As can be seen, and correctly surmised from my upper-body attire, my affection lies more with London, England these days than Washington, DC. (Relax – it’s only because I hate fascism and dictators and rapists – and all those who enable such monsters to flourish.)
Reflected off the pool, the light of the day is blue, especially when shaded by a cherry tree in full summer leaf. In the high heat of the afternoon, where we’ve been maxing out in the mid-90’s, the end of my work day is marked by a plunge into the pool, but it’s so there is only momentary reprieve to be found. The moment you surface, the hot air is back in your lungs, choking you from the inside out. One can’t stay safely underwater for that long; the brain and the body require more oxygen than the coolness would provide. I’m not about to trade this inferno in early for the one I may be destined for later on.
It’s not a particularly favorite state of mind, as wildly familiar as it sometimes seems.
A melancholy summer seems a bit of an oxymoron, an unfair alignment with an emotion that seems the antithesis of what should be the sunny happy season. My infuriating pathology is such that it goes against the happy grain when sunny days are expected. I’m as much a dark cloud as a hoot and a half – it’s generally a pesky problem for all who try so hard to love me.
In the high heat of summer, after a night rain, the day begins in hazy focus or lack there-of. The eye moves in on water and light, while the grass rises to shake it off, slowly bending upward and letting any remaining raindrops fall into the ground. Summer awakens and rights the day.
I like the silence of early summer mornings when the birds aren’t even singing and the cicadas haven’t started their incessant moan. The pool is still, the air doesn’t move, and even the fountain grass that moves in the most slight of breezes stands frozen as if in sculpture. It puts me in mind of a favorite poem by Pablo Neruda, which features a favorite word.
As all things are filled with my soul you emerge from the things, filled with my soul. You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream, and you are like the word Melancholy.
I like for you to be still, and you seem far away. It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove. And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you: Let me come to be still in your silence.
And let me talk to you with your silence that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring. You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations. Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.
I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent, distant and full of sorrow as though you had died. One word then, one smile is enough. And I am happy, happy that it’s not true.
Today it signifies my current state of mind, which I caught to put in check just in the nick of time.
An explanation of that sentence then, awkward and stilted and inelegant – all the things I try not to be: my mind was already racing toward fall, planning and plotting out a fall theme for this website, figuring out the fall wardrobe, and breaking in a special pair of fall boots. Summer is but a few days old, and I was already working on fall – and that was simply madness.
As I said, I caught it just in time to realize how stupid I was being to jump ahead and lose the present moment of the sunny season, especially this week when summer turns to high. And so I put the fall on rightful pause, and indulged in the pool and the garden and the summer at hand. Bringing myself back to the present moment and taking myself out of the phone and out of the future felt like a remarkable relief.
Way back in the 1980’s, when I was but a wee lad, I don’t recall the crop top craze for guys, but I was so young that fashion hadn’t yet crossed my brainwaves. I’m told, and grainy photos will attest, that men did indeed enjoy their crop top moment – and I wish I had done so when it was easier to maintain a svelte figure than it is at my current age. Regardless, some decent lighting and trick angles, along with sucking in the gut at precisely the right moment manage to convince the world that things are all still somewhat presentable for the masses.
This post kicks off our July, in which this wayward country celebrates its 250th anniversary – such a shame we have such a moron sitting in and defiling the Presidency. The patriotic posts you’re about to see are all tongue-in-cheek, as I can’t genuinely celebrate what we’ve become right now, and America has always been about keeping the right to criticize. At least, it was.
There’s a Fourth of July post coming up here, if I choose to post those jockstrap pics – it’s so hard to decide what best personifies the USA right now, but if it’s not a jockstrap I’m hard-pressed to find something more fitting. Come on back to see that show if I’m brave enough to do it (and I’m always brave enough to do it).
My social media engagements these days are usually far less than most people I know, coming at the three times in a day when something new is posted on my website. Those are regularly scheduled and happen without much thought or input, so it looks like I’m more regularly engaged that I actually am. That’s because I learned long ago how far removed from reality social media too often is. Even Madonna seems to have come around when it comes to something like Instagram, where she previously spilled (overspilled?) every aspect of her life.
I still sometimes get sucked into the vortex of reels upon reels, and all the recommended videos are of course those that they intrigued your interest, your algorithm brilliantly capturing exactly what’s going to tickle your fancy – but it’s just a time sucker, a way to keep your brain and mind up way past your bedtime, scrolling past your necessary sleep cycle and taking up residence in spaces better suited for peace and tranquility. To that end, I’m limiting phone time to my waking hours, and even then I’m not on it as much as I used to be. It’s a healthier, happier space. I’m touching the grass and it’s lovely.
Mercury moves into retrograde motion today, and if its pre-shadow mayhem is any indication of how this one is going to go, we are all royally fucked, minus anything royal about it. As if that wasn’t enough, we also have a full moon. The less said these days, the better, so on with the weekly blog recap…
A friend recently asked if I was still on Cloud 9 after some happy outcome, and I replied without thinking or knowing what I was even saying, “Maybe Cloud 7.”
I was going to look it up for you, to share the origin of the term ‘Cloud 9’ but after a half-hearted Google search I gave up because I just don’t give a shit. If you’re reading this, you have access to Google. Do your own research.
As for the ‘Cloud 7’ answer, it feels more fitting than originally intended. Some summers are Cloud 7 summers; they can’t all be Cloud 9. That’s life. We deal with it.
Before anyone settles in and starts to celebrate summer fun, I have some terrible news. We are in the pre-shadow of another episode of Mercury in retrograde motion, which officially begins June 29 and runs until July 23, and things are already ridiculously wonky. It’s the very last thing I need right now, so of course it’s arriving just on schedule in the way the universe so adores fucking with me this year. For some of us Virgos, this is said to be the time we are moving into our super villain eras, and at this point I’m fucking here for it. Virgos always bring the receipts, we shoot to kill, and leave no regrets.
Word of advice: don’t come for me unless I call you.
Second word of advice: don’t come for me if I call you. It won’t end well.
To combat the inevitable pain and harm I will cause (because I’m only human and when pushed too far I push back) I’ve been focusing on my daily meditations, as they’re often the only point in the day when I can feel calm and at peace. The rest of this pre-shadow period has been icky and weird and agitated. There’s a general uneasiness to the atmosphere, and unsteadiness and tension that shouldn’t be part of the start of summer.
A preamble of sorts for the recounting of this year’s BroSox Adventures (coming up this weekend), this post celebrates the roses that were in bloom when last we were in Boston. It seemed that every square or garden we passed had some sort of rose show happening – the glorious sign that June was at hand and summer had, or was just about to, arrive. This first flush is usually the biggest and best, and it did not disappoint. They were tumbling off their trellises, rising and arching like some colorful fountain of fragrant petals. The red ones seen here were found along the Southwest Corridor Park, whose garden plots have been lovingly brought to beautiful life over the last decade or so.
When I say ‘Summer Head‘ I mean the summer mind-set.
In my case, that’s an annoying amount of overthinking and overanalyzing and overdoing just about everything in my head. An exhausting and endless regime of mental gymnastics that always gets in the way of mindfulness. Thankfully, mindfulness is not merely its match, but its dominator. When set against overthinking, mindfulness always wins, if you know how to conjure it, if you can focus enough to make it happen. As with so many things worth having, there is difficult work involved.
The hobgoblin of the overthinking mind will try to derail the happiest summer days, blocking and obscuring the sun while you frantically seek shade and darkness to ease the headache, to find the coolness that will finally bring relief from the heat. You will try to find sleep, hoping it will bring peace, but the overthinking mind doesn’t allow for sleep. Its work is insidious that way. Diabolical.
I battle my own head games like vampires might battle each other. Formidable foes, so perfectly matched in viciousness and vitriol, fight not until the end of one, but the end of two. There is only ever complete destruction and utter annihilation. The summer head trip is designed to self-destruct like some Mission Impossible missive, yet the real impossible mission is in reconciling the mind’s night with summer light.
Hidden behind the shimmer of short-shorts or the smitten yet sinister smile put on for public appearance, for this very post perhaps, for the sheer vanity of survival – summer’s head trips spin wildly out of control, while the gilded sun of golden power glimmers from its far-off glory.
At the time that I write this, it is pouring rain outside. The sky is dim – a dull gray that portends a long, and helpful, onslaught of rain. The lawn and the gardens need it, especially the ferns. It is brooding weather – puts one in a dampened spirit, and it’s at odds with the pictures presented here from the day before, when the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the clouds were merely artful accents unfilled with rainwater. The difference of a day. The difference of a night. Some things change, just like that. It’s the nature of the world. Ask any night-blooming cactus, if you’re lucky enough to catch one in bloom.
