Some music is too moody to be heard during the day. It goes too deep with its words, or turns too sinisterly in its bassline. This is one of those songs, appropriately entitled ‘The Night’, and perfectly suited for a spell of nightswimming. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get into the pool at least once a day. Not every summer has been as lovely and warm as this one, and I don’t want regrets haunting me in the winter to come.
There is no swimming on a winter’s night.
Summer tells a different tale, allowing for outside loveliness beyond the midnight hour. Summer carries Korean lilacs on its breeze, just as it begins. Summer dapples moonlight on little crests of water – in the pools, the streams, the ponds and lakes, and especially the sea. Summer intoxicates in a way nothing ever could or would.
Summer keeps its secrets in the night, insidiously burying them during the bright sunlight of day. Like slugs and bats, they come back out when the cloak of darkness has safely pulled itself around the edges of the evening, feeding on the good and the bad. Summer is selective sometimes, teasing with clouds and wet air, delivering with lightning and stormy destruction.
Floating in this water, bathed in this light while the night encroaches with deliberate obliteration, I am suspended in a way that feels like what I imagine flying might feel like. There is a weightlessness to swimming that I’ve always loved, a relief and obfuscation from the pull of gravity. An escape from the physical laws of earth is not a typical flight most of us get to take, but swimming allows everyone to experience a few moments of freedom. Indulging in that, I move to the deepest part of the pool and gently paddle, just enough to stay afloat.
A birthday tucked into the tail-end of August, in the last full month of summer, floats by and disappears into the night. No nightingale sings ‘Happy Birthday’, and I wouldn’t understand the nightingale’s song anyway. Another piece of moody music to close the night.
The fading remnants of a supermoon hung in the air as our dinner party broke up at almost 2 AM. Andy and I saw our guests to their car, and looked up to the sky, where this scene played brilliantly out. I believe this was the Sturgeon Moon, another gift of August (which has been exceptionally kind to us thus far). It brought to mind a Matthew Sweet song that saw me through a few tricky college years, back when I didn’t quite know who I was, back when I couldn’t quite face who I was.
There’s a smog moon, in the amber sky, wavering and burning like a golden lie.
I fell so far, I didn’t think I’d make it back
We are all made, as an afterthought,
Destined to believe that we are what we are not
I’m afraid, but I don’t need to tell you that…
Those August moons of my youth crossed overhead, exploding in their light – that light that was always so vital in the darkness of an August night. For several reasons, an August night too often feels darker than any winter night – a strange phenomenon in the season of sun – and one that is a small price to pay for the glories of summer we are otherwise granted. We let the dark nights go, sweating and worrying through them, and if we’re lucky enough to see the morning, we forget how dark they were.
There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it
The cartoon trees cannot conceal it
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like…
It is told by those who tell such things that this Sturgeon Moon is to be the last of the Super Moons this year. Did we channel all the good energy and dispel the bad? Did we soak in its power and drink in all of the proverbial moonshine? Full moons are usually troublesome, but there are some who believe we simply need to harness their energy the right way. I don’t think I’ve found the right way just yet, even though decades have passed since I first heard this beautiful song.
There’s a lost man, with a bitter soul, Only for a moment,
Did life make him whole
And while he was, he thought he was invincible
There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it
The cartoon trees cannot conceal it
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
The song memory brings me back to being in Boston. On certain nights, at certain times of the year, the moon hangs in a specific space in the sky. It shines in through the bedroom window, and just kisses the foot of the bed. Once upon a time, unknowing people believed being bathed in moonlight could be the cause of such things as lunacy (from the root ‘luna’ meaning moon). I always flirted with disaster that way, seeking out the moon bath whenever I could, glad to have its reflected echo of sunlight in the middle of a dark night.
They’re not your words, but you’re reciting the lines
You don’t mean a thing, but you exist in their minds
How does it feel, when they have turned out the lights?
‘Cause you know they sooner would get rid of you, than fight.
On those nights, when the moon peeked in and invited me out, I tentatively slipped a toe into its light, then a foot, then a leg and a thigh… we danced, the moon and I, and whether it was a dance with the devil or an angel, I only know it made me dizzy and exhilarated and defeated – always defeated – by its power and might and whatever secrets it saw – the very secrets that I bared and revealed beneath its intoxicating light. My college years were cloaked in such secrets, buried in silent screams, and only brought to light in a song like this.
And the dark night, has the strongest pull
We both know that staying young, can take its toll
Are you afraid of finding out you’re over that
Matthew Sweet sang to my younger self, when no one else could touch or reach me, and like a lullaby it was comfort and consolation. When I was 23, all I wanted was my 46-year-old future-self to reveal the secrets to all the questions and doubts and worries I had. Now that I’m that future-self, I find I have less knowledge and understanding than I did then, when not knowing was its own sort of wisdom. It feels like I’m going backward, and perhaps that’s the way it should be – cresting over the hump of middle-age and returning to that happier place of not knowing or understanding things, but simply being at peace with them. Finding the happiness where you can find it, taking pleasure and joy when and where they arrive rather than trying to force or create them. I like that view now. I like the not knowing.
And I like the moon.
There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it
The cartoon trees cannot conceal it
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like…
You think you’re better, you’re better than me
You blow me off as history
To avoid conversation, you’re ignoring me…
When you’ve had enough and you need somebody to know
Well, you’re looking tough but you need a way to let it go
Come on now, what’s a boy s’posed to do
When I can’t seem to leave you alone
Touching me, touching you
Summer is not the time to get too deep. There will be time enough for that in the fall. For now, a sunny song and a water dance. Lose your illusion, lose your inhibition, lose your swimsuit…
For fear of losing, losing your way
You stop and listen to the things that they say
To avoid confrontation, you walk away…
This piece of music, written by Hector Berlioz, is from the Ball Scene in Fantastic Symphony. Unsure of whether the world will ever be able to safely throw a grand ball again, the mind modifies and creates a smaller-scale version in a fantastic dinner gathering where the desired intimacy of a large party is conjured with smaller scenes and intricate tablescapes.
This is fantasy. A brief bit of mind-play built within and upon the imagination – the most sacred and fertile ground of all. Palaces, cities, countries, and worlds have been erected there ~ there, where there is no limit, no physical or scientific boundaries, no laws or restrictions or mandates – and once you understand the power that resides within each of us to imagine, the bounds of the real world don’t seem to matter as much.
This is why I never minded waiting around in airports or sitting alone in a quiet room or being a passenger on a five-hour drive. My imagination has been a place of refuge since I was a child, and I’ve fostered and fed it every day of my life. It allows for a sense of contentment and entertainment that almost everyone else I know lacks, and seeks to find in various ways. Not that my way or theirs is better or worse or demanding of comparison. There is room enough to make our different methods through our lives. Personally, I find my mind’s imagination an easy way to access contentment when the mundane reality of the world puts us in situations that aren’t pleasant or fun. One can fight and stubbornly rage against them, or one can accept them and go into a different state of being – whether that’s through meditation, deep breathing, or some fantastical lark that’s half memory and half dream, and entirely made up in one’s head.
Like all responsible members of humanity, I’ve had the latest Beyoncé album ‘Renaissance’ on repeat this entire week. This is the summer soundtrack we’ve been waiting for, and Beyoncé delivers like only she can. Fresh and piping hot, the latest remix for lead single ‘Break My Soul’ features none other than Madonna and manages to feel almost like an afterthought in the appropriately titled ‘Queen’s Remix’. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for this miraculous album. It channels 90’s drag balls though the lens of a powerful black woman, and finds the ‘Summer Renaissance’ of the dance floor its saving grace and salvation. Not unlike the way Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ defined the summer of 2020, Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ is the sonic boost that will see us through the dazzling summer of 2022. For that, and a record-breaking career of influential and bad-ass moves, she is our Dazzler of the Day. Check it all out at www.beyonce.com.
Beyonce Renaissance publicity photos (2022) CR: Carlijn Jacobs for Parkwood Entertainment
Once upon a time
Once when you were mine
I remember skies
Reflected in your eyes
I wonder where you are
I wonder if you think about me
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams
August is a time for fairy tales, and for remembering things in rosy hues that could never quite have existed the way we think they did. It is for those childhood memories that begin with the song on a boombox, way back in the 80’s when my generation brought the boombox over our heads and screamed out our declarations of love – innocent, misguided, and as wonderful as youth affords us all for the briefest of times. This song sounded out from cars and stereos in some beautiful summer from childhood, before I could really know the wonder of love…
Once the world was new
Our bodies felt the morning dew
That greets the brand-new day
We couldn’t tear ourselves away
I wonder if you care
I wonder if you still remember
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams
And when the music plays
And when the words are touched with sorrow
When the music plays
I hear the sound I had to follow
Once upon a time
Jumping into the pool, I heard bits of the song playing from the shade of the slate-floored patio. The radio was our only source for new music then, but I was still too young to pay much attention to anything beyond a catchy melody. Words were indecipherable to my ears, and even when we figured them out (after debate and argument) I couldn’t tell you what was being said – certainly not the first brush with love. Summer was too light for such cares, and I wanted to perfect my mid-air somersaults off the diving board rather than fiddle with some silly notion of romance.
Or so I thought… or didn’t think. When a sandy-haired blonde boy across the street came over to swim, and his feet began to descend the tiled stairs of the shallow end of the pool, I ducked under the cover of water to quell the sudden heat of the spell that was suddenly cast upon me. He was years older than me, all muscle and brute force, and the blonde hair that covered his legs held me transfixed, the way it moved so softly in the water, like anemones waving to the tides from their shallow pools.
Once beneath the stars
The universe was ours
Love was all we knew
And all I knew was you
I wonder if you know
I wonder if you think about it
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams
And when the music plays
And when the words are touched with sorrow
When the music plays
And when the music plays
I hear the sound I had to follow
Once upon a time
I swam around him, circling his legs as they strode through the shallow end, watching his trunks flutter next to his white skin. I felt like shark and prey in one – the hunter and the haunted, for no one was hunting me in those days – and he was blithely unaware of my gaze – or maybe he wasn’t, and the safest recourse was to pretend he was. I imagine my rendering of his perfect body was different than an objective survey might yield with hindsight. It didn’t matter – he was the epitome of male beauty – his blond hair darkened slightly as he dove underwater and displayed his strength with sure strokes through the pool’s dappled light.
It was a time of innocence – the way summer should be, the way it sometimes still is – and the looks from the boy I was at the time were hidden beneath the refracted light of the pool. This neighborhood Adonis would swim by unbothered save for my furtive glances, seeking out the glances of young women who could cast their own spells in ways I couldn’t replicate no matter how much I tried.
He came only a couple of times that summer, but those visits are embedded in my mind – the very first recognition that I found men attractive, the first troubling inkling that I was decidedly unlike any of the other boys. How I wanted to share what I was feeling with someone else, but already I knew it was wrong, so I held it secret and I held it safe, allowing it to exist only at the bottom of a pool, beneath rippling sunlight, in sad and muffled silence.
Once upon a time
Once when you were mine
I remember skies
Mirrored in your eyes
I wonder where you are
I wonder if you think about me
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams
In your wildest dreams
In your wildest dreams
In your wildest dreams
Keenly aware of the power of the thirst trap, Charlie Puth has been baiting his fans for the better part of the year, with sly peeks at his underwear-clad life, and while there will always be those who criticize everything that everyone does, I’m not made about any of it. He’s the Dazzler of the Day thanks to his undying and contagious passion for music, and his cheeky way around social media. His newest album ‘CHARLIE’ is due this October (which is closer than we want to realize). Visit his official website here for further details.
“I’m not familiar with these angels…” ~ Joseph Abramo
The Abramo family has always been a quartet of angels in my life, so when Missy recounted a dream-like sequence of Joe’s opening angel comment, I cracked up for quite a long time. Such happy laughter was a constant during our annual Connecticut Summer Weekend pilgrimage to Southbury, where Julian and Cameron joined in the merry-making. Music was, as ever, a companion for the weekend, and the soundtrack for the occasion is neatly summed up by the light and carefree funk of Harry Styles and his new album opener, ‘Music for a Sushi Restaurant’.
This song set the tone for the fun weekend that was had by all, and I arrived to the sunny and peaceful planning going on by the little lotus pond, just in time to see the first lotus bloom of the season. It was an auspicious start to a weekend of relaxed serenity and old friends.
Joining in the air of calm festivities, a water lily emerged to add to the beauty of the weekend.
Along the path leading to the pool, wildflowers lended their own blooms to the season. The world around us had granted a floriferous atmosphere that collided with our joy and peace. There is something about visiting old friends that sets the soul at ease. It is its own form of meditative cleansing.
I took Julian and Cameron down to the pool for a quick dip (and a few games of find-the-bottle, which I would bring back to our pool when the twins visited next) before Missy and Joe joined us for some lounge time by the water. They have an idyllic home for a relaxing visit – no schedule, no pressure, no time crunch – and I relaxed into this little vacation with a grateful heart.
This has always been a place of tranquility, accented by echoes of the Buddha, and a natural beauty that Joe and Missy have emphasized in all the right ways. Whether contemplating the still and quiet calm of the water plants in the little pond or leafing through the books on Japanese gardens and water features, each corner offered a new opportunity for comfort. Bookended by the riotous action of boys in the full giddy glow of growing up, the weekend provided a little bit of all summer joys.
When the last petals of the lotus bloom fell, it was already time to depart – a departure made reluctantly, as it’s always hard to leave familiar angels. Perhaps we will schedule a fall return, to close out the season and start a new one…
Bewitching chanteuse Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine, easily earns her first Dazzler of the Day crowning, thanks to her incandescent performances and whimsical style. The world needs more of such magic these days. She was also part of the ‘Here Lies Love’ concept album that would go on to become a sensational musical. Recently she’s been talking about being sober for seven years, further proof that some artists are much more than their art.
I break a sweat at the château
A party crowd that I don’t know
“La dolce vita” head to toe
I kiss a cheek to say hello
She takes a sip of champagne
It’s elegant, but not vain
She calls attention to her vein
And then she dives into my brain
Ahh, la dolce vita… and at the height of summer no less. It’s all happening… it’s all happening. July is here, and with it the very best parts of summer come to miraculous head. Some months are like that. They just fully explode into what they are, without hinting or teasing, and July is usually true to form.
Swimming pool summer
Gimme your number
Under your cover
I wanna take the heat
Making a daily jaunt in the pool to keep cool, as much as to keep calm, is a happy ritual. Like my daily meditation, it literally grounds me, binding me to the physical world, physically holding me in its liquid arms, and forcing an instant inhabitation of the present moment. Ignoring the power and might of water invites a peril I just won’t entertain.
She comes up for a breath
Fuck the rest, she’s the best
Her eyes are laser-beaming me
Suspending all reality
And just as soon as she smiles
She puts her sunglasses on
I haven’t felt this in a while
She breaks me down in style
Gliding peaceably through the water, taking languid and lazy strokes beneath the surface, the body is at once lightened of its usual gravitational pull. This may be the closest we can get to flying, and there is magic and majesty in such a state. So we fly, on the wings of water…
Swimming pool summer
Gimme your number
Under your cover
I wanna take the heat
Physical wonder
A sensual hunter
Under your cover
I can’t escape the heat
I can’t escape the heat
I can’t escape the heat
When I came to get you from your folks’ You said all I want to do is cry I don’t have time for any of your jokes You said all I want to do is cry They treat me like I’m made of gold All I want to do is cry All I want to do is cry
This is ‘Summer in July’ – about as simple and succinct as one can get, and just as sonically unchallenging. You can dive deeper into the lyrics if you like, or stay close to the surface and the sunlight. It’s your call.
I wish I could make you love me I wish I could make you a summer in July A summer in July A summer in July
Carefree and clothing-free, it’s time to let go of the swimsuit and let God’s natural attire slip through the pool water unfettered. Water, air, and light ~ primal and elemental and brilliant ~ breaking summer down into the most basic of basics.
We were driving home in my car You said nothing makes me feel no more So you opened up the passenger door And said all I want to do is die You treat me like I’m six years old All I want to do is die All I want to do is die
Every day after the first of summer loses a little light. We don’t feel it yet, but it’s happening. Summer can be insidious that way, summer knows how to sneak in and out at night. When I was a teenager, I’d slip out of the house on hot summer nights and walk around the neighborhood, feeling some sort of restlessness and wonder, something that wouldn’t be quelled or cooled by the air conditioner or the pool, or the glasses of iced tea that would sweat and drip before I could ever finish them.
On those walks, with the light of the street lamps shaded by the heavy canopy of maple trees and oaks – shadows beneath shadows – I found safety and security in the warm darkness, sure of myself and my solitude in a way that would comfort me on much colder days in the near and far future.
I wish I could make you love me I wish I could make you want me I wish a summer in July A summer in July Summer in July
There is perhaps no one who more fabulously encompasses the Dazzler of the Day crown than Adam Lambert. He’s been celebrated on this blog numerous times before today, because he’s been impressing audiences since he burst onto the world scene during his ‘American Idol’ run. Bold and brilliant and unabashedly himself at a time when the world wants to shun such visionary bravery, Lambert holds his head rightfully high, soaring on his insanely-talented vocal prowess and show-stopping theatrics. No one knows how to entertain and enthrall quite so electrifyingly. Check out his website here for further evidence of his brilliance, and where you might see him perform next.
There is a small sliver of irony in this summer song, given the fact that I no longer drink wine, but others do, and summer is definitely a time for enjoying liquid nourishment, even if mine doesn’t include alcohol. Mocktails work just as well, and are better for keeping hydrated anyway. Drama arrives in a song, and has no need for hard drinks to aid in its pesky, if occasionally exciting, madness.
Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
I walked in town on silver spurs that jingled to
A song that I had only sang to just a few
She saw my silver spurs and said let’s pass some time
And I will give to you summer wine
Oh, oh summer wine
Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you summer wine
Oh, oh summer wine
My eyes grew heavy and my lips they could not speak
I tried to get up but I couldn’t find my feet
She reassured me with an unfamiliar line
And then she gave to me more summer wine
Oh, oh summer wine
The era of grand and elaborate summer parties has long since departed. These days we keep our gatherings to a minimum. Summer is more enjoyable that way, and somehow there is just as much excitement. All it takes is a song, a breeze, and a couple of candles to light the night.
Strawberries cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring
My summer wine is really made from all these things
Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time
And I will give to you summer wine
Mmm-mm summer wine
When I woke up the sun was shining in my eyes
My silver spurs were gone, my head felt twice its size
She took my silver spurs, a dollar and a dime
And left me cravin’ for more summer wine
Oh, oh summer wine
The pool glows differently when viewed through the lens of darkness and night, not unlike the different glow one gets from summer wine. While that view has shifted for me, the thrill of a summer night remains the same. Beauty and heat and moths drawn by the light, and the possibility of a midnight dip to quell the sweat.
It was during the summer of 2000 when ‘How We Used to Live’ by Saint Etienne came pouring out of the speakers of my stereo in the Boston condo, and I was packing for a week in Provincetown. To this day, the song signifies summer days, happiness, friendship, and now a nostalgic look back at how things used to be. For the first day of summer, I usually like to look forward and see what new song might inspire the season – this year we’ve been through so much already that revisiting a sound of comfort seems best.
A rose scented June
A rose he pulled in June
They’re full upon the lawn
The doctor came at dawn
An old daily care
And Suzie Banana Stand
Through frosted windowpane
Your father’s middle name
From a train
And everywhere the snow falls
Sail away, sail away, sail away, sail away
‘How We Used to Live’ is a nine-minute rollercoaster of summer calm and excitement, from a magnificently languid beginning to a little lite dance party that begins to build and kick in at about the halfway mark. Summer ebbs and flows in similar fashion, never entirely one thing or another, constantly changing and winking and evolving. This year it feels especially variable, with hints and shadows of projects possibly to come, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of this website, for which preparations must be made.
A veil of faded blue
A Ruben’s old curfew
One windy winter’s day
A Windsor market day
People say
Everywhere the snow falls
Sail away, sail away, sail away, sail away
Sail away, sail away, sail away, sail away
She’s moving down the seaside
‘Cause that’s where he comes from
He gave away all of her records
Is that where she belongs?
Better think it through
Remember who
Is there something new?
Or is it you again?
Summer, oh summer, how we have waited for you, how much hope and faith we have put in you, and how unfair it all is, for who could ever deliver all that we have wanted and asked? Summer is cruel too, and often unintentionally brutal, but we still love it so. And when have we ever needed an escape more than now? Summer allows for that, and we shall make it happen. Whether it’s a lunch by the pool, with some sweet and fizzy mocktail, or a night in the attic loft, lulled to sleep by the hum of the air conditioner and the pitter-patter of rain upon the roof, summer carries its secret delights.
So take your red gown
And go down to the dam
To do as you please
On the streets of your town
The whistling kind
Shake it out of your mind
It could be the day
When you finally say
Sail away, sail away
Sail away, sail away, sail away
Sail away, on and on, on and on
On and on, on and on, on and on, on and on
Such secrets go back over two decades, when this song formed the soundtrack to that friend-filled trip to Provincetown. Kristen and I took the ferry from Boston to Provincetown, beginning a week’s vacation in that magical place at the end of the world. While I don’t revisit the past as a rule, I often go back to this trip. We were in our early twenties, the world unfurled before us filled with all the hope and possibility that youth and luck and privilege affords, and we didn’t even know or exert our power. Summer left us happily in flux, not quite entering our career years, though the more ambitious among us had their eyes on a plan (that most certainly did not include me, who was back in Boston after an ill-fated move to Chicago, and just finding my footing again). This little excursion was a break I needed, to simply have fun, maybe enjoy a summer fling, and return to the city satiated and ready to get serious about something. It was a summer to let go, and we did.
Up the riverbank and under the viaduct
Causeway full of nice cars
The sand a distant dream
Across the riverbank
Cross the riverbank, don’t look back
I sail, you sail
(And on and on)
(To sail away)
I sail, you sail
(And on and on)
(To sail away)
Those carefree days come back to me in pieces now – snippets of a sun-drenched brunch, sipping a cocktail before the choreographed precision of afternoon tea, and lazily laughing with friends on the porch of an inn as the clocks struck midnight and we debated rallying for pizza or heading back to crash. We had no way of knowing that the memories we were making then would prove, for me at least, to be some of the happiest and most carefree I would ever make. Most people don’t realize that sort of thing in their twenties. I felt hints of it, little tugs at the heart that something special was afoot, but back then my heart attributed it to the possibility of romance and love – it never dawned on me that those friendships, those in-between moments, were the real stuff of life.
And so another summer begins, as summers from the past flash across the mind. Summer in a song, summer in a glass, summer in the splash of water falling from a tip of grass as the morning dew jumps away for the day…
Do you remember how?
(And on and on)
(To sail away and on and on)
Do you remember how we used to live?
Do you remember how we used to live?
Do you remember how we used to live?
After a surprisingly intense therapy session, one needs a moment to process and simply breathe in the moment. There is always relief after talking about things, even if there is no simple solution. Sometimes it is enough to let it all out, and to be ok with not everything being neatly resolved, not every problem of the past put to bed for good. Most importantly, to be ok with putting certain problems to bed just for the night, just to make it through another day.
Summer starts off in such happy fashion, it’s good to appreciate these moments, even when they are tinged with slivers of sorrow, memories of melancholy. Such days need a proper soundtrack, and summer songs run the gamut from the happiest, boppiest bops to the slowest, saddest dirges. Some manage to create a sonic vibe and atmosphere that mirrors the suspended haze and heat of the season, functioning as both balm and barometer, a calming way to measure the minutes. This is one of those songs.
You can look at the menu, but you just can’t eat
You can feel the cushions, but you can’t have a seat
You can dip your foot in the pool, but you can’t have a swim
You can feel the punishment, but you can’t commit the sin
And you want her, and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
Summer begs forgiveness. Summer begs silence. Summer begs… and summer begs. Like its sting, its want can be paralyzing, stunning the world into focus or fracture.When that happens, you just have to chill, and slip into a song that embodies the days that can be languid and lazy and lovely.
You can build a mansion, but you just can’t live in it
You’re the fastest runner but you’re not allowed to win
Some break the rules, and let you count the cost
The insecurity is the thing that won’t get lost
And you want her, and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
Floating in the water, and surrounded by liquid that dispels the typical pull and drag of gravity, the body is more at ease. The mind is better-equipped to focus when the body is at ease. Sometimes summer grants a clarity that no other season allows; creating the space for contemplation can diminish a place for blame.
There is a conundrum to every season. For summer, it is often finding reconciliation of such tranquil beauty with the inevitable thunderstorms that pop up along the way. Memories can be like storms, lying in wait until the conditions are right for rain and release and, if we are lucky, relief.
You can see the summit but you can’t reach it
It’s the last piece of the puzzle but you just can’t make it fit
Doctor says you’re cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain
And you want her, and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
