Snow arrived swirling and accumulating the other morning when I woke up – thankfully it had largely melted by the time I drove to work, but the emotional wear and tear of this atmospheric rollercoaster had already worn me down. We are tired of this – winter had its time, this should be spring. Bring on the warmth so we can clean up the yard.
Andy had already opened up the pool, and it’s probably colder than the 47 degrees it was at before the drop in temps. Still, it’s nice to see some blue, even if it’s not in the sky.
Shades of pink and lilac swirl in layers of tulle and lace, the sheer refinery playing beautiful tricks on the eyes. A cloud of color billows about and behind – maybe it’s the dress, maybe it’s the perfume, maybe it’s the illusion of pink. A portal to the past reveals itself in every bubble – it’s the bubble of self-awareness, the bubble of knowledge, the bubble of realizing that maybe you’ve been wrong.
Ah, but the truth has a way of seeping on in Beneath the surface and sheen And blind as you try to be Eventually, it’s hard to unsee what you’ve seen
Galinda’s transformation in the ‘Wicked’ movies is shrouded outwardly in pink fabulosity, shimmering with ethereal beauty and sparkling wands, but doesn’t fully take hold until she dons a black cape, muddy boots, and rides out in the night to help her friend. By then it’s too late, and sometimes life is about accepting the way that your choices have played out, making the best of circumstances that were never quite what you wanted or expected. It’s never too late to change, to become something better than you are today, even if nothing else changes. You can be different. You can be better.
And so that beautiful girl With a beautiful life Has a question that haunts her som?how If she comes down from the sky Giv?s the real world a try Who in the world is she now?
Does it feel a little frivolous in a world on the seeming edge of nuclear war? Perhaps, but think of the burnt bagel theory: if the worst thing in your day is that your bagel was a little burned, that can feel catastrophic. Not saying it’s right, just saying that comparison works in myriad ways. Usually it’s the thief of joy; sometimes it can be helpful. We want so badly to make sense and order of the world, especially when it makes us feel yucky, or we feel like we have failed. Revelations and transformations are difficult, especially when they start to change lifelong archetypes and beliefs.
And though so much of her wishes that she could float on And the beautiful lies never stop For the girl in the bubble, the pink shiny bubble It’s time for her bubble to pop
For the popular girl, high in the bubble Isn’t it high time for her bubble to pop?
Music lends itself to spring moments, and this song touches on beauty, one of the themes of this lilac season. Here is our growing, and increasingly eclectic, playlist:
Andy mentioned the angel’s trumpet in passing a little while ago, and maybe this is the year we bring them back – the first year is really just the planning – their show usually happens after overwintering for a year or two, when they can develop roots and trunks and soar like small trees, dangling their sweetly-lemon-scented blooms in the nights of summer.
Two other arms around you now,
Some other love has found you now!
But when love forgets to smile,
My darling, once in a while,
Remember April and lilacs in the rain!
For now, the lilacs will have to do, and they stand on their own perfume-wise. I’ve been afraid to examine our lilac trees to see how many buds might be present – there’s nothing other to be done whether they are full or scant, and lately I’ve been focusing on what is real, what is present, what is at hand – a method of mindfulness that fills the head-space when overthinking runs the risk of overtaking.
The previous sentence dangles there without a proper ending. It began in such busy fashion and then just petered out. Playing with words is merely an excuse for disguising something deeper, something more vulnerable and telling. Lilacs evoke such sentiments – they have me spilling secrets of the heart’s desires, and the heart’s hurts. That’s why this post would have never stood up to the unforgiving light of day; there wouldn’t be enough shadow to shield…
Signifier of spring, the robin is a perennial totem of hope. One usually builds a nest near the house, sometimes in a most inconvenient place that occasionally needs to be taken down before it goes up (if they’re too close to a door or entryway, they would not allow us by once the eggs get laid). The last few years we’ve reached a reasonable compromise – they’ve taken to the Wolf’s eye dogwood tree, the climbing hydrangea’s arbor, or somewhere in the Thuja wall. We are still less of a threat than the hawks or crows, which have heartbreakingly raided nests in the past.
The circle of life often feels most perilous in the spring, when everything is still tender and raw.
A record of a lesser-known musical titled ‘The Most Happy Fella’ by Frank Loesser peeked out at me from a bin at a downtown Albany thrift store. A lovely-enough introduction to an operatic excursion, the few song excerpts I found online illuminated why it never made much of a lasting splash, but there is beauty in this song, and the atmosphere provided by the Percy Faith treatment fits in well with this beautiful lilac spring we’ve conjured to gain some traction out of this recent hazy winter.
Without words, the music creates atmosphere over distinctive scenes or plot points – evoking a feeling, a sense of something, a hint of emotion – and the rest you can fill in from your own earned experience. What does it sound like? Where does it place you? It is possible to believe you’ve had an experience just by hearing certain songs, even if you’ve never quite had it. Music does that, even in the most trifling song, if you let it, if you give it the space to live.
When I look back at my life, it’s mostly been just a bunch of damage control. That was going to be a quick ‘Tiny Threads‘ entry, but it’s such a profoundly humorous statement it deserves its own blog post. So here we are, and here it is. Making something out of nothing – words to paper, paper to laptop, laptop to blog, blog to you. A small chain of events that brings me from the cafe in which this is being written to whatever device you find yourself skimming and soon skipping due to this unimpressive tedium.
It’s what I have to so often do when my mouth runs away with too much truth, when my words cut a little too deeply, when the good-natured ribbing hits differently depending on the recipient’s day.
{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.}
He’s a pretender, he knows just what to say He’s a pretender, you meet him every day He’s a pretender, that fish that got away he’s a pretender, why’d I fall in love?
Pure 80’s synth pop prettiness, ‘Pretender’ is a relic that doesn’t completely stand the test of time, but we all seem to be in an 80’s celebration, and it’s good to have a reminder that not every Madonna song is going to be everlasting. This one still has its charms, and it brings me indelibly back to the days of 1985, when we rose around in a station wagon and the ‘Like A Virgin‘ album sang of things we’d never known at the ripe age of ten.
It was so strange, the way he held my hand I wanted more than just a one night stand He had a way of making me believe that he was mine and that he’d never leave. I know that I should take my friend’s advice Cause if it happens once, you know it happens twice If there’s chance then I know I’ve got to try I’ll make him dance with me, I’ll make him tell me why.
The betrayal of the protagonist of ‘Pretender’ was very much one of those things, but Madonna sang with such forlorn bitterness and convincing hurt that I felt I already knew that brutal sting. Maybe it was a presentiment of rocky romances to come? Maybe just a shared love of the dramatic? Or maybe just a hooky pop tune of the 80’s, with a bombastic bridge crafted as deftly as anything Taylor Swift has ever erected.
I’m not afraid to fall a hundred times And I’ll believe in all your silly lies I’d like to think that I could change your mind Don’t say that I am blind, I know all about your kind.
When I was all of ten years old, I thankfully had no idea what a song like ‘Pretender’ might be about – my romantic trials and tribulations wouldn’t start wrecking me for another decade. And maybe it does stand up to the test of time – betrayal still being very much a part of the mess we call humanity.
Surely there is a market for my used underwear, no? Inflation is killing us, gas prices are killing us, this economy is killing us – thanks to fuckwad Trump. Once upon a time I could have garnered a semi-decent living from this sort of thing, but OnlyFans arrived in my lifetime twenty-five years too late. Used underwear shots are about all I can muster these days, and it’s more than anyone wants to see, but I don’t care. This is life. This is reality. This is the here and now.
Yard clean-up has always been a meditative exercise for me. It brings me back outside, where the only sounds are distant lawnmowers, birdsong, and the occasional clawing of squirrel nails on our wooden fence. For well over a decade, I had the same game-plan for the clean-up – start in the side yard and make my way slowly around the perimeter from the side yard to the backyard. This year I’m moving from section to section to keep things interesting, jumping across the yard to remove the debris around the Lenten rose first, then the fern stand beneath the dogwood where our Narcissus are showing buds finally. I’ve pruned the lace-leaf Japanese maple by the pool filter so Andy can access that easier, and I’ll hit the front yard hydrangeas next.
Also new these past few years is a slower rate of this whole process. Previously I’d tried to bang it all out in a single weekend, but the body is not what it used to be, and protecting my back and winter-rested/unexercised muscles by taking my time is a welcome change.
From sweaty underwear to geriatric diatribe – I love the rollercoaster way this blog ebbs and flows.
The Easter Bunny and I have been trauma-bonded since that fateful photo shoot in the former Mohawk Mall, in which I was held against my will on a terrifying bunny’s lap. Of course you will get that shot below, because it’s everybody’s favorite fucking picture of me, people being gratuitously thrilled whenever I’m in peril or in uncomfortable situations. Maybe that’s why nothing fazes me anymore – you’ve all worn it out of me over the years.
Since no one was going to even bother protecting me from my fears, I was forced to face them head on, from the moment they paraded me into the dim lair of this Easter Bunny from hell to all the other hellish events I fought against over the years. And don’t tell me you didn’t know I was terrified – it’s on fucking film! (See below – that’s not a happy or calm kid.)
This simple crocus has always felt rather magical in the way that it just sort of pops up without advance notice and blooms, often earlier than I’m able to get out into the yard for spring cleaning. This year I almost missed it, but Andy took to opening the pool in record time when we had pair of days above freezing, and I ventured out to find it in full flower, bravely sending up its floral signal even before its foliage fully unstrapped itself.
Out of a hundred corms that I planted one fine fall, this lone crocus is the only one that survived the hungry greed of rodents in the area, somehow managing to escape their voracious hoarding habits. They often get the last laugh, as some years we’ll find the blooms felled by their nibbling before I even get a chance to grab a pic. If they weren’t so cute we’d probably shoot them.
This particular crocus is in a more hospitable section of the yard, as it has managed to come up earlier than our Lenten rose, which is usually one of the first to bloom. This year it is well behind, thanks to all the snow and cold we’ve had. I haven’t even gotten around to begin the yard clean-up which will help to show it off better, and with rain forecast for the foreseeable future, that may take a while.
