I’m at the beach right now – well, not at the beach right now – I’m at the hotel in a Delaware beach town. While the rest of my family sleeps, I am in the common area writing. This weekend is Father’s Day, it’s my second favorite Sunday of the year to give a talk, so I’m working.

But while we’re here, I watched a documentary on Amazon called Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, about a revolutionary skateboarding ‘team’ (probably more accurately called a skateboarding family.) I grew up with the VHS tapes and Thrasher magazine, so I am very familiar with skateboarders like Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, and Mike McGill, and the Bones Brigade.

Of course I knew the skating, the tricks, the video games, the impact and artwork, but as usual, that is only a small part of the story. In fact, they’re the least compelling part of the story. Lance Mountain and Rodney Mullen (the ones I didn’t know as well) were insecure and damaged, and the damage didn’t make them any less beautiful. What this film accomplished extraordinarily well, was to detail this time for these people – the highs & lows, the glory AND the heartbreak, the 1st place finishes as well as the times each quit and returned home. The depth and texture of reality made them even more beautiful, if that’s possible.

I think that’s what makes a person like ex-President Trump so difficult to embrace. He curates an image without pain, self-doubt, or flaws. He is only bombastic confidence and success, and that makes him appear like a caricature, like he’s attending a masquerade party where this is what a “man” says and does. I don’t know Donald Trump, and I know to mention his name in any context invites rage. But yesterday, he was in a courtroom to plead ‘not guilty’ to 37 counts and was described as humble and downcast, eyes down and hands folded in his lap. This snapshot of brokenness did what nothing else has, ever: humanized him. (Now, last night he was back to the character, so who knows?) He was far more relatable in the courtroom than he has ever been on a stage or television screen.

Maybe what made the Bones Brigade so honest and open with their fragilities and imperfections was the love they had for each other. Or maybe it was the reverse. Maybe they loved each other into vulnerability and authenticity, or maybe their vulnerability and authenticity opened the door into this deep love. It’s hard to imagine a football or baseball team that would have held Rodney Mullen with such kindness, grace and respect, or that would have been a family to him, where he was, who he was, regardless of his place in today’s competition. All of the members spoke with protective reverence of both he and Hawk as they both made the decision to not win as much, or at least not make winning the only goal.

All of these dumb cult documentaries I watch always leave us with a question: How does this happen? How do people get caught up in this insanity? And the answer is always the same, we’re all looking for community and relationship, and when we find it, (hopefully it’s a ground-breaking skateboarding family and not some crazy religious leader who only wants to sleep with the young girls in the group), we lean in. I’m pretty sure former President Trump doesn’t have a circle like that, who will accept him unconditionally, protect and walk with him – politics might not be the best place to find it. But these boys/men sure did, and they changed so many of us by simply building a home and letting us watch.