, the work is believed by the art data science firm to belong to Saint-Rémy, now called Clinique van Gogh — a collection of paintings van Gogh made during his year-long stint at Saint-Paul sanitarium, during which he was a self-admitted patient.

However, the Van Gogh Museum, the ultimate authority on van Gogh paintings, has denied the attribution to the Post-Impressionist painter, deeming the LMI group’s report insufficient.

The painting is “thought to be worth over $15 million” and will soon be up for auction, says Pat, calling the entire ordeal “bizarre.”

To hear more on these two art controversies, watch the clip above.

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