Music has always made the people come together, and when certain songwriters access love and loss, pain and jubilation, and sadness and longing that aligns in lovely form with haunting melodies and vocals, it’s the synergy that moves my heart perhaps more than any other art form. No one does that better than Mitski, whose thoughtful and introspective lyrics match the delicate and moving sounds of her songs. She earns this Dazzler of the Day, because her music speaks of spring, of hope, of what happens when humans find each other, no matter how they end up. Check out her website here for upcoming performances.
Cherry blossoms, caught mid-way through their dressing process, have paused in their show, refusing to be coaxed out in such cold, windy weather. Their reluctance is matched by their companion foliage – the leaves also remaining tightly bound, coiled into themselves in the face of such inhospitable iciness. Everything and everyone is hesitant to appear without the promise of the sun – but there is never such a promise, only the hope… a fervid, intense, passionate hope that spring leans closer to summer than winter, even if we are not quite there yet.
Oh joy’s arise The sun has come again to hold you Sailing out the doldrums of the whole week The polyphonic prairies here, it’s all around you It’s all around you, out here
And if the whole world is crashing down Fall through space out of mind with me Where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising Blows all the shadows far away
Once the shadows depart, and the sun lets the sap start running again, a pair of ants will meet in the branches of a cherry tree. Maybe they’ve come from separate worlds, miles apart, finding each other compatible in a sea of millions where no other ant ever stood out. Maybe they’ve been nearby the whole time, simply unaware and unhappily alone without the other. A pair of ants is a wonder – an empire of ants is a metaphor. The human condition longs mostly for connection.
The falling alcohol empire, is here to hold you Rolling out and haunted ’til it sleeps
Little memories, marching on Your little feet, working the machine Will it spin, will it soar My little dream, working the machine
Soon like a wave that pass will fall And closing in on you they’re going on
A pair of ants in a world that seems hellbent on stepping on them finds themselves in a precarious position. Two against the masses, two against the world. So many odds stacked against them, so many obstacles standing in their way. Happiness is too often a thing of delicate fragility – take it when you can, before it blows away. Hold tight to each other, see yourselves through the night.
Little memories Your little feet, working the machine Will it spin, will it soar My little dream, working the machine
Soon like a wave that pass will fall And closing in on you they’re going on
Thalictrum rochebruneanum is the lengthy scientific name for what is more commonly known as lavender mist meadow rue, or just plain meadow rue. It’s an enchanting plant, one I’ve had for well over a decade and one that performs well despite some neglect due to its inconvenient corner location away from the more-frequented areas of the backyard. Its foliage is this beautiful mixture of shades and textures, a somewhat-underappreciated aspect of its overall magical effect. These leaves will evolve and change over the next month, turning more uniformly green with an elegant silvery sheen and almost grayish aspect, like the leaves of a bleeding heart (Dicentra).
When the flowers come later, in tiny light-lavender-hued single-baby’s-breath type blossoms, a cloud of blooms will envelop the tall upper echelon of the garden – sometimes six to seven feet high. I love a cloud of flowers, especially when they are as delicate and demanding of close inspection as the blooms of the Thalictrum. Watching the plant first emerge, cradling some rain droplets from a spring shower, is a gift of the season.
Spanish lavender is not reliably hardy in these rough winter parts, but their blooms are so enchanting I may plant some anyway. With its quirky blooms that look like a cross between rabbit ears and a pineapple, this is a whimsical bit of prettiness, thriving in drier climes and locations, and the perfect plant to lend some cooling aspects to a hot summer garden.
Somewhere in the gauzy shadowed world of Blanche DuBois, this song was sung in her thin, slightly reedy voice. Trapped in the hellish New Orleans cesspool of her only remaining family, she tries valiantly to conjure some bit of beauty in her small surroundings, and in the face of the brutish behavior of others. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire‘ by Tennessee Williams is a haunting work, as is its film adaptation. Humans are cruel to each other, I often realize, yet we still strive to make something of our lot in life, no matter how unbearable it seems to become. That sometimes comes in the form of a paper moon – an apt metaphor for how flimsy human kindness feels when juxtaposed with human brutality. But ahh, the light… the light glows no matter how dark things get – indeed, grows in power the darker the rest of the world falls.
You say it’s only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me Yes, it’s only a canvas sky Hanging over a muslin tree But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me
Without your love it’s a honky-tonk parade Without your love it’s a melody played in a penny arcade It’s a Barnum & Bailey world Just as phony as it can be But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me
Spring’s ephemeral delights are like that paper moon too. They aren’t designed to last forever, but while here they enchant and enthrall with a potency that rivals anything that might endure. Moreover, their power is such that they can change you forever, even if they are already gone by the time you realize it.
It’s phony it’s plain to see How happy I would be If you believed in me
When I was a boy, my childhood room looked out over an enormous thorny Hawthorne tree. Its branches softened that corner of the house; its thorns deterred would-be climbers, not that there were any lower branches to gain such a climb. In late spring, it would be filled with white flowers, not unlike the pear tree blooms seen here. Those petals wouldn’t last very long, especially if the weather turned too warm. At those moments, and on those precious days, the petals would flutter to the ground like falling snow – a magical effect that never failed to enchant me. Sitting beneath a flowering tree just as it is giving up its show is always a brush with the sublime.
Spring’s enchantments are usually fleeting – that’s an integral part of their charm. We chase them for their elusive nature. When caught, they are always worth the work, even when we know they won’t last, because beauty makes this world bearable.
Electric yellow sends a forcefield of energy through the spring air from the sun-reflecting Forsythia blooms. Indelible harbinger of the season, Forsythia doesn’t bother with subtlety or softness. Like its angles and sprawling form, its flowers are almost brutally glorious, shining like a hundred little suns, seen from even great distances, especially at this somewhat barren time of the year.
The palette of spring is not always pastels, and sometimes the most electric yellow combines with the powerful punch of violet, as in the pansy below. That’s when things really get lit.
Not to place any validity on astrology, but here’s something that came over my Virgo algorithm:
“The planners can’t plan, the fixers aren’t fixing, they stopped over explaining themselves, so if a Virgo in your life seems unhinged, honestly they’re not. They just realized they’ve been doing everybody else’s job this whole time and quit without notice.”
Astrological mayhem aside, these past few weeks have been a rollercoaster to match the fluctuating weather. Rather than rising to take the bait of getting riled, I’ve mostly managed to stay steady, staying true to the direction the universe has been nudging, and relying on comfort reading and daily meditation. The gardens have done their part too – my time spent in amending the soil and tidying up the backyard has been a type of meditation too.
I see the lilacs are finally in bud – the promise of beauty and perfume in the near future, while all the peonies have grown inches within days – more perfumed beauty in store. The ferns are already fast unfurling – once that first spell of warm days hits, followed by some rainwater, they quickly become unstoppable. This is how spring unfolds, very similarly from year to year, give or take a few days, and I’m reminded that there is no need to overthink everything.
Has anyone else ever pulled a pair of pants from the dryer and in complete exasperation realized they’re too wrinkled to iron or steam, and then just chucked them?
Comedian, songwriter, and unicorn lobbyist Shawn Hollenbach is crowned Dazzler of the Day on the eve of tomorrow’s performance at Rocks in Albany, NY as part of their Happy Place Comedy show. As a practiced host and storyteller, Hollenbach uses wit and a way with words to captivate audiences and put on a scintillating show. Check out his website here for the full story.
When the rain arrived at the end, or very beginning of the week, I found solace and escape at the local greenhouse, where this strikingly-shaded Mandevilla straddled that scintillating section between purple and pink, not quite committing to either, an teasing both out depending on the light and one’s angle. Before the rain, there were a few days of summer teasing – on with the weekly recap of that rollercoaster…
Whenever the day and the spirits turn to gray, the world turns upside down, and everything you once thought you knew reveals itself as something different, it’s the ideal opportune time to pause and take stock of what’s really at work. In my experience, the bulk of problematic ickiness that descends on certain rainy Sundays is largely a matter of perception – of perceived grievances and false attributions that our worst instincts re-enforce and perpetuate, our own minds actively working overtime to become our own worst enemies.
At such times I take to writing to make whatever sense I can of the moment. Putting it down on paper and working it out in words helps me organize and analyze – but even more simple and basic than that, it gets it out of my system. I literally let it pour out of my head, into my hand, then out through the pen and the paper that now holds a written testament to whatever is going on at the moment.
Sometimes all the universe wants is acknowledgement – a nod of recognizance that none of this is normal, and that all it was seen, and felt. Sometimes – at the most lucky times – this is enough to move beyond the muck of a gray Sunday.
