Every year it happens in the same way: as soon as the buds come out, I wonder why I originally envisioned them to be so much bigger than they appeared. It’s only with the lilacs, which makes it initially the most disappointing. My mind recalls the bodacious bouquets of my childhood, when the blooms filled and spilled out of their vases to perfume whatever lucky room got to show them off.
As is sometimes the case, I jump the gun in judgment and in disappointment. I always forget how much those buds fill out once they burst into bloom, the way a bunch of balloons becomes something glorious from a paltry pile of rubber.
With these Korean lilacs – smaller of stature but just as potent of scent – the buds are even smaller, but manage to blossom into something full and eye-catching. But don’t take my prose for it, see for yourself.
Of course, these are slightly airier than their American counterparts, which truly fill out into a solid pom-pom of bloom. I like the delicate display here, however, especially at a time of the year when everything is shouting to be noticed.
These flowers only shout with their perfume, and it’s a delicious noise at that.
It is less sharp than the American version, and not so instantly detectable. It’s sweeter in other ways too, particularly when it deigns to re-bloom nearer the fall – something that is an occasional surprise at a time of the year when it’s most needed.
The form and structure of these shrubs are more manageable and neat than the usual lilacs we have here, and they are ferociously resistant to the mildew that creeps into the American hybrids, making them quite useful in the landscape.
Though they are just finishing up, they’ve lasted for a decent time. Some years their show is hastened by hot weather. There are benefits to when the spring cools down and pauses.
SHE HEARD THAT INTO EVERY LIFE A LITTLE OF IT MUST FALL,
SO SHE SPENDS HER EVENINGS PRAYING
FOR A LITTLE OF THAT SOUTHERN RAIN.
~ COWBOY JUNKIES, ‘OUTHERN RAIN’
The planning was just as important as the operation itself, and if we were going to pull it all off we’d need precision. Such things required tact and foresight, reservations and schedules ~ the very things I found most appealing to a proper Virgo. In the late spring of that year, we made our way to Boston to implement the planning stage of a European visit that would find us attending a two-part New York/Finland wedding of a family friend, while bringing Suzie back from Denmark after her year abroad had come to an end. We had survived, friendship-wise, through a steady stream of letters sent back and forth over the Atlantic ocean. Not that I had ever doubted our friendship or placemark in each other’s life ~ we were family and never to be torn apart ~ but a year, and half a world away, can change things no matter how much you hope it won’t, especially when you’re only sixteen years old. But before we made it to that reunion we needed to plan…
We arrived, in a bit of rain as I recall, at the home of Suzie’s relative Susan who would be joining us for the expedition. She was hosting the dinner in which we would begin to hatch the plan for our trip. There was another event that coincided with and gave additional impetus for the trip: a wedding in Finland for one of the first Ko exchange students. Now, part of our contingent for the trip was assembling: my Mom, Suzie’s Mom (in Boston while she was taking a course to become a Montessori school teacher), and Susan.
We sat at the table eating a delicious and simple tortellini plate while a Cowboy Junkies album played in the background. Plans were made, dates were plotted, and cities were designated. It was my kind of meal: good food and future planning. Surrounded by adults, part of me still wished Suzie was there, hanging onto our childhoods because what boy or girl can do such a thing alone, but part of me was giddy at being at the adult table. That part of me had never been able to wait to grow up. Now that I was entering adulthood, I was simultaneously enchanted and scared. Even so, I couldn’t wait. I wanted culture and worldly experience. I wanted to see what was beyond the small confines of Amsterdam, New York and the Mohawk Valley. Mostly, I wanted to see my friend again, see how we had changed, see where we might still go.
It had not been an easy year away for Suzie. I feared her sorrow and pain perhaps more than I feared my own. My hurts were petty and insignificant when placed beside hers, and what she had gone through terrified me. Losing her Dad so early and unexpectedly, then going to Denmark and being without her own family a few months afterward ~ I couldn’t get my head around how she could do that, but I remember talking to her about it, and how she said it might be the best thing after everything that had happened. She couldn’t know her new host father would die so soon after her arrival, and it must have seemed like she couldn’t escape death or shadow for that whole year.
In my usual knack for timing, my own brushes with suicide didn’t help matters, and in retrospect they feel foolish and selfish. I couldn’t see that then, and when Suzie called me around Christmas that year, when I was in a truly despondent state and had written as much to her, I pretended everything was ok when it really wasn’t. She jolted me into saving myself, at least for the moment.
A RIVER TO THE SOUTH
TO WASH AWAY ALL SINS.
A COLLEGE TO THE EAST OF US
TO LEARN WHERE SIN BEGINS.
A GRAVEYARD TO THE WEST OF IT ALL
WHICH I MAY BE SOON BE LYING IN.
~ COWBOY JUNKIES, ‘OREGON HILL’
Her name was in the Cowboy Junkies song still playing as dinner finished. It was an early-spring night. Winter had only just departed, but warmth was in the Boston breeze that accompanied some of the rain. We talked of castles and lakes, of a two-part wedding in New York and Finland that would unite two people, two countries and two cultures, and all the logistics of how it would work. For a quick moment, I felt a slight trepidation in going. Two moody teenagers don’t necessarily make for an easy way of getting along, even if we’d always felt like brother and sister, even if we were standing within the glow of a gorgeous wedding on a lake in Finland.
Outside, the rain slowed. At the table a round of coffee filled the space with the closing scent of a grown-up dinner party, of which I was now, ready or not, a part. I asked for the name of the CD that was playing and made a mental note of it for later. Memories were made from scents and music, as much as from love. A trip is only as good as its planning stages, and as we finalized our European plan, including a few stops in Russia, and a cast of characters whom I would quickly come to adore, I knew it was going to be good. Better than good; this would be life-changing.
LORD, YOU PLAY A HARD GAME, YOU KNOW WE FOLLOW EVERY RULE.
THEN YOU TAKE THE ONE THING WE THOUGHT WE’D NEVER LOSE.
ALL I ASK IS IF SHE’S WITH YOU, PLEASE KEEP HER WARM AND SAFE
AND IF IT’S IN YOUR POWER PLEASE PURGE THE MEMORY OF THIS PLACE.
THIS LIFE HOLDS IT SECRETS LIKE A SEASHELL HOLDS THE SEA,
SOFT AND DISTANT, CALLING LIKE A FADING MEMORY.
THIS LIFE HAS ITS VICTORIES BUT ITS DEFEATS TEAR SO VICIOUSLY.
THIS LIFE HOLDS ITS SECRETS LIKE THE SEA.
~ COWBOY JUNKIES ‘THIS STREET, THAT MAN, THIS LIFE’
After that dinner, when we’d gotten back to upstate New York, I found the Cowboy Junkies album ‘Black-Eyed Man’ and set it spinning on repeat as spring ripened into summer and the wait until our trip left me in a happy state of anticipation. I went to bed with the ethereal voice of Margo Timmins sounding over my prayers, and she woke me as the sun streamed into my childhood bedroom. The promise of summer tapped like the hawthorne branch against the window. There was other music that would come to personify that summer ~ ‘This Used To Be My Playground‘ for wonderful instance ~ but the Cowboy Junkies album would be the one that resonated the most. A collection of story songs that touched on the forlorn and the forgotten, it came with a lining of love ~ ambivalent love, but love nonetheless. It was a musical map of emotions, perfect for two haunted teenagers about to abandon their youth.
There had been many times when I wished Suzie had been with me during the year she was in Denmark. On New Year’s Day, faced with a house of extended family, I laid in bed dreading the walk downstairs and the social interactions that would be required. I didn’t have a name or explanation for such social anxiety at the time, and in the past all those holiday stresses were eased because Suzie was there. As soon as dinner was done I retreated upstairs and wrote her a letter. It was a habit I’d continued religiously because it was my only outlet during the maelstrom of a sixteen-year-old’s junior year of high school. As we finished the first part of the wedding in New York, and our plane flew us into Finland, I wondered whether I had revealed too much. It’s easy to pour your heart out to someone when they’re a world away. In a rare moment of unguarded non-planning, I hadn’t thought out how I might feel that someone knew everything I shared with the quiet non-response and non-judgment of paper and stamps, and that someone was returning to the States armed with all my secrets.
There was one quick moment of awkwardness that passed the instant we hugged, and it was the last time I’d ever feel awkward with her. A year apart, when we’d both had so much growing up to do, would change us more than we’d ever change between visits, and neither of us knew whether the other had turned into an unbearable asshole.
She had cut off her trademark ponytail while she was away. I would see it later that summer in a box, saved for a doll that her cousin would make. It was like a carcass, a body that had long ago let go of its soul. In that headless braid was our childhood, intertwined and neatly tied at each end, as if a colorful ribbon could make it pretty enough to distract from all the heartache it held.
On the night of the wedding, we held birch branches aloft in a make-do arch right after the happy couple had come ashore from being rowed across an impossibly-beautiful lake. It was the stuff of fairy tales, and felt far from our reach. We had not yet fallen in love with anyone, and neither of us was in any rush for it. We stepped out of the boisterous revelry for a moment and walked by the lake. What we were saying or talking about wasn’t important, at least not important enough to remember, and most likely we were just being silly and laughing, not quite ready to step into adulthood despite our ill-fitting grown-up outfits. (The picture here was taken before or after that quick walk.)
The green and silver tokens of the birch trees fluttered in the breeze. The lake, mostly still, barely lapped at its shore, asleep for the night. Far from home, in a land I’d never known, surrounded by happy strangers, I felt safe. Because of Suzie.
From that summer day she shared her grape taffy beneath a grape arbor, to the time she shut my fingers in the car window en route to ‘Mary Poppins’, from the late-night talks we had in high school, college, and beyond, through the moves and homes, the marriages and divorces, and all the births and the deaths, Suzie has been home for me. No matter what happens, no matter where we go, she is that space of safety and security, the one sure thing in a world of ever-receding certainty.
WE ALL GOT HOLES TO FILL AND THEM HOLES ARE ALL THAT’S REAL
SOME FALL ON YOU LIKE A STORM, SOMETIMES YOU DIG YOUR OWN
BUT CHOICE IS YOURS TO MAKE, TIME IS YOURS TO TAKE
They are in their full glory right now, but the “blooms†of a dogwood tree are one of those wonderful journeys of nature that begins in the high heat of summer, when the buds are first formed and kept hidden, secret, and as safe as they can possibly be. They stay in the tips of the branches, nothing more than a swollen end to indicate that something so precious is stored there, and if they’re lucky, and the winter winds aren’t too rough, they’ll survive into the spring.
As the days elongate and the temperatures ascend, they slowly unfurl, first with these bracts, then with the actual flower (the insignificant little buds barely seen here). Those bracts are what we perceive as the “flowerâ€, and in the dogwood’s case (not unlike another bract beauty, the poinsettia) they are where the real beauty originates.
A bonus is that they last much longer than an actual flower petal would, extending the vision of late spring prettiness they so magically encompass. The bright green of them will soon be a gorgeous light cream color, fluttering against a blue sky like so many butterflies.
Tomorrow night a dream comes true as I finally get to hear Betty Buckley sing live again – a first since the mid-1990’s for me, as I always seemed unable to coordinate enough to get to one of her shows. This time Andy is joining me in New York for her Saturday night performance at Joe’s Pub, and we are super-excited. Having been a fan since her triumphant reign as Norma Desmond in ‘Sunset Boulevard’, I’ve enjoyed every album she’s made, as well as her turns on the big and little screens. Yet I’ve always felt her greatest way of reaching people has been through live performance.
She’ll get to wow audiences across the nation when she takes the helm of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ later this year and I’m already plotting out how many cities we might visit to catch her in the title role. Though some of her work is decidedly (and deliciously) macabre (check out ‘Carrie’ and the upcoming ‘Preacher’), I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll make a grand comedienne – and she certainly has the vocal prowess to stun the largest theater into gleeful submission.
As for her performance at Joe’s Pub, I’ve already reserved a special spot on this blog for a write-up before we take our summer hiatus, so stay tuned for that. When you have the chance to hear an angel sigh, you must listen. For so many reasons Ms. Buckley has been that vocal angel for me, and tomorrow we’ll get to hear her take flight.
Here’s the blurb from Joe’s Pub:
Betty Buckley — the Tony Award winning Broadway legend — will return to Joe’s Pub at the Public to celebrate  Palmetto Records release of her inspirational new album Hope, recorded live at Joe’s last Fall. This exclusive four-concert engagement coincides with her debut as Madame L’Angelle in the  AMC hit television show “Preacher”.  The third season begins June 25.  The four concerts at Joe’s also preface her rehearsals this summer as she begins work for her starring role in the first National Tour of the smash Tony-winning revival of Hello, Dolly!Â
Highlights at Joe’s Pub will include the album’s inspiring title song by Jason Robert Brown, selections from the seminal jazz rock fusion group, Steely Dan; Buckley’s favorite singer/songwriters Paul Simon, T Bone Burnett, Joni Mitchell and Mary Chapin Carpenter and classic pop standards. Hope, Buckley’s eighteenth album, features her quartet of musicians including the renowned multi-Grammy-nominated Christian Jacob, Buckley’s long-term Pianist, Arranger and Music Director, and guitarist Oz Noy on guitar, Tony Marino on bass and Dan Rieser on drums.
Hope will first be available for sale at Buckley’s concerts. The in-store and online release date is June 8. Pre order for the album is available here.
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
MY GUY IS SENTIMENTAL,
HE’S ALWAYS FEELING BLUE
HE CAN BE SO TEMPERAMENTAL
AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT I SHOULD DO…
It’s hard to leave a good impression when you’re on the same album that birthed ‘Vogue’ and included Madonna’s first (and thus far only) collaboration with Stephen Sondheim. But when you throw in a silly song and awfully-affected vocal stylings, you’re practically doomed. Such is the case with ‘Cry Baby’, a song that adheres roughly to the theatrical bent of the entire ‘I’m Breathless’ experience, but is the album’s resounding dud. (Even ‘I’m Going Bananas’ was a notch or two higher on the low rungs of the Madonna canon, though that isn’t saying much.)
I DON’T WANT TO HURT HIS FEELINGS
BUT HIS OUTBURSTS HAVE ME REELING
BOO-A-HOO-HOOING ALL THE TIME
IF I TURN OUT LIKE HIM I THINK I’M GONNA
CRY BABY!
At the time, the whole world knew that Madonna was dating Warren Beatty. Whether or not this song is about him remains a mystery that will likely linger beyond the point where anyone really cares. Hell, we may already be there. But rumor had it he was on the whiny side, and this only fueled that fire. As for the musical merit of everything happening here, it’s catchier than it has any right to be, even if it gets bogged down by Madonna’s own boo-hooing, and it’s another character she can add to the rich pastiche of the whole ‘I’m Breathless’ brouhaha.
They bloomed later this year thanks to our lingering winter weather. They didn’t need to be so accommodating, as we stayed home on the Memorial Day weekend when they’d usually burst forth into full bloom all at once. I like the later bloom period. It slows things down. Let us rush madly through the end of fall and all of winter, but let the spring stay as long as she can. Let the beauty remain. As long as possible…
I spent the early-afternoons of many a summer in front of the television, watching the NBC soap opera line-up of ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘Another World’ and ‘Santa Barbara’. My grandmother had gotten me into ‘Days’ ~ the rest just naturally followed suit. They appealed to my ingrained love for all things dramatic. It also offered a cool respite from the hottest part of the day, and even as a kid I could appreciate the luxury of lounging in air-conditioned splendor, sipping languidly from a tall glass of sweetened iced tea, popping in a raspberry flavored piece of hard candy in-between sips.
These days, I’ve switched from soap operas to Real Housewives, from iced tea to prosecco, but the general idea of summer freedom remains. I paired this bit of bubbly stuff with a bowl of cherries, and it’s my new favorite thing. Sitting by the pool, lazily turning the pages of a book, and letting the day pass blissfully by…
Contrary to what many people might expect, I’m not high maintenance when it comes to a hotel room in New York City. What I want, more than a trendy hotel bar, billion-thread-count sheets or chocolates on the pillow is a simple respite from the street. A room, ideally with a view, that provides a comfort in a city that can be wild and crazy in the best and worst ways.
Fulfilling that for this weekend will be the Kimpton Hotel Eventi, which will be host to Andy and I while we attend a Betty Buckley concert, as it’s slightly closer to the venue than our usual Muse. The latter has always been wonderful, especially when seeing a show on Broadway, but it’s good to expand our accommodation knowledge, and Kimpton knows how to do hospitality right.
Whether it’s the Muse in Manhattan or the jewel of the Topaz in DC, Kimpton properties have consistently provided charm and a unique verve that sets them apart from other hotels. There’s nothing cookie-cutter about them, which makes each property a singular work of art. Best of all, their customer service has been impeccable.
Before the summer, and often during, rain is what keeps the gardens and the lawns and the trees alive. We do not mourn it or curse it just yet. Our summer has not yet begun. On with the last week…
Nobody wants to stand over a hot stove for anything more than ten or fifteen minutes during the warmer months, and that;s about the length of prep and cooking time for this easy summer pasta dish. I’m not going to bother with specifics – you can probably find it online, or Crotchety Carl can figure it out for you. This is just some olive oil, chopped onion, asparagus spears, a dose of prosecco, fresh parsley, then butter and freshly grated parmesan. It’s light, but surprisingly rich. Elegant and decadent. The very best parts of a coming summer.
(Important recipe note: it is mandatory to drink a glass or two of the prosecco while cooking. It won’t taste as good if you don’t.)
What is this summer’s popcorn movie? I’ve been out of the loop and ignoring the pop culture landscape of late. I think ‘Infinity War’ came too soon to be a proper summer movie. I’m looking for the next sleeper hit – like ‘The Others’ or some similar, off-kilter fare. Of course, I’m also willing to make-do with the return of Jurassic World, but the previews look too cheesy to be any good. (A dinosaur at the foot of a child’s bed? There’s just so much belief I can suspend.)
It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about a book, but Tiffany McDaniel’s ‘The Summer That Melted Everything’ is going to be a favorite for years to come, with pages already dog-eared for all the passages I want and need to remember. Even better, it’s a timely summer read, and, like certain songs, there’s something about the summer that makes it mean a little bit more.
“Why, upon hearing the word devil, did I just imagine the monster? Why did I fail to see a lake? A flower growing by that lake? A mantis praying on the very top of a rock? A foolish mistake, it is, to expect the beast, because sometimes, sometimes, it is the flower’s turn to own the name.” ~ Tiffany McDaniel
The summer of 1984 finds a small Ohio town besieged by both a heat wave and a little boy portending to be the devil. Such is the start of this exquisite novel, which and the promise of a powerful summer read is suddenly fulfilled. Reminiscent of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird‘ in the best possible ways, this is an updated take on morality and humanity, one that posits the impossible questions of what makes a person good and what truly constitutes evil. In addition to that eternal power play, there is McDaniel’s uncanny use of time, as she weaves tales within tales, shifting perspective and time frame in a way that never feels jarring. Even the smallest fragments of fables – such as the brief recounting of what the devil himself may have seen over his years – are powerful ruminations on what the world does to us, and what we in turn do to each other.
“I was once told writing in a journal could help me. Something about putting the pain on the page. So I got one and finished it in a day. I looked back to see what I’d written. Nothing but little lines, swooping and curving. Not one word. And yet didn’t it say everything? The way their smiles did? All the dark, all the hurt, scooped up, carried by curve.” ~ Tiffany McDaniel
I’m not going to delve into any more specifics about plotline or character, because it’s so much better if you read it yourself and enjoy each and every revelation. Then be sure to spread the good word. McDaniel says everything better than I ever could, so I’ll leave you with one of my favorite passages:
“Being the devil made him a target, but it also meant he had a power he didn’t have when he was just a boy. People looked at him, listened to what he said. Being the devil made him important. Made him visible. And isn’t that the biggest tragedy of all? When a boy has to be the devil to be significant?” ~ Tiffany McDaniel
This exquisite little scilla got lost in the rush of spring blooms, but I found the photos before too much time has passed and am posting them now because they’re pretty. Such beauty, coming as it does at such a desperate time of the year, is not to be wasted. These hardy souls fight through late snows and dire spring storms to bloom, usually with petals torn and tattered, spotted with mud and chewed up by rodents, but each year they come back for more. A hunger for life, and for putting on a show no matter how small, is commendable.
I didn’t mean to come upon them. That’s always when you find the best things. They were huddled together in a little clump, rising out of the brown expanse of a leaf-littered forest floor. My eyes picked them out of the forest because back then I could do such things. A single lobelia in a mile-wide meadow was the one thing I would see; a lone lupine on the side of the Thruway as we sped by at 60 miles per hour stuck out like a sore thumb. I’m digressing, moving further away from the memory I want to record here.
It was early June. The end of the school year was upon us, which meant that final exams were at hand too. In those days I didn’t stress much about final exams. If you paid attention and did your work during the year, what more could you do? I usually did well on them. Still, the older I got, the less I seemed to retain, so a look-back was a good idea, even as it pained me. Studying notebooks from the entire year is a big chore, and there’s a point when you can’t do it anymore, when your brain is going to hold all that it’s going to hold, a saturation point that simply won’t allow anything else inside. When I hit that point I stopped and looked out at what remained of the day.
The sun was still slanting through the trees behind our house. It was my favorite time to be out walking in the woods. I hurried down the bank, past the emerging patches of Japanese knotweed, then across a street to another wooded area, up that bank, then down into a slight ravine.
There, in the belly of the forest, in the midst of all the fallen oak leaves, was a nice-sized clump of jack-in-the-pulpit plants. They were part of my childhood lore, when Suzie’s family had them growing happily in front of their house. Each summer I’d study them, fascinated as much by their form as for their endangered status. There were even whispers that they had spread to the point that someone had dug a bunch out and threw them down the bank behind the house.
Now, in the wild, was a tiny collection of them, happily unnoticed by most eyes. I was grateful that I happened upon them. Given their endangered status at the time, I left them alone, content to keep the secret of their location while enjoying the visage they made against the otherwise brown forest floor. It was the perfect study break. Nothing clears the head as well as a brush with the sublime.
The jack-in-the-pulpit plant is a fascinating woodland native. It sends up spikes that unfurl into handsome three-segmented leaves, followed by the ‘flower’ which is a hooded spathe enclosing the ‘jack’ in a cloak of green. If left alone, it will develop a stalk of bright red berries. The specimen shown here was purchased on a whim, in one of those mass-produced plastic bags that contains a sad little dried-up root or rhizome that rarely if ever comes back to life, so I planted it in a shady nook and promptly forgot about it. Other plants took over; a carpet of sweet woodruff, a lacy dicentra, and a hellebore stole the focus, and so the unobtrusive leaves went unnoticed. A couple of years later the spikes emerged and I was pleasantly reminded that it was there. Now it’s a sight to which I eagerly look forward, coming as it does with such pleasant early-summer memories.
