This is one proper bop, if we can keep the good meaning of ‘bop’ going for just a little bit longer, like the summer. (Leave it to middle schoolers to ruin a term just as us adults get cozy and comfy using it.)
Let’s have decadence in the face of all this depravity – the only way to get through this summer is to shut off the news and focus on what is real, what is here, what is actually happening. The strength of the sunlight and the way it wavers on the water… the sweet scent of privet in bloom… the hunger and exhaustion that happily overcomes the body after a day of swimming…
A recent dinner with Suzie at Athos provided the opportunity to try this mocktail twist on their ‘Lavender Daisy’ drink – hats off to a restaurant that offers every single one of its cocktails in mocktail form. The presentation is coquettish, and I would love for violets to play a part in all my drinks from this point forward. That’s the sort of magic one can wish for in a coquette summer. Let’s also have a song – one for the moon…
Days seem sometimes as if they’ll never end Sun digs its heels to taunt you But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same Rises the moon
Days fade into a watercolour blur Memories swim and haunt you But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke Rises the moon
Our coquette summer continues – and coquette can be cloudy and rainy, especially if the clouds are pink and the raindrops are violets. Sadness and melancholy disguised in Chantilly lace and whipped cream. Sweetness would be simple solace, and I’m not sure that’s attainable. Solace… I’ve used that word before in these posts, and I’m afraid I may have been mistaken. It might be that I wanted it so badly to be true that I put it up here, in post after post, hoping it would one day prove true. One can indeed will things into being, where once they simply didn’t exist.
And so I swim, in the pool that once brought us such joy, attempting to set the trappings of happiness in physical form, rekindling the precise atmosphere and setting where happiness once resided, leading with action in the motion, the way some say to smile when you want to feel better, tricking the body into thinking it’s in a space and place of happiness. And then I remember – a coquette summer isn’t necessarily meant to be one of happiness, and maybe this summer isn’t meant to have much of solace in it anyway. We shall dream in the day and swim in the night, drink in the stars and sip on the moon, and our coquette summer will be rounded in a sleep…
Days pull you up just like a daffodil Uprooted from its garden They’ll tell you what you owe, but know even so Rises the moon
You’ll be visited by sleep I promise you that soon the autumn comes To steal away each dream you keep Breathe, breathe, breathe
Our second playlist for this coquette summer is at hand for the moments before we turn the page to July. When summer turns to high, all feels endlessly glorious with the world, like summer could last forever. Every year it feels like that, every year it feels endless – or maybe that’s just hope. No matter how much we know it will end, we hope.
This is the second Coquette Summer playlist – entitled simply ‘coquettish’. Beneath the spell of summer, this music percolates like an old-school coffee-maker, sputtering auditory stimulation and sweetness to mask the murder of democracy for which this country seems headed. Enjoy what is possibly our last summer of freedom, bury your head in the sand and songs, and coquette away your trifling worries.
This is the soundtrack to the world getting fucked, and no one paying any attention to it.
Lately, I’ve found myself overthinking a lot of things – almost everything. Maybe it was the middle-aged rite of passage that is the colonoscopy that set the mind into extra motion. Maybe it’s the anniversary of last summer quickly approaching and reminding me of heavier days. Maybe it’s the quieter start of the season, and its tumultuous roller-coaster of weather that has the mind spinning. All of it has pushed me back into the overly-analytical and obsessively introspective mode that once formed the baseline of daily life. I thought I had moved beyond that, but maybe I haven’t quite yet. And so the coquette summer, only so recently begun, lowers its veil of lace – to obscure my excessive analysis, to quell my insufferable introspection.
Beautiful stranger sitting right there Looked up at me and my dark curly hair Looked up for a second, didn’t want to be rude I tend to fall in love on the tube Beautiful stranger sitting right there Reading the newspaper, stuck to his chair I swore that he smiled and I felt my heart drop Heard the doors open, came to my stop
Beautiful stranger sitting right there It’s fate we collided right then back there I wonder if he felt the same thing too Innocent crush on the morning commute
Bedtime used to be around 10 PM on the good night, when I could quiet my brain and calm that pesky train of thoughts. The past few months have found it moving after midnight, and when I finally do put myself down, sleep doesn’t always come immediately. I find myself regressing to the nights when insomnia ravaged and ruined the next day. That’s when things start spiraling, and shadows lend shadows to shadows. My youth was spent mostly living in my mind, conjuring stories and adventures from my imagination, too scared to set anything real in motion outside of the safety of my head. As if that was any sort of safe space…
What if I would’ve stayed on the train Dared to stand up and ask for his name Maybe we would have exchanged a few words A fairytale moment could have occurred But my beautiful stranger will have to remain A stranger until I see him again Unless I never will
Beautiful strangers passed around me in those innocent days, on trains or subway cars or airplane cabins. Glimpses of handsomeness, coupled with the occasional spark of a wink, induced a queasy promise that I might one day thrill someone without worry or discomfort or hesitation. My mass of neuroses, which would likely save my life for all the precautions and care it caused me to worriedly exercise in the years that followed, mangled and tortured the way I moved through my early twenties. Those were the years of the beautiful strangers, and all their beautiful fantasies – unfurling so perfectly because they never quite unfurled at all. Nothing real ever happened because I was too frightened to let it, and so everything took place in the mind. My overwrought, over-wrung, overly-taxed mind. I made it all so much harder than it had to be.
A coquette summer, with all its frilly silliness, might go some way toward providing enough distraction to gently shake one out of too much thinking… rounding our little lives with that beautiful, elusive sleep…
My beautiful stranger will have to remain A love that came and left with the train My beautiful stranger
And when you go away I still see you The sunlight on your face in my rearview This always happens to me this way Recurring visions of such sweet days
Hurled into the clouds, they suddenly dissipate. There is only light there, and color, a feeling more than anything else.
And when you go away I still see you The sunlight on your face in my rearview When you go away I still see you The sunlight on your face in my rearview
Summer ambivalence, coming so early in the season, sets a dramatic sky into motion. The obfuscation of a blog post to cover my emotional tracks. Ghosts of last summer linger and tap my shoulder. The hurt still haunts. I shall endeavor to escape into the sky.
Queasy summer shower, steam off the pavement, evening coming on too quickly no matter how late the light lasts. A preponderance of pink in the night, a song by Mitski to accompany the mood, a fan of pink feathers to wave away the heat. Coquette summers are all about the exquisite ache, the untethered longing, the there-but-not-there emptiness of loss. Summer gains darkness as the years go by, so we need a little pink glow to get us through the night.
I glow pink in the night in my room I’ve been blossoming alone over you And I hear my heart breaking tonight I hear my heart breaking tonight Do you hear it too? It’s like a summer shower With every drop of rain singing “I love you, I love you, I love you I love you, I love you, I love you I love you, I love you, I love you”
Sigh of decadent dismissal, smile of weak and shaky form, movements of languid timidity. Sentences broken into pieces of phrase, words cut and shattered, grammar torn. Cruel, abrupt, clipped summer. Evocation and adoration too. Summer carves out its space, removing its heart.
I could stare at your back all day I could stare at your back all day And I know I’ve kissed you before, but I didn’t do it right Can I try again, try again, try again Try again, and again, and again And again, and again, and again
The forecast calls for a mixed-bag of weekend weather – rain has a decent chance of falling – and a summer weekend of rain makes for a very sad weekend indeed. Another coquette summer song then – ‘The Conflict of the Mind’ – to give atmosphere to this conflicted moment. It’s part of an upcoming Coquette Summer Playlist – the second installment, on the way in a little over a week.
It’s a complicated story That we never talk about But I see it in the mirrors In the curtains of our house I don’t want you to be worried That we’re running out of time It doesn’t matter where we’re going We can leave it all behind
Only when I see you cry I feel conflicted in my mind It fills my heart up and it breaks me at the very same time When you open up the gates for me And leave the world behind We find proof of love is hidden In the conflict of the mind
I remember how I’d find you Fingers tearing through the ground Were you digging something up Or did you bury something down? In your soul, I found a thirst With only salt inside your cup In your eyes, I saw a longing While I longed to lift you up
Whoa – the lyrics went a little deeper than I realized when I first put this song on the playlist. At first it was all about the gentle mood of the music, the atmosphere it conjured – but reading through these words make it all cut a little deeper. I suppose that’s the real province of summer: crux and conflict – the crossed and the conflicted. The search for summer solace.
Only when I see you cry I feel conflicted in my mind It fills my heart up and it breaks me at the very same time When you open up the gates for me And leave the world behind We find proof of love is hidden In the conflict of the mind
Let us seek out that solace in beauty and grace, in mindfulness and meditation. Let us find it in the garden, in a book, in a lazy day by the pool – all simple pleasures, all at hand sooner or later in the season of summer. Even in the rain there is joy to be found – maybe it’s in the break and pause the rainfall provides, when it’s impossible to work outside or go for a swim. Little joys. Little bits of balm. Little pieces of solace.
Don’t let your spirit die This is just a conflict of the mind (conflict of the mind) Is your heart alive? (Is your heart alive?) You’ll overcome a conflict of the mind (conflict of the mind) Don’t let your spirit die (love is, let your spirit die) This is just a conflict of the mind (love is, conflict of the mind) Is your heart alive? (Love, is your heart alive?) You’ll overcome a conflict of the mind (conflict of the mind) Don’t let your spirit die (love is, let your spirit die) This is just a conflict of the mind (love is you, conflict of the mind) Is your heart alive? (Love, is your heart alive?) You’ll overcome a conflict of the mind (love is you)
Love is you Love is you Love is, love, love Love is you Love
Heavenly. And that puts us in the mind-frame of a song – a song that fits snugly into our coquette theme with its dreamy stylings and lush melody.
“Coquettes are, but too rare. It is a career that requires great abilities, infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. ‘Tis the coquette who provides all the amusements – suggests the riding-party, plans the picnic, gives and guesses charades, acts them. She is the stirring element amid the heavy congeries of social atoms – the soul of the house, the salt of the banquet.” – Benjamin Disraeli
Wanting your love to come into me Feeling it slow, over this dream Touch me with a kiss, touch me with a kiss
Now you’re above feeling it still Tell me it’s love, tell me it’s real Touch me with a kiss, feel me on your lips
Because this is where I want to be Where it’s so sweet and heavenly
I’m giving you all my, giving you all my Giving you all my love Giving you all my, giving you all my Giving you all my love All my love
Summer so sweet, summer so heavenly. Summer so rife with memories… of Montana, of what must have been love, of getting pantsed and showing off my rear, of pride and guilt, of picking the beans, and of reading the rainbow. Summer is adept at seering certain moments into the memory. They remain embedded more powerfully than what happened yesterday, part of my make-up in a way that other memories can only echo. Summer makes for forever.
Needing you now to come into me Feeling it slow, over this dream Touch me with a kiss, feel me on your lips
When you’re above feeling it still Tell me it’s love, tell me it’s real Touch me with a kiss, touch me with a kiss
Because this is where I want to be Where it’s so sweet and heavenly
I’m giving you all my, giving you all my Giving you all my love Giving you all my, giving you all my Giving you all my love All my love
And when you’re far away, I still feel it all And when you’re far away, I still feel it all the same
And when you’re far away, far away
Summer brings us back to childhood in the best possible way, burning away sadness and angst with a rose-tinted flame that gives light to all that was dark. For that reason alone, let us have summer, and let it burn brilliantly into our memory banks – with fire, with heat, with love…
I’m giving you all my, giving you all my Giving you all my love Giving you all my, giving you all my Giving you all my love
Somewhere in some other galaxy, on some other iteration of this website long-ago deleted and written over, this song had some far more innocent blog post to go along with it. I’m old enough to remember when Paris Hilton released it, back when I had little to no respect for her, and it was so good that I played it out for the whole summer of 2006. I don’t remember what I wrote about it then, only that it was one of the summer songs that I featured during the sunny time of the year. It came when the days were carefree, when the nights were filled with pool parties and friends and newly-planted gardens. It was a song reflective of such innocence – the musical embodiment of summer, when music made the memories that would last the longest.
I don’t mind spending some time just hanging here with you ‘Cause I don’t find too many guys that treat me like you do Those other guys all wanna take me for a ride But when I walk, they talk of suicide Some people never get beyond their stupid pride But you can see the real me inside, and I’m satisfied…
On this evening before summer officially starts, the songs gets an updated treatment with Paris’ Version, which brings it neatly into our pink-hued coquette theme while largely retaining its original innocence. That’s not as easy as it might seem, even with the arrival of summer again; the innocent coquette is not necessarily an oxymoron, but one must work for it not to be.
Even though the gods are crazy Even though the stars are blind If you show me real love, baby, I’ll show you mine I can make it nice and naughty Be the devil and angel too Got a heart and soul and body Let’s see what this love can do Maybe I’m perfect for you
Baby, baby, I could be your confidante Come on over, show me if you’re down or not That’s hot, make your whole jaw drop Give you all that talk, finna ride with Paris Outta everybody in the galaxy You’re the only one I really want with me Let’s sip, we like princesses In the Miu Miu fits with the horse and carriage
Why shouldn’t we be with the ones we really love? Now tell me, who have you been dreamin’ of?
The summer of 2006 feels so long ago, and many summers have come and gone since then, so much life – sprouting and growing and blooming and maturing – and now it feels like the years of fading have begun. That makes things glow differently, and in this second half of life, should I be so lucky to be hovering around the halfway mark (for nothing is ever guaranteed) I’m preparing for all the things a proper second act should be.
Even though the gods are crazy Even though the stars are blind If you show me real love, baby I’ll show you mine I can make it nice and naughty Be the devil and angel too Got a heart and soul and body Let’s see what this love can do (Oh no) Maybe I’m perfect for you
Like our modern coquette aesthetic this song reaches into the past while reimagining a freshness and newness not entirely unlike a virgin. It’s a lovely way of honoring the final evening of spring, and the night that will see us into summer.
Newly-obsessed with Stevie Nicks (thanks to attending my second show in under week) I’m combining our coquette summer theme (which fittingly features its own dose of lace) with her song ‘Leather and Lace‘. There’s a compelling story behind how that song came to be, but I won’t spoil it for anyone who might be going to see her live (and absolutely everyone should). I’ll simply post the song here as it’s currently my favorite of her many iconic musical moments, and for once I find the song, and its lyrics, to be more serious and thoughtful than any of my silly words or stories.
Is love so fragile and the heart so hollow? Shatter with words, impossible to follow You’re saying I’m fragile, I try not to be I search only for something I can’t see I have my own life And I am stronger than you know
But I carry this feeling When you walked into my house That you won’t be walking out the door Still I carry this feeling When you walked into my house That you won’t be walking out the door
Love songs, at this point in musical history and certainly at this point in my life, are too often riddled with cliches and simplistic notions of romance that don’t usually translate into the messiness of real humans and hearts. Yet still we grasp at them because we know that when love hits, it does defy the messy moments, making the work worth it. When I think back on the life I’ve shared with Andy, it would be an easy take to view him as the leather in the relationship, and me as the lace. Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking and assuming the same thing – it’s a solid take, and based on lots of history and factual evidence. (Hello, I’m wearing lace in this post… and many others, so it’s not a bad assumption, just a little short of encompassing what we might be to each other.)
Lovers forever, face to face My city, your mountains Stay with me, stay I need you to love me, I need you today Give to me your leather Take from me my lace
You in the moonlight With your sleepy eyes Would you ever love a woman like me? And you were right When I walked into your house I knew I’d never want to leave
Most of us are a little leather and little lace in one, and in our relationships with each other we might lean toward one side or the other, but every relationship I know and have been in has found one person assuming both roles at various points. That’s certainly true of my marriage – there are times when each of us has to be stronger because of what the other person might be going through, and such balance is a very good thing.
Sometimes I’m a strong woman Sometimes cold and scared and sometimes I cry But that time I saw you I knew with you to light my nights Somehow I would get by
The first time I saw you I knew with you to light my nights Somehow I would get by
And so we have this sweet love song as we near the end of spring – not the sort of love song to accompany the start of something, but a more resonant and lasting notion of love to embody the potent glowing embers of a love that has survived the wear and tear of decades. Even leather breaks down after all that time, and lace is sometimes better at allowing poisonous winds to travel right through it instead of taking it all in. Which is stronger in the end? Both might be needed to make it through this life’s journey.
Lovers forever, face to face My city, your mountains Stay with me, stay I need you to love me, I need you today Give to me your leather Take from me my lace
Lovers forever, face to face My city, your mountains Stay with me, stay Well, I need you to love me, I need you today To give to me your leather Take from me my lace
The world has gotten entirely too serious for our coquette leanings, and when it threatens to take us all down, I find it best to let loose and put on some ‘Strawberry Bounce’ from Janet Jackson’s under-appreciated ‘Damita Jo’ album. It also provides the opportunity to post a few mouth-watering pictures of the first batch of fresh strawberries that Andy found at Gade Farm. ‘Tis the damn season! And it’s Friday too!!
I like to make it (bounce) You know I’ll make it (bounce) Now can you take it? (Bounce, bounce) Lose control…
I liked strawberries more as a kid than I do now – not that I mind them in the least, I’m simply not quite as enamored. Back then, strawberry was my favorite flavor in the Chocolate/Vanilla/Strawberry trio of a Neapolitan ice cream carton. Whenever given the option of vanilla or chocolate, I would choose strawberry. Turns out I’ve been rejecting binary options my whole life long.
Gyrate then spin it like a yo-yo Slap the back and jiggle it like Jell-O Honey, if you came for a show I’mma make you lose control…
As for the ‘Strawberry Bounce’ of Damita Jo’s pumping ditty, indulge in these profound lyrics, give in to this sick beat, and hang on to spring like it’s gonna leave next week…
The first installment of our Coquette Summer Music Playlist included this beauty by Air, entitled ‘Alone in Kyoto’. It gives a lovely lilt to a late spring afternoon which has turned warmer than I dared to dream about. This song plays on a day that feels like summer. Without words, the delicate melody floats in the air, providing room for your own contemplative mental meanderings. That’s not always a great thing for people who dwell too much in their minds, ruminating and perseverating and reeling with overthinking. At those moments, and I have a few over the course of any given day, I will return to a singular focus on mindfulness.
Taking each moment and minute as it comes, redirecting my attention to my breathing, on the sole idea of the breath – the inhalation, the pause, the exhalation, the pause, and the inhalation again – one continuous river of survival, where peace can always be found if you know how to look for it.
Our coquette summer hasn’t even officially begun, but the notion of melancholy masked in beauty is timeless and unbound by seasonal shifts or demarcations.
Call me a convert to the church of the coven, as I have fallen completely under the musical spell of enchantment cast by Stevie Nicks and her storied legacy of song sorcery. My friend JoAnn took me to my first Stevie Nicks show at Mohegan Sun this past Sunday, and it was a soul-enriching reminder of the healing power of music – and testament to the enduring performance wizardry of a woman who, despite her repeated reminders of her 76-years of age and wisdom, stood center stage and kept command of an entirely-rapt sold-out audience for two straight hours. The history of her triumphs and tribulations over the past few decades is as tortured and twisted as it is wondrous and miraculous. She’s worked her magic while countless others have burned brightly and faded quickly around her.
A little more than halfway through the how, I marveled at how she had preserved her voice over all those years of gold dust living, when she paused to share the background on how she has religiously maintained a 40-minute vocal warm-up regime before every single show she has done over the past twenty years or so. It’s that sort of dedication to her craft – and her passion for the music that has sustained her during the darkest days – which has established her presence in the firmament of musical legends. This Dazzler of the Day crowning is hardly enough to convey how many lives she has changed and inspired, and it’s only the start of my own discovery of her genius.
Our coquette summer is off to an early start with a little reunion of the kids who attended my office’s ‘Take Your Children To Work Day’ extravaganza this year. Their group got along so well that I proposed a follow-up hang-out with a coquette theme, since the kids seemed to know more about coquette than I did, and the only way to stay young is to keep up on such themes. With that, this song from the Coquette Summer Playlist the 1st, perfect for a moon-filled night:
Moon, a hole of light Through the big top tent up high Here before and after me Shinin’ down on me
Moon, tell me if I could Send up my heart to you? So, when I die, which I must do Could it shine down here with you?
Emi selected this song, as she did most of the songs on the first summer playlist, and it has a lovely, laid-back vibe to it – the perfect backdrop to today’s gathering. If there is rain, that will only add to the underlying shadows of the coquette theme. it is worth remembering that behind the clouds, the moon is still there.
‘Cause my love is mine, all mine I love mine, mine, mine Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love mine, all mine, all mine My baby, here on earth Showed me what my heart was worth So, when it comes to be my turn Could you shine it down here for her?
‘Cause my love is mine, all mine I love mine, mine, mine Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love mine, all mine Nothing in the world is mine for free But my love mine, all mine, all mine
