With that glorious mantra in mind, let’s send this summer off to slumber on a disco danceteria note, courtesy of the one and only Madonna. She’s provided the soundtrack to this past summer – most notably with confessional musical heat in the epic ‘Danceteria’, which is about to make its official splash because it’s fucking time. Here’s the first remix of the song, which looks to be her next single.
This summer, like several summers in recent memory, didn’t turn out as brilliant or wonderful as I’d originally intended and hoped. Maybe it’s about expectations that were simply too great, maybe it’s the final convulsions of a lengthy mid-life crisis (or crises as the case likely might be) or maybe it’s just the state of the world and the dumbing down of people. The Solid Gold Summer recap arrives tomorrow, so I won’t get into a link-heavy diatribe in this post – this is more of a contemplative rumination on the previous three months, and how something that was designed to be solid and gold ended up being hollow and tarnished.
This is the third themed summer we’ve tried on the blog – starting with ‘Coquette‘ in 2024 and then ‘Island‘ in 2025. I like organizing blog posts around a certain structural element such as a theme because it focuses the season, honing in on something that can symbolize whatever else might be going on in the world. (See also the ‘Autumn of Oud‘ or ‘Winter Obscura‘ or the ‘Fade-To-Black Fall‘. The upcoming autumn has a major theme that will be announced on the first day of fall, and it marks a new era, a new image, a new look – and somehow it peels back decades of who I thought I was into someone entirely new and yet intrinsically more myself than ever. That’s more than just a neat hat trick – it’s an astounding revelation/realization.
Back to this past summer, which proved revelatory in a different and more somber way. Largely happening in my head, the Solid Gold Summer found me pulling back from social gatherings (when you find yourself without anywhere to go or anything to do, it means you’re the only one doing any of the social lifting) and happier for it, but then realized I was inhabiting my mind instead of living in the moment or the outside world – phoning it in, quite literally as I spent time on the stupid device in my hand instead of what was happening all around me. Living in one’s head and phone is not a happy place to be – none of that is even real. So the first half of the summer was in living that lie – the second half was getting over it and readjusting. To the latter’s end, I began reaching out to the friends and family who would be there in person – setting up dinners and get-togethers and weekend with the twins who are old enough to operate on their own. I’ll be looking to broaden my social scene in Boston this fall as I begin the long road to retirement (you cannot get the long-range planning gene out of me) and reconnect with some friends I haven’t seen in a while.
Now that I’ve written this all out, I’m seeing that this summer hasn’t been a total bust – that it was solid after all, that it did have its golden moments, and everything that’s meant to be will always be. Huh. A realization in real time, documented as it was happening. A nearly perfect ending to a summer that felt anything but…
The gardens are shifting their show from the floral to the fruit-focused, and with color like this it’s a fair fight. Sometimes strong colors are meant to be a warning (see nightshade) and sometimes they’re meant to entice (see tomatoes). The universe likes to present a challenge, spinning its Wheel of Death with the choice of tomato or nightshade before an unsuspecting innocent’s hungry eyes. Summer spinning into fall feels dangerous that way.
The final week of summer is upon us; I offer this purple visage because purple is what we wear when we grow old – and this summer has most definitely grown old, and I’ve certainly grown older along with it. With this stretch of growth came some hard-won wisdom, so it was not without its rewards. Whether they will be worth the work and sacrifice has yet to be seen – on with this weekly blog recap to maybe make some sense out of it… though most likely not.
Late-summer Sundays don’t get all the glory they deserve. Last gasps of the last summer weekends, I tend to file them away as quickly as possible, even as they’re happening, throwing them out like a baby with the bathwater (not that I’m against that, by the way) perhaps somewhat prematurely in an effort to stave off the hurt and worry that comes with them (Sundays, not babies).
This one was filled by rain in the morning, and the last hours of a weekend with my niece (more on that to come). Then the sun fought valiantly to return, starting with some heat and humidity – the stickiness a welcome reminder of July, even as I’m ready to turn over the last leaf before fall – before reappearing for the end of the afternoon and heating things up again. Still, I know this is
When the morning threatens rain, when the sky is overcast and lazy, a cup of matcha is precisely what I need, with its slow-release caffeine bump – unlike the jolt of coffee that so wreaks havoc with my system. This week I could use a little caffeine – just a little – as sleepless nights give way to exhausted mornings and lethargic afternoons. End of summer blues, perhaps. A general dissatisfaction with a miserable world in which there is no accountability so why does anyone care about fucking anything anymore?
This morning I have a therapy appointment – delayed by a week, and maybe you can already tell. Lots to talk about, lots to discuss, and none of it to be shared with you. If you want that kind of dirt (and you totally do) you’ll have to pay me. Dearly. In the meantime, there’s matcha.
Before this website undergoes its annual autumn revamp (which is of greater import this season, with a wild image reinvention) I’m returning to smaller and quieter posts, in which the little moments of a day get their time to shine. Within that process often comes a revealing look at something greater and bigger of scope, the way a macro view of life can be a metaphor for a larger scene.
On this day, at this lunch break, I had the cafe to myself. Taking lunch later in the afternoon has always been my preferred schedule – less people, less noise, less bustle – and I embrace the silence. Some people are afraid of that – afraid of their own thoughts surfacing during the quiet – while I lean into it, and am calmer for it.
Focusing on friends and family, while working out the new fall season of this website, is proving more than ample diversion and purpose in these last few days of summer. Inspired and compelled with a fresh era and image, the chameleon is in forward motion again. No looking back – and that’s where and how I’m happiest.
Glowing beneath the light of a street lamp, the leaves of this Japanese maple seem almost luminescent in the cool night, like certain jellyfish in the dark depths of the ocean. Somehow, light finds a way – an important realization, especially during the darkest of times when hope feels in short supply.
The days grow shorter as fall approaches, and light drains faster and faster from the sky. Even this sort of green scene, which feels so invincible even in the middle of the night, will soon be wrinkled and dried once the first hard frost hits.
After an extended holiday weekend, a Tuesday morning hits harder than most Mondays, but this is not the time to wallow or whine. On with the preparation…
Here we are in the month of September, and how we came to be here feels like a mystery – it was only turning into June when last I checked – now we’ve reached the final weeks of summer, and the unofficial end of the season with Labor Day’s arrival. Time to take stock of the week that came before in our weekly blog recap… and prepare the way for fall.
