I Tell You What

I TELL YOU WHAT

Things I Know Now That I Didn't Know Then

I used to think getting older meant eventually finding out what was going on.

I am older.

I would like to speak to a manager.

At sixty-three, author, musician, and lifelong question-asker Tim Bryant has discovered something surprising about wisdom: most of what he thought he knew was either incomplete, entirely wrong, or considerably funnier than he realized.

In I TELL YOU WHAT, Bryant takes readers on a wonderfully unpredictable journey through the people, places, mistakes, miracles, and ordinary moments that shaped his life.

From a childhood in East Texas to the music clubs of New Orleans, from near-misses with record deals to the extraordinary business of raising children, from losing his closest friend to finding love when he least expected it, Bryant examines the beliefs he once held with absolute certainty-and the truths that eventually took their place.

Along the way, he wrestles with faith and doubt, Christianity and Buddhism, friendship and betrayal, creativity and loss, mortality and the possibility that death isn't quite what we've been taught to believe.

He also discovers that some of life's greatest revelations arrive in decidedly unremarkable disguises: a stranger's hand on an escalator, a ride home in his parents' backseat, a box of crackers, a child's imagination, or a sandwich worth remembering.

This is not a self-help book. There are no seven steps to enlightenment, no instructions for becoming your best self, and absolutely no guarantee that the author knows what he's talking about.

What it offers instead is something more personal: a lifetime of stories told with disarming honesty, irreverent humor, hard-earned tenderness, and an abiding belief that love matters more than having all the answers.

Part memoir, part spiritual exploration, part conversation with an old friend, I TELL YOU WHAT is about growing older without growing finished, learning to let go without giving up, and discovering that joy is possible even when life refuses to cooperate.

It's a book about what we lose, what remains, and what we carry with us.

And ultimately, it's about finding enough peace with the mystery to enjoy being alive.

Because some truths take a lifetime to learn.

And some were there all along.

I TELL YOU WHAT: Things I Know Now That I Didn't Know Then

A funny, moving, and unexpectedly hopeful book about the extraordinary adventure of being human.

Written by Tim Bryant

Published by Marfa By Water Press