Madonna returned to the Met Gala in tailored and fine fashion this evening, and I am here for all the elegance, softness, and quieter tones. It’s a lovely addition to her Met Gala look-book. (I still think I enjoyed her Louis Vuitton bunny ears ensemble best, so I’ll include that throwback pic at the bottom of this post.)
Way back when…
May is here, and living has taken precedence over documenting life here. I’m behind on it too – behind in the garden, behind in the yard, behind in the plans for summer – but right on time in the living, and that rarely happens. On with the weekly blog recap…
Troye Sivan in a jockstrap, as apparently we missed out on International Jockstrap Day.
Can former altar boys be chosen as the Pope?
… and spring has softly spung.
Weep not for the weeping larch.
You and the night and the music.
A peacock in everything but beauty.
A fine-feathered fairy’s tale.
Deeper meaning in the tail of a peacock.
Dazzlers of the Day included Jean Smart and Jeff Urbanczyk.
In my much younger years, this sort of flower would have appealed to my love of the gaudy, bold and audacious.
To be honest, it still speaks to the part of me that loves super-saturated color and striking contrast, but it’s not for our yard. Fine from afar – in distance and time – but up close and at length, it’s just too much.
Mellowing happens to the most drama-loving among us.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had my first solo dinners with each of the twins – Noah and Emi – just as they enter their 15th year. It’s strange to sit across from a young adult whom you remember as a tiny baby – strange in the realization of the passage of time, strange in seeing how quickly children grow up, strange in how suddenly older I feel. It’s a happy sort of strangeness, knowing this is the way life should progress.
I hope I’ve taught them a few things over these past fifteen years, and I’ve lost count of how many things they have taught me. As we prepare for another summer (with a theme once again chosen by Emi) there is excitement in the air, and the start of a possible new dining tradition.
Nipping at their heels is baby Jaxon, who’s quickly gaining on them as he approaches his third birthday this summer… Life is rushing by, and even capturing the moments in pictures like this doesn’t seem to slow it down.
Pastels are as cliched a sign of spring as florals are, and I love them in spite of their ubiquity. I’ve never been one to deny myself an indulgence, and I’m puzzled by those who do. These spring blooms will be gone and forgotten much too soon enough. Pansies are especially fleeting – their preference for cool weather means they struggle in the heat of our summers. Their glory happens now.
In the air, the perfume of the Korean spice viburnum ignites the excitement of the nose – the flowers are not as flashy but the fragrance is exquisitely potent.
“Deeper meaning resides in the tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.” ~ Friedrich Schiller
These peacock poses were from one of the earliest shoots for The Divine Diva Tour, before I really knew which turns this fairy’s tale would take. They are placed about halfway through the project because this is the axis where the frivolity of the fairy tale begins to transform into something darker and slightly more disturbing. It’s also where the first glimpses of a bird motif begins, and that will continue in next weekend’s entry.
Someone who keeps peacocks once told me that they were very ill-tempered birds. It makes sense I suppose – the universe doesn’t like its beauty to go untormented. Why should peacocks be granted prettiness and sweet personalities? Gifts are not doled out evenly or fairly. Perhaps peacocks sense this.
Or perhaps birds do not sense what only a human could.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
“The fairy tale offers the child hope that someday the kingdom will be his. Since the child cannot settle for less, but does not believe that he can achieve this kingdom on his own, the fairy tale tells him that magic forces will come to his aid. This rekindles hope, which without such fantasy would be extinguished by harsh reality. Since the fairy tale promises the type of triumph the child wishes for, it is psychologically convincing as no “realistic” tale can be. And because it pledges that the kingdom will be his, the child is willing to believe the rest of what the fairy story teaches: that one must leave home to find one’s kingdom; that it cannot be gained immediately; that risks must be taken, trials submitted to; that it cannot be done all by oneself, but that one needs helpers; and that to secure their aid, one must meet some of their demands. Just because the ultimate promise coincides with the child’s wishes for revenge and a glorious existence, the fairy tale enriches the child’s fantasy beyond compare.” ~
“The child, so much more insecure than an adult, needs assurance that his need to engage in fantasy, or his inability to stop doing so, is not a deficiency.” ~
“Just as people behave to me, so do I behave to them. When I see that a person despises me and treats me with contempt, I can be as proud as any peacock.” ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“A child who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be changed from a menace into a desirable companion.” ~ Bruno Bettelheim
“Far from making demands, the fairy tale reassures, gives hope for the future, and hold out the promise of a Happy Ending.” ~ Bruno Bettelheim
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
“Therefore, even more than at the times fairy tales were invented, it is important to provide the modern child with images of heroes who have to go out into the world all by themselves and who, although originally ignorant of the ultimate things, find secure places in the world by following their right way with deep inner confidence.” ~
“I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail, because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.” ~ John Ruskin
“She is a peacock in everything but beauty.” ~ Oscar Wilde
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
May is upon us, and May nights are often the most magical nights of the year.
A May Day is certainly special, but somehow the night means a little bit more.
Flowering trees dangle their ballerina-like blossoms in the sky, behind which a midnight blue firmament, studded with stars and the yellow road of the moon, provides a solid and simultaneously endless vista of space.
There is magic at work, and romance, and a feeling that manages to be both nostalgia and future hope at once.
The words to this song are wondrous, even if this is an instrumental version. Sentiment sometimes transcends words, and spring sprinkles its enchantment like petals plucked by the lightest breeze.
When spring is late, everything happens at once.
All the flowers bloom in quickly succession.
All the trees leaf out and turn the world chartreuse.
All the animals and insects fill the air with bug and bird song.
All the earth lets out a glorious sigh of beauty and release.
Unpredictable, tumultuous, moody and sometimes unnecessarily dramatic, spring has a way of taking us on a rollercoaster, filled with twists and turns, corkscrews and drops, and pure, intense exhilaration. The best method of making your way through it is to relax, let it take you where it wants to go, and embrace the moment. Sometimes those moments are stormy and messy, sometimes they are beautiful and tender, and sometimes they are everything all at once. We want to make sense of such a jumble, but spring doesn’t always want us to make sense of it.
Let us have a little song then, nothing too heavy, nothing too dark – just enough to lift the spirits and set spring on whichever way it chooses to go.
The coral bark maple reaches its chartreuse hands upward to the sky, emerging from its slumber, radiantly reflecting and welcoming the sun.
Whispers of summer sound on the most restless of winds.
Cherry blossoms dance before falling into the pool.
A harp and a piano do their own dance before a trumpet sings its own song.
They dance and sing to the month of May – the month of the cherry blossom.
At this early point, the stage is still being constructed for summer.
The main components are already in pretty place: sky and sun and water…
One of the more charming shrubs in the garden – the weeping larch – has sprouted its gorgeous whorls of leaves, radiating sun-like bursts of varying shades of green.
This is what May means – a freshness, a beginning, a chance at something new.
The green shifts delicately in the changing slant of the sun, growing warmer as the daylight gradually depletes.
A favorite month for some of us, May begins in beautiful fashion, donning this floriferous coat of cherry blossoms amid wind and impending rain. Andy accurately summed up the scene by simply proclaiming that everything was blooming at once after weeks of stalled spring weather. It waited for so long, and now the petals are already falling away – the beauty lasts but a few scant days.
On this first day of May, I’m already afraid of how quickly it seems to be moving, and making motions to slow it as much as possible. I haven’t quite figured out how to successfully slow time like that – as much as I attempt to be mindful, to be fully present in the moment, to look around and pause and contemplate, making a memory, as best as I can, even as I feel the new memories disappearing as soon as they’re made.
And then I set some of it down in words, leaving them scattered here, who knows for how long, who knows for who to read, and maybe it lasts, and maybe it doesn’t.
