There’s a sparkle to his eyes. He’s handsome, and has an All-American smile. (All-American unless the fascists have their way with they consider American.) When he’s talking, he comes off very dad-like, but that’s usually not why he’s talking. Sometimes it is. He’s an artistic widower – his collaborator died by suicide – and everyone he talks to has to know: what was that like?

For twenty years, I did not intentionally pay attention to him. I knew of him because I am saturated with zeitgeist, just like everyone else. His music was OK. He wrote pop metal rap, I like more punk-rap; screaming isn’t my thing. I could still rap along with his lines, because you could not have a radio and avoid absorbing the lyrics through osmosis. Then suddenly, over the summer, my kids took a deep liking to their music. I was baffled but OK with it. A new singer, new songs, and they like them even more.

Now he’s on a press tour, sitting on a couch next to a new lady. Everyone asks the same questions about grieving and moving forward – and the new lady – and gets the same answers. The stories are told in a conversational format, but it’s clearly rehearsed. He knows what he is going to tell you. He knows what he’s keeping for himself. Making it sound casual is part of the practice. I’m not judging – there is strategy to being in public. I’d cook in the spotlight he lives in. For reasons I’m not discerning, I’m an eager audience member of these interviews. I’m so curious, complicated new lady or not.

What was grieving like? He strikes me as though he’s having a friendly fight with fatigue regarding this topic. The interviewers makes a reference to a past project – and he smiles the way I do when someone references some previous version of my self who feels a little like a stranger, because time passed and I changed. He’s being to be a good sport. I’m uncritically indulging all of my curiosity, though he fronts a group I didn’t care about before this year.

I hadn’t heard that past project.

It’s called Post Traumatic. I pulled it up on YouTube music, an admission that probably costs me some credibility in the digital ecosystem where there isn’t really a good guy, just some middle people who bleed the content creators dry.

It’s good. If you’ve ever lost someone you cared about a lot, you’ll probably catch that vibe. It’s not so raw, listening to it years later, when I saw the guy with a genuine smile and happiness describing his current situation.

And then it clicks as to why I was so interested. I’m at the point in his story where the pain is resolvable, it’s possible to move forward, there’s new partnerships, vibrant creativity, and joy. He found new collaborators and is doing good work.

It’s relatable. For me, at least.

That arc of the story brings me a lot of peace.