Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Early this morning we got to do what Cher has been wanting to do for all her life: turn back time. Just an hour, but an hour can make a world of difference. What will you do with your extra hour? Most people will claim they slept through it. Fair enough, but I prefer to think of time as more fluid than that. I’m saving this extra hour for something more constructive than sleep. Addressing holiday cards, perhaps. Cleaning the bedroom. Plotting out Christmas gifts. Plotting out my Christmas wish list. Plotting out my Christmas wardrobe. Scheduling the remaining weekends of the year (they are booking up quickly).

Do I sound anal to you?

You have no idea.

Go make the most of your hour. In half a year you’re going to lose it all over again.

Behold the wondrous coral bark maple! Though it’s best-known for the red bark of its younger branches, clearly it has other colorful tricks up its coral-barked sleeves. Witness this brilliant show of bright gold, so gloriously enhanced by the autumn sunlight, so resplendent in an increasingly-dull landscape.

Soon only the branches will remain, and their coral hue will bleed beautifully against the snow, but damn if it doesn’t go out in a blaze of glory before the white stuff falls.

We mistakenly assume that wood is rigid and hard, tough and unyielding, but it’s much more fluid than that, especially when it’s still alive and the water of life courses through its limbs. In these exposed views, the wave-like grain of a tree reveals its fluidity, as well as the grace and beauty of such free-flowing form.

“I’m a tree. I can bend.”

I am a fallen tree.

If you zoom in on me, you can find among my rings what looks like a faded antique map, but it’s merely the haphazard effects of time and nature within my fallen shaft. History is kept in different ways, marked by various signs. Some count in rings, some in fallen teeth, some by the length of hair or the girth of limbs.

Here, a memoir is presented in the markings within a protective shell of rough and weathered bark. High above the earth, in the lofty reaches where only birds and squirrels dare to tread, I once soared.

If my branches could speak they would tell you tales of passing seasons, of boys running around atop my roots, of chipmunks dashing among my leaves.

Felled, my story is nearly at an end, but do not weep for me. I’ve scattered thousands of acorns over the years. Our journeys always run into each other ~ where mine leaves off another begins, and where we overlap, where we hold on and intertwine to stay connected, is the space of love.

What am I?

A treasure map?

And ancient guide?

Or something more basic?

(Return tomorrow morning for the answer.)

The way leaves collect in wind-protected corners has always fascinated me. These little spaces of respite amid howling streets offer solace on wind-chilled days. The little bit of Temple Grandin that’s in most of us desires to be protected and confined like that. The comfort of condensing the world into a small spot, of walls closing in around us – it’s not for the claustrophobic but it’s how some of make sense of the earth’s unending sprawl. It’s difficult to get your mind around how expansive the universe is. I find it helpful to zone in on a small piece of it, to study and peruse and know that little spot inside and out. You need to start somewhere before you go anywhere.

And?

What’s the big deal?

Am I losing my mind?

Where do we go from here?

Which path to take?

How will it end?

Where is your comfort zone?

There will never be another Madonna, but there have been other artists and books and shows and movies have inspired me over the years. Shirley Horn, James and even Lady Gaga have sounded over my stereo. Sunset Boulevard, Wicked, Cabaret and Grey Gardens have strutted on stages before my eyes. Edith Wharton, Gregory Maguire, Jane Hamilton and F. Scott Fitzgerald have roped me in with their words. Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Rosalind Russell have all mesmerized me with their screen presence. Tom Ford, David Beckham, Ben Cohen and Zac Efron have offered sweet-smelling fashion and delectable eye candy.

At one stage or another these entities have been an obsession for me, and my life has, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, revolved around each of them for a bit. Mostly it’s been a good thing. We are always enriched by those we admire. Lately, however, I find muses in short supply. I can’t tell if it’s a dearth in fascinating people or works, or the advance of age and a Big Chill phenomenon wherein I simply don’t get excited over things as much as I once did.

I’ve noticed it most glaringly in music. Once upon a time I’d hear a certain song and have to play the devil out of it. Family, friends and one very patient husband would be subject to repeated listens at all times of the day and night, until they knew it as well as I did. I’d send out CD singles of it with the lyrics written out and implore everyone I knew to listen to it. (‘You Must Love Me‘ indeed.) It still happens on occasion (hello ‘Rebel Heart‘) but now it’s about once or twice a year. The same goes for books and movies and musicals. Fewer and fewer of them inspire me. Even Tom Ford cologne has faded. Everything feels muted, less exciting.

Maybe it’s the lull as we go into the darker seasons. It’s hard to get very thrilled about anything when it’s pitch black when you wake up (and soon when I get out of work). Or maybe it is a blunting and deadening of my senses as I get older. Maybe it’s even the technological availability of all sorts of sensory overload. All I know is that I need a new obsession. Any suggestions?

This year’s Boo-jolais Celebration was a costume party, and almost everyone was decked out in full regalia (minus a husband here and there). I’ve already shown off my sartorial splendor, so feast your eyes on some other fabulously-frocked and dazzlingly-bedecked party-goers.