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…
Cherry blossoms, caught mid-way through their dressing process, have paused in their show, refusing to be coaxed out in such cold, windy weather. Their reluctance is matched by their companion foliage – the leaves also remaining tightly bound, coiled into themselves in the face of such inhospitable iciness. Everything and everyone is hesitant to appear without the promise of the sun – but there is never such a promise, only the hope… a fervid, intense, passionate hope that spring leans closer to summer than winter, even if we are not quite there yet.
Oh joy’s arise The sun has come again to hold you Sailing out the doldrums of the whole week The polyphonic prairies here, it’s all around you It’s all around you, out here
And if the whole world is crashing down Fall through space out of mind with me Where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising Blows all the shadows far away
Once the shadows depart, and the sun lets the sap start running again, a pair of ants will meet in the branches of a cherry tree. Maybe they’ve come from separate worlds, miles apart, finding each other compatible in a sea of millions where no other ant ever stood out. Maybe they’ve been nearby the whole time, simply unaware and unhappily alone without the other. A pair of ants is a wonder – an empire of ants is a metaphor. The human condition longs mostly for connection.
The falling alcohol empire, is here to hold you Rolling out and haunted ’til it sleeps
Little memories, marching on Your little feet, working the machine Will it spin, will it soar My little dream, working the machine
Soon like a wave that pass will fall And closing in on you they’re going on
A pair of ants in a world that seems hellbent on stepping on them finds themselves in a precarious position. Two against the masses, two against the world. So many odds stacked against them, so many obstacles standing in their way. Happiness is too often a thing of delicate fragility – take it when you can, before it blows away. Hold tight to each other, see yourselves through the night.
Little memories Your little feet, working the machine Will it spin, will it soar My little dream, working the machine
Soon like a wave that pass will fall And closing in on you they’re going on
Somewhere in the gauzy shadowed world of Blanche DuBois, this song was sung in her thin, slightly reedy voice. Trapped in the hellish New Orleans cesspool of her only remaining family, she tries valiantly to conjure some bit of beauty in her small surroundings, and in the face of the brutish behavior of others. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire‘ by Tennessee Williams is a haunting work, as is its film adaptation. Humans are cruel to each other, I often realize, yet we still strive to make something of our lot in life, no matter how unbearable it seems to become. That sometimes comes in the form of a paper moon – an apt metaphor for how flimsy human kindness feels when juxtaposed with human brutality. But ahh, the light… the light glows no matter how dark things get – indeed, grows in power the darker the rest of the world falls.
You say it’s only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me Yes, it’s only a canvas sky Hanging over a muslin tree But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me
Without your love it’s a honky-tonk parade Without your love it’s a melody played in a penny arcade It’s a Barnum & Bailey world Just as phony as it can be But it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me
Spring’s ephemeral delights are like that paper moon too. They aren’t designed to last forever, but while here they enchant and enthrall with a potency that rivals anything that might endure. Moreover, their power is such that they can change you forever, even if they are already gone by the time you realize it.
It’s phony it’s plain to see How happy I would be If you believed in me
My garden work is paused and I’m not ungrateful for the break.
Instead, I write this post, a rare in-the-actual-moment capture of what’s going on rather than a pre-populated and sanitized version to make everything pretty. In the soft hazy light of a cloudy morning, a more raw, and at times tender, truth comes out. Spring often has that effect – it breaks open what was hidden all winter, exposing what might have only heaved a time or two in the winter before we push it back down into the earth. A poor mix of metaphors, that, and I’m too exhausted or lazy to modify it or make it better. Sometimes it’s best to let the world see you as you are, the way lovers glimpse you first thing in the morning. Such an intimate reveal, such a frightening concept. When you’re brave enough to show all your darker shadows, all your hidden recesses, something akin to freedom arrives, and you forget what ever made you afraid to reveal yourself in the first place.
If I pour your cup, that is friendship If I add your milk, that is manners If I stop there, claiming ignorance of taste, That is tea
A quiet wisp of a song is all the heart and head can take right now. Like a cup of tea.
And maybe even this is too much, with its expectant tongues and measured sugar.
But if I measure the sugar To satisfy your expectant tongue Then that is love,
After a stretch of sunshine and warmth, the cold rain and overcast dimness of the day have conspired to bring me back – to winter, to contemplation, to a life before the spring – and to a life after the summer. There, the danger of such a day in an overthought and overwrought nutshell. We are only a month into spring and my mind is wandering off to what happens after summer. None of that. Not now, not yet. All we need to do in this moment, on this Sunday morning, is raise a cup of tea gently to our tongues, sharing in this ritual, enjoying the gentle patter of rain on the roof.
But if I measure the sugar To satisfy your expectant tongue Then that is love, Sitting untouched and growing cold
“Nervous, but in a happy way.” Is this a description of falling in love or a tenderly anthropomorphic rendering of spring’s assessment of its own arrival? The days before the ‘safe’ frost-free date (nothing is ever guaranteed when it comes to weather in the age of global warming) are sometimes stricken with the queasy nervousness one can only liken to burgeoning love – and the earliest days of a romance with summer.
Don’t you notice how I get quiet when there’s no one else around? Me and you and awkward silence Don’t you dare look at me that way I don’t need reminders of how you don’t feel the same
Harkening to our Coquette Summer of a couple years ago, Laufey is a lovely musical selection for this lilac spring – an idyllic starting point for the blooms and perfume about to start popping.
Effervescent and fizzy, with Laufey’s trademark melancholic undertones, tempered by a sumptuous romantics, here is how we slip into a Saturday evening in spring.
That when I talk to you, oh, Cupid walks right through And shoots an arrow through my heart And I sound like a loon, but don’t you feel it too? Confess I loved you from the start
Confess I loved you Just thinking of you I know I’ve loved you from the start
Madonna’s super-long-awaited studio album, ‘Confessions 2’, kicks off its promotional-storming tomorrow as the first single is supposedly going to be released. Her first album since 2019’s ‘Madame X’, this is also a return to the promising dance-floor arena where she has always executed her greatest flexes. Reportedly a sequel of sorts to 2005’s ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’, possibly her last near-perfect album in its entirety. At this point I’ve mostly given up on her matching the other-worldly brilliance that was the ‘Ray of Light’ masterpiece, but the original ‘Confessions’ was a genius move in its own way, and if ‘Confessions 2’ approaches such glory, the queen will handily regain her throne (again).
Initial looks at the visuals for this one are scintillatingly enthralling – the color scheme, the art direction by those who did LUX and BRAT, and the throwback references to the first ‘Confessions’ comprise a release by her original Warner Brothers label that finds her coming home in more than one way.
This lilac spring was in need of a jolt, and this springboard is precisely what the disco ball spins for: escapism through the dance. With its projected release date of July 3, we’re going to have an epic, hot, solid gold summer, rife with confessions and filled with the sort of sweaty passion that can only be found on the dance floor.
Decades ago, before my first trip to London, I was at a dinner in Boston to plan for Suzie’s return. We would pick her up in Finland, joining a family group for a wedding. Suzie had been in Denmark for our junior year of high school – one of the more trying years in our lives for many reasons – and my Mom and I were joining Suzie’s Mom on the trip.
At that planning dinner in Boston the adults went over their plans, and though I didn’t quite feel like an adult yet, I was at the table, listening and watching and learning how to pass as one. It was there where I heard the Cowboy Junkies for the first time, and their album ‘Black-Eyed Man’, which quickly became a pivotal collection of songs in my life. This song spoke to me from the near future, when romantic entanglements would, if all went according to plan, cloud my trajectory.
If you were the woman and I was the man would I send you yellow roses would I dare to kiss your hand? In the morning would I caress you as the wind caresses the sand, if you were the woman and I was the man?
Lately I’ve been thinking of London, perhaps some wanderlust before the weather warms enough to get me outside more. Spring and summer usually calm the itch to travel, especially when the flowers start blooming and the pool looks like the only relief when the temperature inches into the 90’s. But London has been calling for years, and in my mind I went back to my first trip there, when I was just 21, on a group trip with all the tourist trappings, uncovering these photos, actually taken in Wales on our way from London to Dublin.
If I was the heart and you were the head would you think me very foolish if one day I decided to shed these walls that surround me just to see where these feelings led, if I was the heart and you were the head?
Whenever I could get away from the group, I ventured around on my own – sipping cups of tea, browsing bookstores, walking around Covent Garden and stumbling into magical puppet shops that may or may not have been real. London cast a spell over me then, and all I wanted was to share it with someone. The stupidity and futility of finding a boy halfway around the world impressed itself upon my mind; that didn’t stop me from hoping and wishing and wandering the gay bars to no avail.
Something made me certain I was destined to meet someone there, or find something, or discover some secret that would unlock my future. By the time we left London for Wales, I was almost panicked that it hadn’t happened, as if I’d missed something when maybe the thing I needed to learn was how to be on my own. In a way I had done that.
On my next solo trip to London several years later I was ok doing it alone, but this song still reminds me of that first trip, of London in the spring…
If I was the woman and you were the man would I laugh if you came to me with your heart in your hand and said, ‘I offer you this freely and will give you all that I can because you are the woman and I am the man?’
