The unofficial arrival of summer (though we’re waiting until it’s official in June for our summer reveals) comes with Memorial Day, and we’re off to the races – but first the weekly blog recap for all that you may have unintentionally (ahem) missed…
This is Venus and the moon, playfully skirting each other on a recent early evening following one of those impossibly warm 90-degree days we had before it all turned cold and rainy again. Brief spells of magic, tantalizing glimpses of summer, and prayers for more beauty and charm to come… late spring weaves and works its enchantments like no other season, offering hope and promise for those of us still smarting from winter.
In the spring night, the mind unspools like the whorls of a radial flower – spreading and sending out feelers for warmth and comfort, luring in potential pollinators, and beauty is almost an incidental afterthought. What is Venus whispering to the moon on this evening? Secrets of love and naughtiness perhaps, secrets of wanton desire, of tenuous connections of the sort traced by planets and moons and lost to time and space and distance. The missed cries of orbits uncrossed sound from and for another century, and what would it mean if two orbits ever did in fact cross at the same time? Nobody wants to see the sayings through.
And so the moon whispers back to Venus, and it is something we mortals will never hear – even if we did, we could hardly understand it. We are basic and limited creatures – to Venus and the moon we aren’t even here.
There is a certain segment of people that will always enjoy seeing me in states of distress, duress, and undress. I’ve endeavored to accept this without catering or kowtowing to them.
I thought I could – the same way I contained a wild sweet pea (which I still have under somewhat stringent control) but mint is a different animal entirely, with its deceptive runners that creep wherever it senses water, sprouting up many feet from its source, and then splitting off into numerous other channels.
Much of this lilac spring has been fantasy and head-living. The the outside world refused to cooperate weather-wise, when we were struck down with sickness, when one simply felt icky and drab with dampened spirits, I’d retreat to the beautiful yarns running through my mind, a place that has never failed to elicit escape and wonder and enchantment in the darkest of days.
For now, when rain is in the forecast and summer seemingly backs away from its approach, a list of summer starts to remind us how life in the sunny season may once again come to pass…
Having grown up in an age without the internet, and being around for the technological revolution that brought the entire world online, I’ve always had a relatively healthy balance between online and real life. (It seems like I’m on social media all the time, but the truth is I’m usually on three times a day – just to post links to these blog entires.) The time-crunch is in writing these posts, not bopping around on social media, so when this place went offline this past week, I had a lot of time and freedom to touch grass, as they say.
It felt in some ways like I was returning to the world, and I absolutely loved it. The idea and feeling of free time was entirely foreign to me, so it did take a few days of adjustment where I felt like I was walking around like a stunned mullet. (The fish, not the hair-style.) It takes a while to adjust to that when you’ve been doing daily posts for decades. Being quickly adaptable allowed for me to switch swiftly into this new groove – spending time outside, swimming in the pool, picking up the gardening chores that had been piling up, and making multiple trips to the nursery for mulch and soil and plants (the one drawback of the Mini-Cooper). Suzie and I met for Yemeni coffee (well, matcha) at a new place in Latham (Shibam) where I handed off keys for Boston – she’s heading there for a Belle & Sebastian concert this week. (Hello Fox in the Snow.) And I’ve resumed outfit preparation for dinner and a show with Sherri and Skip in a few weeks (lots of sequin and bead work before I go as blind as a nun). Life is for living.
The past week felt a bit like living a secret life, where the curtain was closed, and all the behind the scenes action became the real story – untold except for those directly participating. It was thrilling, and a welcome reminder that it’s good to shake things up to jumpstart a whole new chapter.
We reluctantly return to where we didn’t quite last leave off in our lilac spring, as my website has been down for about a week thanks to the company, Enom, who held my domain name. Apparently the folks there had a difficult time figuring out that I, Alan Ilagan, am the actual owner of alanilagan.com, and it took a full week to convince them that the person running alanilagan.com was in fact Alan Fucking Ilagan. Way more on that later – for now, a recap on what you probably missed, as most of these posts went up the the site was down. Ahh, technology…
Reaching the almost-mid-point of a thus-far rather chilly May, the birds and the bees and flowers and trees have still been putting on their annual show. Nature hustles to catch up to its own delays, and for now I pause to enjoy the coolness because by August we’ll likely be melting and wishing for relief. Live in the present moment, and remember what the days were like in February. On with the mid-May weekly blog recap…
Soothsayers and magically-inclined thinkers had indicated that the burning of a red candle on the day of the full Flower Moon may result in abundance and clarity and all sorts of good stuff. Hedging my bets, I burned one during my meditation on that precious day. No word yet on abundance or clarity, but maybe these things take time. I suppose that’s a pretty safe bet in general – the older we get, the more we tend to gain both of those things, and I doubt very much that the burning of a candle, red or otherwise, plays much of a direct role. At best, it might give some sort of placebo encouragement to compel me to get off my ass and make them happen for myself. Chicken or egg, sometimes it doesn’t matter what came first, just what’s for dinner or breakfast.
My favorite month is in glorious swing, so rather than spend my time writing out a tedious introduction to the weekly recap, I’m going to get right into it…
The Kwanzan cherry was in bloom this week – just as the pool was being heated to a glorious 80+ degrees for a few lovely days that justify the pool heater every year. Pink against a sky of blue is always a sight to behold, and in the strong sunlight the colors revived all that had dimmed during the recent long and cruel winter. It already feels far away, and for that I’m grateful. It’s never too soon to start thinking about summer heat, summer sun, and summer fun.
If you have sun where you might be, go out now and enjoy it for a minute – or an hour – or the whole day. Never take a sunny day for granted.
