At the edge of the ocean, or at the edge of the land, an art museum sits looking out over a bluff. A garden is situated between the art and the sea, a placement that feels heartwarmingly apt: the garden as a bridge between art and nature. There is a bench for sitting while watching the ocean, but I’m more interested in what’s underneath it all. A patch of creeping thyme is beginning to cover a round rock. The little fuzzy thyme leaves and tiny pink flowers soften the rock’s edges, blurring the border between stone and soil.
This bit of creeping thyme reminds of the power and sway that flowers and beauty can hold over such stalwart things as rock and stone. They defeat by being pretty, gently surrounding a cold gray stone with fuzzy arms of warmth and loveliness. They embrace the immobile and unmoving rock with their love – given without expectation or the hope of love returned. The creep of thyme made beautiful, as in this creep of a song.
Thyme will spend the summer covering this rock, closing around its still stony heart. It offers softness and kindness – shade when it’s sunny and warmth when it’s windy. It is blanket and brother, caretaker and comforter, embrace and enchantress. It only cares to cocoon and love – its adoration feeds upon its own juxtaposition of hot and cold, hard and soft, interest and indifference.
A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes I screamed aloud as it tore through them And now it’s left me blind…
The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart
Flashes of light and gaseous alchemy, elements comprising life and energy, the stars seem so simple but they contain multitudes – meaning, magic, majesty – and though they seem to watch us from afar, we do not see where some might be now – so long does it take for their sparkle to reach our sight. The twinkles we see tonight were emitted long ago, depending on how distant they are, and the bending of time, the traversing of great distance, and the destiny apparently embedded in the sky might all play a part in how our lives will play out.
I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map And knew that somehow I could find my way back Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too So I stayed in the darkness with you
The stars, the moon They have all been blown out You’ve left me in the dark (you left me in the dark) No dawn, no day I’m always in this twilight In the shadow of your heart
It’s a little too early for a tender song called ‘Nightswimming’ – that comes later, when we’re nearer to September. For now, another R.E.M. beauty – ‘At My Most Beautiful’ which almost matches the tenderness of ‘Nightswimming’.
I’ve found a way to make you I’ve found a way A way to make you smile
I read bad poetry Into your machine I save your messages Just to hear your voice You always listen carefully To awkward rhymes You always say your name Like I wouldn’t know it’s you At your most beautiful
Once upon a Boston autumn, I listened to this song right around the time I started dating a sweet boy. We would last for almost two years, and I’d move halfway across the country for him, only to come back heartbroken and alone before we had the chance to share another spring together. We were so young, so hopeful, so unrocked by the world at that point. Still, we weren’t meant to be, and we couldn’t keep it together. He was brave enough to say so; I was brave enough to accept it without a brutal fight. This song brings me back to our beginning – a little slice of happiness and heaven.
I remember sitting on the bed in my Boston place as the sun came in through the bay window. Fall was at hand, but it held on to the warmth of summer, the way cities sometimes hold that season’s heat well into October. Suzie was visiting and we sat on the bed catching up. Nervous to tell her about him, the way I would always be when introducing my boyfriends to her, my giddiness overrode the nerves and I remember smiling like a fool the entire time. The first inklings of love are unmistakable, and so adorably fun; I just wanted to share the feeling, to shout it and declare it and let the whole world know. It was easy to fall in love then, at least for me; my friends were much wiser – safer, too – but I didn’t care. Recklessly, ruinously, ridiculously, I would fall over and over and over again. And it was always worth it – if only for a season or two.
At my most beautiful I count your eyelashes secretly With every one, whisper, “I love you” I let you sleep I know your closed eye watching me Listening I thought I saw a smile
Lately I’ve been looking at long-ago romances and revisioning the hurt I felt at the end of any number of relationships. The endings usually left me sad and bereft, and in sadness there was bitterness. That’s not how I want to remember those love affairs, and so I’m shifting my view of them, choosing instead to remember how wonderful they were in their respective sections of my life. Hence the sweet song of this post, and the revelations – literal and metaphorical – of now and then.
I’ve found a way to make you I’ve found a way A way to make you smile
Returning from Maine, the road turned from rainy to sunny.
Summer whispered on the scattered days when the temperature reached into the 80’s.
In some cities there is already the bane of a heatwave, driving the warmth into the concrete, into the labyrinthine subway stations, into the headache-inducing unbearable afternoons where the only relief is in a cold shower, in lying very still as a fan does its damnedest to no real avail.
How far will it take us, how hot will it get, and how will we get there from here? Impossible to make out the twists and turns to come, even if the end – the destination – is in the beginning, in those earliest days of spring, when houses of glass and green gave the only glimpses of hope on those nights still so cold.
Bane of our lawn’s existence, I still have a soft spot in my heart for these little violets that still manage to break through in the spring despite all the treatments. When I was little, behind our family home was a little stretch of woods, and behind the black iron gate of the pool, a swath of these violets had naturalized and provided an enchanting carpet that was lit up with purple and white violet blooms each spring.
The variegated white and purple variety was far more ubiquitous, but I always coveted the more rare pure violet blooms like the one seen here.
That I’m weighed down by your beautiful Collapsing underneath your perfect Drowning in your wonderful And I’m letting you sink in It’s, it’s almost unbearable I’m suffering inside your magic Love you something terrible And I’m letting you sink in And I’m letting you sink in
Hidden among this spring’s collection of lilac-themed posts, a song surfaces, breaking through the din of the food hall at Moynihan Train Hall as I find myself departing New York after a Mother’s Day weekend on Broadway with Mom. It’s been decades since she first brought us to New York to see ‘Peter Pan’ when I was just a kid, and though our roles have flipped somewhat (with me planning and steering us around the city as best I can) it’s still fun to see shows with the woman who instilled a love of theater from an early age.
When I was a kid I built a kingdom There in my bed Filled it with wisdom And all of my friends They were like superheroes We’d go outside and play in the garden I’d shown my eyes and give ’em a warning And they’d run and hide while I counted down to zero And forever I know I won’t stop dreaming, won’t let go
A few years later, when I was in middle school, Suzie and Missy joined us for a trip to New York, where we saw ‘Jerome Robbins’ Broadway’. A little older, and on the verge of knowing everything as teenagers, we thought we were shit as much as we thought we were the shit. Simultaneously uncertain and entirely sure of ourselves, we walked around the city like we were untouchable (except for the lady who patted me on the head and said my hair was so softy and shiny).
I know we’re older Carrying the world upon our shoulders But I know that forever we’ll be young and bold, oh, we’re full of hope I know I know, I know I know we can be giants Somewhere, I know there’s a world that’s waiting out there For you and I to shine like we are made of gold, we were made to glow I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants We can be giants, Oh, we can be giants We can be giants Yeah, I know I know, I know I know We can be giants
A couple of years after that, Suzie and I and our Moms were back in New York for a pair of shows that remain favorites: ‘Lost In Yonkers’ and ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. Full-frontal male nudity with our mothers was not on my bucket list, but we checked that box that trip. Suzie and I were growing up (a floppy dick bouncing around on stage does that to a person…) and in our friendship I found a certain strength and stability that I didn’t sense with anyone else.
When I was a kid I was a dreamer My room wasn’t big, my house wasn’t either But I had enough love to fill up a city And all of those nights I watched the stars They lit up the sky, filled up my heart I won’t let go
By the time I was in college, Norma Desmond and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ had taken hold of my psyche, and Mom and I were back on Broadway seeing Glenn Close in her Tony-winning turn. The next year we saw ‘Master Class’ with Zoe Caldwell as Maria Callas – diva-dom was still calling to me in delusional grandeur, and it would be a little while until I could take myself out of the scenes to enjoy from afar; I always felt things too keenly, too deeply, for my own good, and for my own safety. But growing up changes that, no matter when it happens.
I know we’re older Carrying the world upon our shoulders But I know that forever we’ll be young and bold, oh, we’re full of hope Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants Somewhere, I know there’s a world that’s waiting out there For you and I to shine like we are made of gold, we were made to glow Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know we can be giants
Spring nights are the salvation of the sleepless. I don’t mind being awake when the nights stay warm early into the morning, or when a warm front arrives in the evening and everything feels suddenly tropical. Here’s one for the insomniacs and sleep-deprived, those who find themselves unable to sleep because their minds are too bright with something else. It’s Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of ‘Black Coffee’, a bluesy little song to help anyone through the night.
Black coffee Love’s a hand me down brew I’ll never know a Sunday In this weekday room
Their’s something noirish in the underside of this music, lying just beneath the surface, insidious like the disappearing tail of a cigarette’s smoky trail. A diabolical piece of music that seeps into the darkest corner of the night – shadow of shadow of shadow…
I’m talking to the shadows 1 o’clock to 4 And Lord, how slow the moments go When all I do is pour
Black coffee Since the blues caught my eye I’m hanging out on Monday My Sunday dreams to dry
Scary music, not the silly stuff of Halloween, something more sinister, slinking through the spring like a snake, slip-slip-lisp-slip snake-talk…
Now a man is born to go a lovin’ A woman’s born to weep and fret To stay at home and tend her oven And drown her past regrets In coffee and cigarettes
A cup of cold coffee sits on the table in the cold light of morning. Gray and muted, a different kind of noirish, and a more menacing one, because the morning is always the more menacing.
Right when I’d written off this year’s crop of lilac blooms as a bust, the backyard trees burst into bloom thanks to a heavy soaking of rain a few days ago. In the early morning, I went out to take a few photos, and it turned out to be the only part of the day that didn’t have rain. The lilacs seemed to know this, bowing their heads and biding their time until their long and lengthy thirst-quenching drink arrived to fill the rest of the day. While we needed the rain, I longed for riding into the sun…
Telling stories has always fascinated me, as much for the sharing of knowledge and understanding and something that might resonant with another person, as for the relief and lifting of a burden in the act of telling and sharing. Difficulty shared is difficulty halved, or some such shit. Certain songwriters share a love of sharing stories through their music. Mitski is one such artist, and this song says so much in just a few chords and lines. I love the way it opens up on so many levels, how it could mean so many different things.
I won’t leave you ’cause I still love you So it’s up to you if you choose to go In the meantime, sleeping by my side Our two cats, making sure I’ll be alright
As spring deepens, as the weather turns (please God maybe just a little warmer?) and as this space becomes more of an escape and an escapade in a world gone completely bonkers, I like the idea of trying out different stories, tales to take the burden off living this life. Fictional flights of fancy with some gems and jewels of the human condition to keep it all grounded, tethered to the heart of our emotions. Let me entertain you…
You say, “It’s so hard” But it feels simple to me It feels so simple to me So I’ve been trying to stop trying To be like someone you’d still like Maybe if I could, you already would
‘Cause I still love you, so I won’t leave you Guess it’s up to you if you choose to go In the meantime, rescues at my side Our two cats, both asleep by me tonight
When an artist combines music, beauty, and the natural world, it’s an alchemy that often results in the crowning of a Dazzler of the Day – which is why Ben Cosgrove is today’s Dazzler. A composer, pianist, and performance artist, Cosgrove creates and makes music that speaks to the landscape, geography, and the environment – weaving these worlds into an artistic creation that brings tender expression to how humans relate to the environment around them. Check out his website here for additional genius.
I see lilacs in the rain, And you are with me again, When April sprinkles her dreams in my heart. When we parted in the lane, The skies were tearful with rain, The scent of lilacs remained in my heart.
Arriving at the end of April, the two more typically calamitous months of spring are behind us, and the joyous promise of May is at last at hand. Before we leave this month, however, a little look back at the tender pockets of beauty and longing that were found between days of snowy chill and frosty places. Many give March the dramatic distinction of being the most changeable month – lion and lamb and all those animal metaphors – but April has always struck me as the most transformative. This year proved that true, as winter seemed to linger well into the month, wreaking havoc with snow-weary hearts – a final, extended test and trial of how indomitable the spirit could be. We reprise this song that appeared in earlier form here – it rings differently after spring outpaces winter.
A lot can happen in a single month, especially when it’s spring. Hearts break open then, thawing as much from the warmer days and nights as from emotional circumstance and the whims of a capricious universe. And we are nothing if not in thrall to our hearts – even when our heads are screaming otherwise.
Two other arms around you now, Some other love has found you now! But when love forgets to smile, My darling, once in a while, Remember April and lilacs in the rain!
And so we reach the end of this treacherous month, when ephemerals like crocus and snowdrops bravely poked their heads into the early spring world, nodding at each other and saying hello, romancing and entrancing with their all-too-brief dance before going away for another year. We say goodbye to those sweet romances, doomed not to last, as we set up a more enduring element to the summer to come – the fiery, quickly-extinguished flames of floral dalliance evolving into the propriety of friendship to see us all the way through to fall.
When we parted in the lane, The skies were tearful with rain, The scent of lilacs remained in my heart.
Back then I was brave enough to face the pain without trickery – no drink, no mind games, no convincing myself otherwise. I embraced my solitude perversely like it was a partner – and if I’d just met someone in the haphazard way destiny worked in a time before social media, I could work up an infatuation before they even learned my name, and I gave in to that feverish passion with my entire being. I always fell too fast, burning too brightly for it to ever last. I didn’t know any other way to love, and I didn’t care to learn.
I’d thrash out those emotions, giving space and time and obsession to those feelings, because I was desperately starved for connection and companionship. I don’t mind saying now that it was pathetic – honestly, I didn’t mind how pathetic it was then either. What could be wrong about loving someone? So what if it didn’t make sense – the heart doesn’t abide by sense and reason. I was deliberately in command and control over so many other aspects of my life, a little romantic fervor seemed allowable. To this day, I maintain there is no fault in not wanting to go through life all alone. (Nor is there any shame in actually going through the damn thing without a companion, so it cuts both ways.)
Heaven, heaven…
Not one part of me cringes at the way I used to behave – especially in the spring. Boston was too romantic in atmosphere and environment for me to do much of anything other than fall in love. When the cherry blooms danced like ballerinas in the slightest soft breeze, and the sweet scent of apple blossoms and Korean spice viburnum mixed with the nostalgic magic of lilacs and hyacinths – how could anyone resist the tiniest nudge in the direction of romance? It would be a crime against nature not to fall in love on those enchanting nights.
But every morning I woke alone, stomach faintly aching with the muscle memory of my weeping, eyes crusty with tears dried in my sleep. The condo was so quiet on those mornings, and it never felt right for a city to be that quiet. I treated it with reverence, padding silently into the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea and wonder at the ridiculousness of my emotional state.
How quickly I could conjure and conduct a love affair with the young men who so innocuously populated the world about me at the time – the cute barista who spoke broken English in an endearing French accent, the hapless gentleman who came into the store looking for help in putting an outfit together (always in need of tie advice), the classmate who knew my name when I hadn’t even told it to him. I always thought it was something intrinsic and inherent to them – to those adorable men and their soulful eyes – when all the while it was my own inherent specialness that bestowed such a gift upon them – my own willingness to bend and the invitation extended to share a life together. Against all charges of vanity and ego and selfishness, a certain generosity of spirit when it came to falling in love was my one redeeming quality. How unfortunate that it would always be seen and felt more as weakness and melancholy, some sad act of desperation when I really just wanted to play and laugh with someone deep into the night.
Hear the storm dances outside Something set free is running through the night And the dark awaits us all around the corner But here in our place, we have for the day Can we stay a while and listen for heaven? Heaven…
When I look back at the young man I was back then, at how I’d turn the makings of a single spring month into a life-altering love affair that charged and changed my existence for all time, I feel nothing but tenderness for the man I used to be.
And I’d do it all over again – every single goddamned time.
Remember when we met We acted like two fools We were so glad So glad to have found it
That love is like a star, it’s gone We just see it shining It’s traveled very far, I’ll Keep a leftover light burning So you can keep looking up Isn’t that worth holding on?
You know I’d always been alone ‘Til you taught me To live for somebody
That love is like a star It’s gone, we just see it shining ‘Cause it’s traveled very far, I’ll Keep a leftover light burning So you can keep looking up I am yours
A girl once accepted my marriage proposal in grade school. She was the first one to love me in any romantic sense – at least as romantic as a grade schooler could be – and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. We went on a date at the local candy shop, sharing sundaes at the counter while I kept a furtive eye on the door to make sure no classmates could see us. She’d share her pizza with me at lunch, and I felt guilty about it, wondering if she would give me everything in all the days that followed, no matter if she was hungry herself. If you’ve been lucky enough to have been loved in such a way during your formative years, you take that with you for the rest of your life, but you will always wonder if you’ll ever be worthy of it.
No matter that love’s gone We just see it shining We’ve traveled very far, I’ll Keep a leftover light burning So you can keep looking up Isn’t that worth holding on?
While the wine no longer moves me, the perfume of the lilac holds me in sway. Entranced by its potent beauty, I swoon beneath the influence of its exquisite fragrance and delicate shading. Embodiment of spring, emblem of hope, and enticer of all who seek beauty in this world, the lilac is muse and temptress – promiser of delights, sage of inspiration.
Enrapt by the charms of the season, I fall deeper under its enchanting pull every day. As more buds swell and explode – with flower and leaf and root – I’m reminded of the sensual delights that the warmer days will soon bring. Is it terribly wrong to lazily lap up the indulgence of the sun when for so long it’s been absent?
A rebirth of sorts feels in the stirring, and I’m happily powerless of letting it wash over and baptize me anew. A second coming at the tail-end of middle-age, perhaps, and the lilacs have only just begun to tell their perfumed stories…
