Real forgiveness requires taking responsibility, because real forgiveness is not complete in and of itself—it’s a first step. You forgive first to acknowledge your own or another’s wrongdoing, then to make a kind of peace with it—to lay it to rest because the past can’t be changed—and finally to move forward better.

Separation Sunday was the kind of rock ’n’ roll I’d been missing. Music that felt like an anthem crossed with a fistfight, a guided free fall—loud and cutting, but built with purpose.

My dad would buy standing-room tickets, the cheapest you could get. Come the second or third inning, he’d have us in seats down by the field, so close you could smell the grass.

avuncular,

Violence was the solution, problem, and consequence.

Stories matter to my family. My earliest memories are of my parents reading to me. Every time we moved, they always left our hand-me-down chairs and rickety tables on the curb, knowing they could get cheap furniture elsewhere. But the books were packed away in boxes and stuffed into whatever old, rusted car the family was driving that year.

Josiah Bartlett, a signatory of

Most importantly, I can’t deny that there’s something pretty great about making a dedicated space—just one hour a week out of your life—to express gratitude for what the universe has given you, to apologize for the ways in which you have wronged yourself and others,

Because on top of everything else Zeitgeist is a combination of, it’s also got a powerful Californian Wild West vibe. No saloon-style swinging doors, but rooms right above the bar, it’s got.