Watching humans for any length of time always ends up moving me. That’s partly why I’ve embraced my nightly coffee stops at a nearby cafe. It allows me to work on a new project while also observing a small stream of life from a safe vantage point. Mother and son smiling at each other while waiting for their dessert order. The first few bites a gruff forty-something guy with a military buzz-cut takes, and its apparent joy judging by his slight smile.

Most of us revert to the kids we were when we think no one is watching – no matter how old we grew, no matter how much we’ve accomplished, no matter how awful we’ve been; our childhoods are always somewhere within us.

It makes it more difficult to be cross with humanity when you think of it this way – a trick I shall endeavor to employ regularly when people start getting on my last frayed nerve (I’d say about three days ago – whoopsie-daisy.)

Now that Mercury has ceased its havoc-wreaking retrograde emotion, I’m hopeful the world calms its ass down a bit for the reminder of the holiday season. We shall see.

Cradled in the fuzzy arms of a sage plant, flecks of early snow collect and lend their own fuzziness to the scene at hand. Portending of winter, it is a portrait of stillness and elegance. Muted of color palette and simple of composition. Enthralled in the throes of these last few weeks of autumn, the garden seems grateful for the opportunity to slumber – for a few months of rest from the watering, feeding, pruning, and harvesting routine that dominates the spring and summer months. Summer is a bit of a break for almost everyone other than the gardener – and the plants must feel the weight of that workload too.

This little snippet of the backyard is a cozy patch of herbs – it keeps going right until the big winter storms – certain herbs are miraculous that way. It sets the tone for the upcoming winter season: muted, calm, fuzzy, and contemplative. Outside the attic window, a small section of garden reveals itself for more herbs next year. It’s never too early to think about spring.

For those of us who take pride in our shopping, who treat shopping as an art form, an enchanting enterprise, and a way of life, Black Friday has always felt like amateur hour – the same way Halloween feels like childish fun and games for those of us who get gussied and dolled up on the regular.

Fighting with crushing throngs of shoppers hell-bent on finding a bargain, who are there partly for the participatory thrill of the day (because you can get these deals online without even leaving the house) has never appealing to the shopping aficionado I pride myself on being. When I’m shopping I like to take my time and leisurely stroll about a store’s space, to take in the meticulously-curated displays, to entirely inhabit the moment and the surroundings. Shopping as an act of meditative meandering.

For a true shopper, the art of shopping is not solely a means to a transactional end – some of my favorite shopping expeditions haven’t even yielded a bag of purchases. The art of shopping is, for me, more about the entire experience – a philosophical treatise on imagination and possibility, on the idea of what we might be – with the right outfit, the right fragrance, the right accessory. The art of shopping dangles the notion of perfection before us, and I remain powerless to its pull, no matter how impossible I know it to be.

Nobody wants to talk about the messy aftermath of Thanksgiving dinner.

That very much includes me, so let’s focus on anything else.

As soon as I wrote the promise of another post, the ambition and effort to write it dissipated, and now I sit at the cafe a few days before Thanksgiving, forcing words onto paper and lamenting the lazy lack of any driving inspiration to set this blog post on fire.

Instead, all I can muster is a resigned and lackluster rumination on the wind-down of another day of Thanks – my 50th, thank you very much (and how do I return some of them?) – as I feel every single one of those years. Looking ahead as we are wont to do here, as the good Virgos always do, this holiday season doesn’t have a definitive theme (a Ralph Lauren Christmas is redundantly foolish, and our next image overhaul on the blog won’t be until the turn of the New Year) so for the next few weeks we’ll have the final maneuverings of the mysterious Mr. Oud, and a somewhat darker encapsulation of the season as that’s the mood in the air. There’s a deep sunken beauty to a dark Christmas, to paraphrase a celebrated and maligned sadist/writer.

Perhaps this isn’t the best way to greet the season, but I can’t think of another. Buckle up, buttercups.

This morning’s post perhaps read a little darker and more melancholy than originally intended, so for those looking for a bit of a pick-me-up at this start of the high holiday season, here’s our annual turkey lurkey song and dance. If we can’t boil a day into a musical theater moment, what point is there to the day?

Do I have one more pre-populated post in me when we’re all due for a turkey-induced coma? I think I do, and if you come back tonight you may find it here…

“Over the river and through the wood to grandmother’s house we go…”

In some other timeline and universe my younger self rides the winding roads to Hoosick Falls to pick up my grandmother, as my Mom leads my brother and me in this holiday chestnut.

“The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow…”

Sitting beside my brother in the backseat of the station wagon, we are feeling all sorts of Thanksgiving anticipation – and filled with gleeful excitement at having Gram join us for a few days. When you’re a kid, those few days feel like a blessed eternity.

For a number of formative years, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ would be broadcast around this pre-holiday time – a comfort and enthralling thrill at once.

“Over the river and through the woods, oh how the wind does blow…”

How precarious our journeys of childhood were – and how lucky we were to not have any real realization of this. Blithely and blissfully unaware of the dangers along the way to grandmother’s house, and the imagined fears of flying monkeys on the television, we felt only the giddy happiness of the season – the promise of Christmas around the corner.

Revisiting these winding roads recently, the beauty felt muted, the strains of comfort felt distant, and the trees looked barren. We fill in so much of what we want to remember that the actual scenes of childhood are always emptier when we try to revisit them. The mind plays with memory to help us heal, sometimes.
The song repeats itself – over the river and over again – and it’s so short it bears the repetition until it becomes meaningless, until even the melody is lost and doesn’t matter anymore.

When I went away for my first semester of college I made a deliberate effort not to look back in any real or proverbial way. Part of me understood that if I was going to survive on my own at Brandeis, and more broadly in Boston one day, I would have to make a complete, and in some ways irrevocable, break from my hometown of Amsterdam, New York. That meant from family as well, even if I didn’t see that then and would have entirely refuted the notion. My greatest fear in leaving home was the very scary and debilitating specter of homesickness, which I had felt once before, and knew it might mean disaster again, at least when it came to starting over again and building my own life in my own way. Fortunately, once I set my mind to something I will absolutely accomplish it without fail, and almost always without compromise. When I arrived at Brandeis, I made the goal of starting a new life for myself, and getting mired in homesickness, or being held back by any beliefs instilled in me by others, would not be options.

Knowing myself, and heading off any emotional susceptibility to sentiment, I adamantly refused to return home until Thanksgiving break. Everyone else in my high school circle of friends had been back – for homecoming, or Columbus Day, or no reason at all – I was the only one who stayed at school for three months straight – and it worked. My pangs of homesickness were bearable, few and far between, and after a few weeks not an issue at all.

At least, that’s what I’ve led myself to believe all this time, and, yes, that’s still largely the main reason behind my delayed return home. Recently however, I’ve come to realize that unlike all my friends, and most people who go away to college for the first time, part of me must not have wanted to return home. There is something profoundly disturbing in that realization, something heartbreaking and soul-making too.

Two years after that, I didn’t go home for Thanksgiving at all – but that’s another story for another day of thanks…

Leave me the fuck out of this.

There. That’s it. That’s all.

(Trust me, this works better than anything else I have ever tried.)

And it’s utterly ideal for the holiday season at hand!

Knowing the precise importance of the proper accessory, Mr. Oud understands that these things must be done delicately. He also deeply believes in the great Coco Chanel’s reported words of wisdom that one should take off the last thing they put on before leaving the house. It has prevented many a moment of unnecessary over-accessorizing, while giving him a reputation for streamlined elegance and understated sophistication.

People often give witty comment on how quickly and easily one can lose a reputation – but Mr. Oud has not found this to be the general case; rather, it has often seemed to him that once a reputation is made and established, it’s relatively difficult to erode or change it. And so he is extremely grateful for the image he’s earned as a sartorial aficionado – especially as he hasn’t put much effort into his wardrobe of late.

Image is fleeting and ephemeral – as is Mr. Oud, who has long ago left this discussion. Only the flimsiest scent trails of his namesake linger in the air…

While today opened with a mini-recap of my Virginia adventures, here is the proper weekly blog recap that encapsulates all of the entries from the previous week (for anyone brave/foolish enough to revisit such an atrocious collection of scenes in a time of new moons and Mercury in retrograde). As we enter the week in which we prepare to give thanks, here is our typical Monday look-back at the week that came before…

From the realm of pipes not being pipes, not all violets are violet.

A Japanese painted fern refuses to stop putting on its show.

Kids are low-key stupid today.

The holidays are announced by a pseudo-cactus.

A green tea peppermint beginning.

The candied yam dilemma.

A new rule designed just for me.

A new moon and Mercury in retrograde madness.

Every season is ‘Auntie Mame’ season I suppose.

A ‘Wicked’ good conclusion.

Crinkled by the cold.

This is my sneaking suspicion.

Neither bitter nor bothered, whether bitten or bruised.

Driving South with Suzie.

A Loveliness By the River

November Sweeps in Virginia

Shuck Off, Mutha-Shuckers!

A Solitary Sunset Elicits Happy Tears

Magic Moons & Shooting Stars

Friendship By Firelight

The Long (Very Long) Ride Home