Early in the morning there is only birdsong and wind to bother the ears, which is the sort of quiet that allows garden work to become somewhat of a meditative experience. It used to take me a while to reach such a state – I was accustomed to noise and music and the general buzz of life making its monotonous roar. Once I started meditating, I learned to embrace the silence and enjoy the stillness. These days I can go outside and instantly adopt a meditative posture – deeper breathing, deliberate mindfulness, and the calm and tranquil countenance that, once engaged, builds upon itself – peace fostering peace.
More important is the combination of condiments at work, here we have some basic ketchup with a basic Peri Peri sauce, for a batch of fries we had with burgers the other night. I love the sort of reverse sunny-side-up egg effect accidentally occurred – the best art is sometimes entirely unintentional, and we have to be open to the whims of the universe.
Decades ago, before my first trip to London, I was at a dinner in Boston to plan for Suzie’s return. We would pick her up in Finland, joining a family group for a wedding. Suzie had been in Denmark for our junior year of high school – one of the more trying years in our lives for many reasons – and my Mom and I were joining Suzie’s Mom on the trip.
At that planning dinner in Boston the adults went over their plans, and though I didn’t quite feel like an adult yet, I was at the table, listening and watching and learning how to pass as one. It was there where I heard the Cowboy Junkies for the first time, and their album ‘Black-Eyed Man’, which quickly became a pivotal collection of songs in my life. This song spoke to me from the near future, when romantic entanglements would, if all went according to plan, cloud my trajectory.
If you were the woman and I was the man would I send you yellow roses would I dare to kiss your hand? In the morning would I caress you as the wind caresses the sand, if you were the woman and I was the man?
Lately I’ve been thinking of London, perhaps some wanderlust before the weather warms enough to get me outside more. Spring and summer usually calm the itch to travel, especially when the flowers start blooming and the pool looks like the only relief when the temperature inches into the 90’s. But London has been calling for years, and in my mind I went back to my first trip there, when I was just 21, on a group trip with all the tourist trappings, uncovering these photos, actually taken in Wales on our way from London to Dublin.
If I was the heart and you were the head would you think me very foolish if one day I decided to shed these walls that surround me just to see where these feelings led, if I was the heart and you were the head?
Whenever I could get away from the group, I ventured around on my own – sipping cups of tea, browsing bookstores, walking around Covent Garden and stumbling into magical puppet shops that may or may not have been real. London cast a spell over me then, and all I wanted was to share it with someone. The stupidity and futility of finding a boy halfway around the world impressed itself upon my mind; that didn’t stop me from hoping and wishing and wandering the gay bars to no avail.
Something made me certain I was destined to meet someone there, or find something, or discover some secret that would unlock my future. By the time we left London for Wales, I was almost panicked that it hadn’t happened, as if I’d missed something when maybe the thing I needed to learn was how to be on my own. In a way I had done that.
On my next solo trip to London several years later I was ok doing it alone, but this song still reminds me of that first trip, of London in the spring…
If I was the woman and you were the man would I laugh if you came to me with your heart in your hand and said, ‘I offer you this freely and will give you all that I can because you are the woman and I am the man?’
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen an item of clothing in an online ad and thought, ‘Oh, I want that… I NEED that…’ only to click on it and see it’s for a girl aged 3 to 5.
These hothouse orchid pics will have to suffice until the outside weather matches the fire of the inside heart. Might this be the week that we make the irrevocable turn away from winter weather? Temps are forecast to soar into the 80’s and even if they’re coupled with predicted rain, I’ll take it. The water tables need it, and the garden won’t complain. I’ve already done the majority of yard clean-up, so we’re back on schedule – not that I’m keeping a schedule anymore. On with the weekly blog recap…
I cannot find the original post, if there was ever one written. My memory is shot – I have to google my full name and whatever topic I’m trying to recall, then piece together what crops up – I don’t even remember some of my own words anymore. Fitting for a late-night look-back at childhood damage – maybe some things are better forgotten. They are certainly better when let go and released, however the fuck we’re supposed to effectively do that. Still figuring those intricacies out, still feeling my way into and then out of the muck.
Every view they hold on you is A piano, out of tune You’re an angel You’re a demon You’re just human Now your world has turned to trash Broken windows on the past Take that child, and teach him senseless Damage the dream, damage the dream I feel nothing, I feel nothing at all I feel nothing at all
Once upon a time a young man I adored, before I revealed my infatuation and scared him off, spent half the night on the phone with me – one of those early conversations that feels like the opening of a lifetime of happiness, electric with spring rain in the air, warm enough to leave the bedroom window open, and trying to find a comfortable phone cradle position in the hushed reverence of this early talk, scared to break the spell, not wanting it to end. He hinted at childhood terrors and read me a poem he’d written that had won an award. A hauntingly beautiful work, it made me instantly fall in love with him just a little bit upon hearing it. I knew enough not to mention that so early, even if I knew nothing else and would frighten him away anyway. I remember wishing we’d been friends as children, wishing we could have had just one person of safety and security in those tender years, wishing we could have been there for each other.
In this gloomy, haunted place All the feelings are of shame All the windows have been broken by the children So the wind screams up the stairs Slams the doors, and rattles chairs I wish we weren’t conceived in violence Damage the dream, damage the dream
The magic is broken The house is in ruins Your memory’s one-sided The side that you’re choosing feels nothing Feels nothing at all We feel nothing at all
Candy is seduction and promise – pure titillation and pure honey hope – the fabled, the fabulous, the albatross of fame flung so casually around the neck like some string of pearls – and Coco Chanel whispering always to take off the last thing you put on before leaving the house.
I’m gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder
Candy on a necklace, candy on a toss, candy on a bracelet, candy on a cross, candy on a kick, candy on a cock, candy on a prick, candy on a frock… candy as a reminder that rhymes don’t always lead to reason, that madness can sometimes be sweet, and temptation, when handled delicately, can be dangerous and divine.
Candy caught in the crosshairs of vulnerability, deciding how much is safe to reveal, deciding what is best kept concealed, and struggling to relax into being desired. She wanted it before untangling its problematic roots and shoots – sugar forged into glass – shattered and splintered into shards and razors and the possibility of pain and destruction – the slow bleeding out from a cut too fine to be felt or found.
I’m gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder
Candy coming on strong, oozing syrup and goo and sweetness – Candy coming on weak, tripping over her own trepidation – Candy coming on incorruptible in the pure innocence of original sin. Candy wanting only to be held, Candy wanting to be protected from the rain, Candy wanting only to be cared for – Candy always wishing and hoping and praying for something to be different, something to be whole.
What do you think I’d see if I could walk away from me?
May the skies be the only space where drama unfolds this spring season, and may the weather stay up there instead of down here. That probably doesn’t make much sense – if it’s happening up there it will eventually fall down here, at least as far as precipitation goes. I’m not a meteorologist, as if it needs noting, so nothing coming out of my mouth should make much sense as far as those things go. I do know a pretty sky when I see it, and even the grayest and most cloudy one has merit; often they are more interesting than a sky of blue.
This post is getting away from me before it even has a chance to establish itself. Some springs are like that too – they tease a day of warmth, followed by three days of frigidness. A cruel bit of bait and switch, and the sky refusing to give up its secrets.
This crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis) has not flowered in years, but I don’t grow it for decorative purposes – it is to keep away the critters who might eat up the single crocus we have left, with its powerfully-pungent odor. For just long enough until the crocus foliage can ripen and start dying back, giving food for next year’s bloom.
Who loves the wind? Who cares that it makes breezes? Who cares what it does Since you broke my heart?
This song by the Velvet Underground sounds more like summer than spring, but we need summer more than spring right now because winter is still creeping into the nights and mornings. Ephemerals are coming up even in the most frightful weather – the enchanting and all-too-fleeting hardy flowers whose delicate appearance is at odds with how tough they need to be this early in the growing season.
Who loves the sun? Who loves the sun? Not everyone Who loves the sun?
Who loves the sun? Who cares that it is shining? Who cares what it does Since you broke my heart? Who loves the sun? Who loves the sun? Not everyone Who loves the sun? Sun Sun Sun
Notoriously difficult to photograph, this little stand of Scilla siberica has faithfully delivered some of the earliest blooms of the season, despite threat of snow (and often several inches of follow-through). One of the steadfast spring ephemerals, it rises, blooms, and falls in relatively quick succession, completing its entire show by the time summer begins in earnest, then disappearing from view and mind until early next spring. There is something exquisitely tender and sweet to such an effort, made perhaps more poignant by its fleeting timeframe. Maybe such beauty simply wasn’t meant to last – maybe that would take away too much of what makes it so beautiful. My mind isn’t wired to accept such things, and for most of my life I’ve sought out only that which might last.
Pure folly. Pure foolishness. Pure fucking idiocy.
And so I endeavor to change my perspective, to shift my way of thinking, at this later stage of life. When beauty is too often the sole balm in a world gone so completely mad we must cherish and embrace it whenever it arises, no matter how quick and fast it may be gone. How could I have entertained the idea of not having such moments at all simply because they wouldn’t last? There is grace in the briefest exchanges of kindness and pleasantry, grace in the merest brushes with beauty and love.
If you’ve seen Druski’s deadly accurate skewering of a certain disingenuous blonde (whose husband was recently murdered, but not by the gun everyone said did the deed – awkward!) then you have witnessed some of the glorious genius of Druski. That alone was enough to earn him this Dazzler of the Day crowning. Check out his Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube pages.
