Somewhere between the chives and the onions are these ornamental allium, grown solely for the beauty of their blooms rather than the taste or flavoring of its bulb or leaves. Beauty can exist as its own purpose in the world, especially in the garden. Personally, I admire such things – so many people want something more serious and meaningful, some substance behind the pretty face – while I’ve always considered gorgeousness an end and a goal unto itself.
These rain-kissed blossoms were nodding their heads in a Boston garden when last I was in town, and I caught them on the morning I was departing for home. A beautiful send-off, and incentive to return.
When last I was in Boston, I made a stop at the newly-renovated Newbury, which was formerly the Taj, where Andy and I had stayed for our wedding weekend. As such, it is a happy and sacred space for us, and whenever I’m in town I’ll make a stop to see what sort of flower bouquets the lobby and hallways have on display. This most recent visit found these hot pink and magenta orchids and calla lilies squealing with glee.
“Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
When the sky is filled with clouds, when it’s unsettled and uneasy, that is summer’s reminder that drama comes at any time of the year. I prefer my drama sequestered only in the weather, so I will not complain too much, even as we’d like a few sunny days in a row.
The sun doesn’t know where and when its presence is felt. It shines and burns regardless of how or if its warmth and light arrives on earth, whether there are clouds and rain to block it, whether snow or sleet stands in its path. The sun simply shines. Even in the pitch black night, that sun is still shining. That leads me to a different perspective, and I like seeing things in a different light.
Andy and I both love a magnolia tree, just not the clean-up and mess that follows a heavy blooming season, so we’ve never put one in. (We also don’t have the space, even for the smaller varieties.) And so we watch this show from a distance, grateful for when we happen upon tree in bloom, and even more grateful when we happen upon a tree after its bloom.)
Taking up the Dazzler of the Day torch, Lana Del Rey brings her moody vocal stylings to a summer that is in need of such music. A fellow upstate-New York alum, she brings a melancholy beauty to the musical landscape that is perfect for the rainy season we’ve been having.
Along with their speckled throats, these foxglove blooms, if you examine them closely enough, also offer little patches of fuzzy hairs. The fox moniker works on many levels, and the most basic and noticeable of these is simple beauty. That makes for a compelling post without these pesky words.
If you want to grow these, and ensure their return, it’s best to do so in a more casual garden, where seedlings have the freedom to pop up in a general area. As a biennial, the foxglove has about two years of reliable bloom, and the rest is up to the volunteers that pop up if the flowers are allowed to go to seed. There are some foxglove varieties that are reliable for a few more than two years, but they don’t seem to have the same color power. As with so many things, trade-offs are required.
With this sexy summer shoot from Wonderland magazine, Shawn Mendes moves from Hunk of the Day stature to Dazzler of the Day material thanks to a strategically-placed guitar. His shirtless poses have been featured here and here, and his underwear shots here, but this marks his first turn as Dazzler.
And so we take the peeks of sun when and where they appear, even if the world remains wet and a mess.
On this mottled banana leaf, the remains of the previous day’s rain act like little light-catchers, and we need all the light we can get. Overcast skies seem to be the default of this summer, but as a good friend once said, it’s all about the company. And we will be having some dear old friends this coming weekend, rain or shine…
Having been christened Hunk of the Day twice already, Daniel Newman was well on his way to earning the coveted triple crown, but then we switched things up, so he earns his first Dazzler of the Day here, probably, on his way to nab two more. Newman still scintillates on Twitter, engaging with fans and entertaining while adding feathers to his burgeoning Hollywood cap.
With the tumultuous weather we’ve been having this past week, it’s a wonder I’m not locked up in a looney bin. The mayhem has, oddly enough, not translated to my moods, so let’s just be thankful for that and enjoy the weekly recap in all its twists and turns…
Texts from our new world arrived early the next day, with the first one from Mom asking if I had seen the news about I-95 and an armed stand-off that had shut it down. Putting the phone down and looking out into the gray rainy morning, I padded softly to the window before Chris was up in the other room. Even in co-habitation, there was still so much solitude, something I’d always sensed but hoped wasn’t true. Facing that is something I’ve worked at over the last few years, and it felt like I was finally at some sort of peace. In my head, this piece played along to the rain.
Originally planning to depart first thing in the morning, I took a page out of Chris’s own travel M.O. and decided to make the most of the last few hours in Boston. I decided to join him for a Saturday brunch and leave a little later, provided the route home was open and not blocked by an armed militia. The rain had also started up again – heavy and unyielding – so it would be wiser to wait on all accounts.
Chris stirred and we ordered a car to a restaurant across the street from the Boston Public Garden. On such a morning, only a lifelong friend could lend any sort of comfort and safety to a world that felt like it was crumbling around us.
We finished our brunch and stopped by the Four Seasons, where we’d shared a wedding lunch over a decade ago. The Bristol Lounge had closed since then, another mark of the sad passing of time, another lost place that would only reside in memory, and that grew more fleeting as well.
The rain gave us a little break, so we walked through the Boston Public Garden. Chris had been the officiant when Andy and I were married there, and it was his first time returning to this sacred space. The world surrounding the Garden may have been overcome by madness, but in here there was only peace and beauty and love. We walked around for a while. Every time we were about to take a path out, it seemed we would pause and go another route, perhaps not wanting to break the spell.
“The tragedy of growing old is not that one is old but that one is young.” ~ Oscar Wilde
When at last we departed the Garden, we stopped at the former Taj Hotel – now The Newbury – and where we’d once sat down for cocktails before our rehearsal dinner, we now ordered tea and coffee. Eyeing the arrival of a nearby table’s sundae, I splurged and ordered one of those as well. There may no longer be this epic chocolate cake from the Bristol Lounge, but there would be chocolate somehow.
Chris left me to my sundae while he went to call his family. I looked out at the Public Garden, remembering that sunny May day when Andy and I got married. Warmed by the thought, and the chamomile tea, I felt a slight reassurance in the world again. Chris returned and we delved into how we were growing old. He examined some of the photos we had taken over the weekend, lamenting how time had taken its toll on us. Wrinkles and lines, gray hair and furrowed brows that didn’t unfurrow so fast anymore, he seemed more bothered by it than me – the ultimate switch in roles from where we were twenty years ago. I always figured I’d be the vain one who despaired of losing my youth and all its accompanying physical charm and ease, but it was Chris who was having the tougher time of it. Maybe he saw something in my gray and white hair that terrified him. Maybe he couldn’t escape the deepening lines of our necks and foreheads. Maybe he felt the chill of being unnoticed in a room where everyone was suddenly younger than us.
I came to terms with that a few years earlier, life and age as a gay man advancing so much quicker than it seemed to do in the straight world. Maybe this was new to Chris and he wasn’t embracing all the good that came with it. There were sacrifices and trade-offs to moving beyond youth into middle-age. Maybe the approach of his 46th birthday spooked him, and in turn his worry spooked me. As one of the few pillars in my life on which I’ve always relied and depended, seeing him falter a bit chilled me more than any crazed militia or the threats of a post-COVID universe. It felt like we both needed a friend at that moment, and I decided to postpone my return home until the next day.
Outside, on the steps of the condo, we paused to take in Braddock Park. How many times had we lifted our feet trudging up these stairs? I still have a framed picture from a cold, rainy day in June from 1998 or so, when Chris was looking for places to live in Boston while he attended Harvard Divinity School. He is lying down on the couch, flanked by Suzie and me, all of us looking equally annoyed with each other, and all of it belying the happiness and joy of being young and not knowing all that we didn’t know. I distinctly remember that period of our lives, in particular one Sunday morning in early summer when we all gathered for brunch somewhere on Tremont Street. As I nursed a hangover from the night before, I still understood then that I was in the midst of what might very well be the happiest time in my life, so I leaned into the moment. Alissa was there that morning, and it struck me how she had been with us all this weekend too, appearing in scattered moments of memory, recalled by location and the company of Chris.
The rain began again, and we went inside before making plans for our unexpected dinner and one more night out together.
They sat us in the back of Citrus & Salt, where we ordered some virgin margaritas and fish tacos. Chris seemed itching to be part of the bustling scene near the front of the restaurant, and I didn’t want to stand in his way. Whatever he was searching for was something I could not deliver, and it wasn’t something I ever really wanted. Watching from the periphery and enjoying quiet time with close company was enough for me. There was nothing glamorous about noisy crowds or making small-talk with strangers. Chris, on the other hand, plugged into life that way. We accepted our differences, even as we never fully understood them.
Walking past the line of young people waiting to get into Club Cafe, I watched them without envy. Soaked and chilled by the unseasonal weather, waiting to get into a place where they would likely not find whatever they might be seeking, I still admired them for doing exactly what we might have done two decades ago. They were at that tender part of the journey where waiting outside in the rain would become part of the hazy morning-after retelling of the night-before at a brunch that I hoped they would remember and mark as one of the truly happy moments of their lives.
And my friend Chris, who was with me then, and with me now, still wanted to find that happiness somehow, still wanted to capture the elusive realization of contentment in the moment it happened. It was slightly sad, and slightly noble, and I could never knock him for trying. I hope he finds it.
The next morning I walked to Cafe Madeleine alone for breakfast. The rain had ended, but the world still drooped beneath its weight. Returning to the condo the back way, I passed the garden plot beside our building and found one of the bunnies sitting in the morning calm. Its eyes looked back at mine – dark pools of unknowable mystery from both sides – and I wondered what life it had known in its time in Boston.
“It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston
When Chris proposed a Boston stop on his cross-country summer expedition, I wasn’t sure it would work out. Our lives have altered so drastically since COVID, and while I was secure in our friendship, I didn’t take anything for granted, nor did I count on something good happening before it actually did. That’s taken quite a lot of the enjoyment and fun out of life for me, as so much of my experience was in living things out in joyful anticipation of what was to come. Unsure of how anything might play out these days, I’ve halted my happy hopes to stave off any possible disappointment. After all, Chris was to have joined us on the perfectly-planned out Plaza weekend in New York City that never came to pass. We’re both still shook from that. So when we planned to rendezvous in Boston last weekend, I held my excitement in check until we actually sat down to a charcuterie plate in the condo and toasted with mocktails the reunion that was almost two years in the making.
You may tire of me as our December sun is setting because I’m not who I used to be
No longer easy on the eyes but these wrinkles masterfully disguise
The youthful boy below who turned your way and saw
Something he was not looking for: both a beginning and an end
But now he lives inside someone he does not recognize
When he catches his reflection on accident…
Boston was welcoming at first, but I knew the rain would come. Chris didn’t heed my advice to bring an umbrella, to his almost-instant regret, but he insisted it wasn’t about the weather, it was the company. I caught a few flowers along Southwest Corridor Park before the rain arrived.
On our way to a dinner at Terra, we had our first encounter with a family of rabbits who would greet us almost every time we returned to the condo. I thought of Andy and missed him.
Treating Chris to an early birthday dinner was supposed to be a surprise until we sat down and the birthday dessert arrived, but the hostess decided to ruin the surprise by welcoming us to our birthday dinner. She was apologetic about it, and honestly, at our ages, a little ruined surprise isn’t a big deal. It’s the company that counts.
It was our first joint foray into the world of dining and entertainment post-COVID, and we kept the party going with a mocktail at the Fairmont Plaza, followed by a post-dinner snack at Earl’s. Boston felt alive, even as a downpour descended, one which would not abate until the next day.
We made it back to the condo, soaked and tired and somehow happier for having returned to the comforting warmth of a friendship that we’d known for more years than we were strangers to each other. Twenty six years of camaraderie and support.
On the back of a motor bike
With your arms outstretched trying to take flight
Leaving everything behind
But even at our swiftest speed we couldn’t break from the concrete
In the city where we still reside.
And I have learned that even landlocked lovers yearn for the sea like navy men
Cause now we say goodnight from our own separate sides
Like brothers on a hotel bed
Like brothers on a hotel bed
A brief break in the rain the next day allowed for us to walk along the Esplanade after Chris was finished with his work and I’d done some shopping downtown. The mark of any successful journey together is spending a few hours apart – it’s a science that Chris and I have perfected over years of trial and error (originally honed by a trip to Disneyworld with Suzie). Good friends allow that space for solitude, and we were both better for it. When we returned to the condo for a lengthy walk to dinner, the break in rain continued, but the wind and cooler temperatures left Boston with a chill more customary to the fall.
Many years ago, when we first met, we would take similar walks in various cities – San Francisco, New York, and Boston too – trying to figure out life, trying to see how we fit into the world. We could conjure those memories and compare them to where we are today, and some of the most basic questions still remained. We’ve grown in different ways, taken different roads, but meeting up again felt like we’d merely been traveling in parallel directions, just one street away from each other. True friendship is like that.
The rain returned, so we ordered a car to dinner at Time Out Market, where Skip and I had just enjoyed a meal, and where a DJ-fueled scene would likely be what Chris was hunting. We enjoyed the first dinner of the evening, then stopped at the Cask & Flagon near Fenway and the famed neon Citgo sign. A brush with the Boston Red Sox was better than no Red Sox game at all.
Weather-wise, the night had taken a turn for the worse, with a bone-chilling wind and rain that pelted like it was November. Ducking into the lobby of the Hotel Commonwealth, we warmed ourselves while I tried to figure out where we might find a cup of hot tea. That’s where we are at this stage of our lives. No martini, no highball, not beer – just a search for a cup of hot tea. I was fine with that though, and Chris managed to stay true to his proclamation that it was about the company.
We wound up at one of the few places open late now for food and drink: Solas at the Lenox Hotel. Happy memories had been made here before – and wonderful moments with Skip, and JoAnn, and Andy – all of which flooded back as we ordered our second dinner of the night. We seemed to have replaced drinking with eating, and we were both better off for the switch, even as our stomachs moaned with the load.
A walk back to the condo was the best thing for us, and the rain had slightly let up. In the queasy light of the midnight hour, the family of rabbits greeted us again. I was due to depart the next day, while Chris stayed in town for one more night. Boston went to sleep in the rain…
You may tire of me
As our December sun is setting
Because I’m not who I used to be
After yesterday morning’s hot yellow sunflower post, here are a few photos to cool the site down. Purples are big in the garden right now, as if sensing our need for relief when the days get overheated. Sometimes a palette of cool hues works as well as air conditioning or a dip in the pool. Ideally, though, one operates in a conjunction of all of the above
These blooms look fresh even during the hottest parts of the day. Delicate in appearance only, these hardy annuals take a flame-like licking and keep on ticking.
Continuing our Summer Olympics 2021 Dazzler of the Day run, here is one of the most gold-medal-festooned competitors in the swimming world. Katie Ledecky holds the record for most gold medals in world championships and Olympic games for a female swimmer. She’s heading to Tokyo soon to see if she can add to all that metal.
