Visiting Dad on the anniversary of his death didn’t bother me when it happened, but it was one of those haunting things that creeps back little by little until you find yourself crying in the pool, salty tears dripping into a chlorinated sea, while a restless wind was willed into some message of my father saying hello.

On the actual anniversary date, I drove to Amsterdam first thing in the morning, and paused at the bottom of the cemetery hill, where a stand of wild roses had gone to hips, and the Queen Ann’s lace was already nodding droopy heads beneath the hot sun. At his site, I said a quick hello and ran my fingers over the etched name – our name – in the stone. I didn’t stay long, as I could sense he wasn’t there – not in the hot sun, not in the exposed space… but nearby a row of evergreens afforded some shade, and instead of getting back in the car, I walked over to the shady section.

Here, where lichens and moss grew, and relief from sun and heat was found, is where I felt my father, as it’s where he would have been on such a day. How strange and ultimately fitting that the man from the Philippines, who had grown up in sun stronger and more relentless than anything I could know in upstate New York, would so shun the heat of a summer day. He taught me that without ever bringing me back home with him.

There was some comfort in the shade, and consolation in the idea that this is where Dad might have drifted had he actually been there with me. I think that’s one of the things that I miss most about him. He would always end up quietly on the periphery, or secluded in some room with a television, or in the shade of an awning when everyone else battled the sun on the lawn or in the pool. When crowds swelled and kids got loud, I could seek him out and find him in some peaceful respite. Sometimes it was as simple as seeing him sitting at a table at some wedding dinner or social event, and I’d sit down beside him, just as uncomfortable and wishing to be somewhere else as he was. We didn’t need to talk or lament anything out loud – it was enough just being there with him.

It’s strange to admit this, but I don’t always feel included by family and friends, and when my Dad was alive I always had a space next to him, a place where I felt wanted and valued and loved, a place where he put me because he was proud of me.

I don’t know where that place is anymore.

Lately I’ve fallen out of the summer island groove, but with Mercury finally out of retrograde motion, the full moon finishing up, and Mars leaving Virgo, perhaps some relief is in store, and the rest of the summer can return to relaxation and rejuvenation. My hopes and expectations have been tempered of late, so I’ll be grateful for whatever summer deigns to give us next. A song then, from our island inspiration, to keep the summer going.

This song personified the summer of 1995 – and if you thought my recent return to 2005 took us way back, 1995 goes back thirty full years, thus leaving only snippets and an incongruous patchwork of memories. There was a train ride to Chicago during a heatwave, the last gasps of Madonna’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ era, and the first rumblings of all the drama that was about to ensue that fall. In the backdrop of all of it was this summer hit by TLC, gently percolating and offering warnings and melodies and water-laced atmosphere to cool us down. Summer cuts many ways.

Going back twenty years gives me back all my dark hair and moody posing thanks to this summer’s online debut of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale. Here is another outtake from that project, as we enter the fall palette with hues of amber vanity, and a look back – much like our weekly blog recap…

Moody August lighting set the tone for a moody week.

An updated 50th birthday wish list because what else is turning 50 good for?

The very last straw.

No broke boys.

A weekend of Virgos grooving.

A shirtless male celebrity round-up.

Dumb fuckery abounds.

A round of applause, perhaps for you.

Our lone Dazzler of the Day was Jinkx Monsoon.

Greenhouse eroticism.

Jim Verraros gets gloriously ‘Explicit’.

Summer queasiness.

Amber vanity.

Drinking in the whole world.

Shades of flesh and amber.

Naked but for a boot.

A summer anthem: no woman, no cry.

Sum din.

Summer melancholy.

While Mars has just exited Virgo’s realm, the combination of a full moon and Mercury in retrograde motion are the reasons I’m giving for a recent bout of melancholy and madness. Maybe there are other causes – remembering my Dad, the approach of my 50th birthday, and several instances of feeling under unwarranted attack – but if I can put this all onto the back of the universe, it lets a few people off the hook, including myself. It’s sometimes harder to be upset in the beautiful days of summer, when a happy hibiscus is finally coming into glorious bloom, and the garden has decided to stay lush for as long as I can maintain watering it. That makes the sadness and mourning I want to indulge in feel especially wrong, but I’m not pretending anything anymore, and if my mood is at odds with the weather and season, so be it.

Approaching fifty feels like approaching freedom, and the socially-acceptable invisibility that allows one to genuinely enter a zone of fuck-it-all-I-just-don’t-give-a-fuck. Some could make the argument that I’ve been operating in this mindset for a while, and there is certainly an element of truth to the calculation that I have zero fucks left. It may be a small element, however, as if it were true that I truly didn’t care I don’t think I’d be so bothered with everything. My sadness, or dissatisfaction, or annoyance are proof that it all still very much matters. May my arrival at the half-century mark make it all matter less.

Unhealthy air advisories have been announced throughout the past week, and both Andy and I have felt the effects. Coughing and sneezing and runny noses have plagued us, a constant annoyance barely rising to the level of a minor cold, and dissipating once we find ourselves indoors or out of a particularly particle-filled patch of atmosphere.

On a recent ride into work, barely after seven in the morning, I caught the sun peeking through the blanket of smoke and whatever else was hanging thickly in the air. It was a queasy sky, and summer sometimes revels in such queasiness. This week, and whatever atmospheric conditions are at hand, had me feeling nauseous, which is unusual for me. It’s the final week of this period of Mercury in retrograde motion, so hopefully things will look up soon. In the meantime, the weekend has arrived…