Category Archives: General

Thirty days has September,

April, June and November…

And here we are on the 30th day of the penultimate month to the calendar year. 

That means December arrives tomorrow, and with it the holiday season in full-swing. The aim, as it ever is, will be to keep things simple and genuine, to inhabit the moments as they arrive, and not to over-plan or commit to things that may just prove to be too much. I will follow the light of the day, take in the sky and the roving clouds, listen to the wind and the chatter of cardinals. 

We leave November quietly. 

After the third day of leftover turkey, I may be ready to move onto something else. Maybe. And we didn’t even have a whole turkey, or a gathering for Thanksgiving for that matter. One day I’ll tell the story of why that was… Oh well, on with the recap of everything we did have in the last week…

A Christmas wish list, by request, as I’m not even in the mood for gifts. (Check the pulse.)

A midnight candle, at a quarter of a century.

Boston still in bloom. 

Friendsgiving with Kira – Part 1.

Friendsgiving with Kira – Part 2. 

Happy Thanksgiving, such as it was. 

Turkey Lurkey time in Boston. 

Florals at odds with a Black Friday. 

When Harry met Santa. 

Tryptophan meditation. 

Berrylicious Boston. 

Warm while the wind rages.

Powdered boughs.

Snow-capped hydrangeas.

Low temperatures and wind gusts conspired to keep the snow around longer than expected yesterday, which made for a few more photo opportunities. Here you see the snow-capped hydrangea flower heads, their dead and dried form taking on new life thanks to the coating of fresh snow. Encased by the crystalline cape, they are almost in re-bloom, a lovely if dimmer echo of their summer glory. 

Now that the growing season has passed and the season of slumber is upon us, it’s up to architectural flourishes like the mop-heads that remain on the hydrangea stalks. Along with the branches and more stalwart grass stalks, this will comprise the bare bones of the garden in the months to come, augmented and accented by ice and snow, which forms its own beautiful landscape when the light is just right and the day doesn’t call for traveling. 

While we may make-do with these faux-blooms for the moment, they will soon grow tiresome. That’s some time off, however, as winter has not even begun, but it’s less than a month away. And after that, the spring… when these hydrangeas will rise in shades of green and chartreuse, followed by new flowers and a new season of glory.

Agnes Obel provides the musical calm for this wintry post. After granting us a bit of a reprieve for November, Mother Nature has lobbed her first winter weather at us, and the wind and the chill bring January to mind. This music is indicative of that shift. Not wholly unwelcome, as we have to go through winter to get out of it. And winter holds its own enchantments if we can be brave enough to find and enjoy them. 

The first snowfall seemed to come mostly at night, which feels a bit unfair to the kids who were waiting and watching. That was a favorite activity for my brother and me at this time of the year, and it would often be the first (and only) time we’d convince Dad to light the fireplace. Mom would make cups of hot chocolate, and as the first flakes of snow fell on the raw and tender ground, my brother and I would run around and celebrate the irrevocable coming of winter. 

On this recent end-of-November morning, I stepped outside to take a few photos of the snow that had nestled in this juniper. The wind was brutal, and the sun did little to temper the cold. So the season begins…

Snow softens things in a way that almost nothing else can. It provides insulation to the gardens, creating a haven of consistent temperatures to stave off heaving and other dangers to the plants. We can’t be completely mad at it for that reason alone. 

Even better, snow provides a reflective surface for light to double its effects, something we need as the shortest day of the year quickly approaches. The more light, the higher the spirits. 

There is magic there too. 

Outside the window a towering stand of fountain grass, brown and desiccated and paper-like, shudders and flails in the wind. A few strands are torn and blown high into the air. A light blue sky bereft of clouds stands behind it all. I make a cup of tea and ascend the small staircase to the attic room, where the heater has been running for a while. It is finally warm here, and this will be where I spend the day in cozy fashion. Surrounded by candles that flicker and glow, the light of the room is soft and the fragrance hints of the holidays – spices and pine trees and incense. 

The feeling is at odds with the wind raging outside – a wind that rattles the roof, rumbling across the expanse above me. We lead such precarious lives – only a single roof between survival and demise – and it’s as dramatic and plain as it sounds. Cradling the cup of elderberry tea, warm in my hands, I sip and live to enter another night. 

Beside a Boston brownstone, a bunch of berries dangles above the steps leading to someone’s home. They sway slightly in the breeze and the afternoon sunlight, impossibly incandescent even in the strongest of rays. A natural holiday decoration, they hang like the littlest of ornaments, paving the way for the Christmas trees already on the march. 

They are coming…

They do things better in Norway. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDLumk_rQQw

The annual bridge from Thanksgiving to Christmas gets erected with this Turkey Lurkey post. In addition, the featured GIF is a wild turkey I captured while in Boston earlier this year. If not today, when? What on earth a wild turkey was doing skulking about Downtown Crossing is anyone’s guess. Anticipating the end times, in all likelihood. 

Today’s quiet Thanksgiving actually wasn’t the quietest I’ve ever had, and for that reason it was less sad than anticipated. The quietest year was when I stayed on campus at Brandeis to work at Structure early the next morning. That didn’t seem sad at the time, though looking back I marvel that it didn’t bother me more. My mind at the time was a little work obsessed. We make our choices the best way we know how. Almost absolutely no regrets. 

This candle is around twenty-five years old, purchased and first lit when I had just moved into the Boston condo. Way back then, in its original incarnation, this candle was black, but in the decades that followed, and its various locations in the sunlight, it has lightened to a shade of midnight blue – one of those mystical machinations of astral bodies and their various powers. 

As the wax melted and revealed pieces of a life two and a half decades ago, I thought of all the particles and dust that were now being freed – and what looked like an old match stick buried in the dark blue abyss now suddenly recalled to life. The thrill of excavation in a candle. What parties had this object once helped to illuminate? What romances and friendships had it witnessed with its glowing flame? What sorrows and breakdowns did it ever aim to ease? The past felt plaintively bound into this present moment, weighing it down and still somehow buoying the heart. Long-dormant memories rise to the surface as the flame licks at the tender bindings of the past. 

The evening in Boston has begun early, and I start to decorate for the holidays again after skipping it all last year. 

My Mom asked for my Christmas wish list, which is the only reason I’m putting this together right now. The past couple of years have re-prioritized things in my mind, and while I won’t ever say no to a present or gift, they don’t concern me as much as they once did. That said, if someone wants to get me something I am guaranteed to enjoy (as opposed to risky moves like attempting to guess what I might like) here are a few ideas, in addition to the requisite Amazon Wish List that I just updated as well. 

This companion book – Tom Ford 002 – is pretty reasonable, considering what he charges for everything else. 

Any Tom Ford underwear will do as well, such as this lavender boxer brief in size small. 

Frederic Malle’s line of fragrance is where my scent journey really took off, on the second floor of the now-defunct Barneys at Copley Place in Boston. The memory of it is still sweet, and can still be found in the 50 ML bottle of ‘Musc Ravageur’ at this link. 

This ‘Portrait of a Lady’ shower cream by Frederic Malle would be a glorious indulgence. 

For the office, this soft gray Tallia sport coat (size 40S) in tan and gray is befitting of the subdued sartorial simplicity I’m feeling these days. 

Finally, this new fragrance ‘Eremia’ by Aesop would be the best antidote for a cold winter. 

As for other more mundane concerns, we need a new stereo, but Andy would have to tell you which one will work with the sound system we have. 

How we have arrived at the week of Thanksgiving is a marvel to me, and I think it’s such a shock because the weather has been kinder than it usually is at this time of the year, and so it seems like we can’t quite be here yet. I’m still hoping that makes for a short and quick winter to make up for last summer. 

This weekend was spent in Boston for a mental health getaway and a reunion with Kira for our Friendsgiving tradition – but more on that later. For now, the look back at the previous week…

Holiday hinting becomes something more by the end of the week. 

Raindrops on pine trees. 

The oak tree leaves, late in falling.

Red against blue in the only way it should matter. 

A mound of sequins, a mound of mesh.

The forest through the trees.

Remembering Andy’s Mum.

Radials of warmth and comfort.

Andy’s chicken curry (still not in a hurry but very much worth the wait).

A wet and colorful explosion of color. 

November gratitude.

Dazzler of the Day included Jeff Goldblum and Steve Barnes.

Thank you, November, for being kind to us in the weather department, when so much else seems to have gone wrong. Your sunlight and your relative-warmth has been appreciated and noted for its solace-like balm, as if in apology to the rest of the world. I offer gratitude whenever I can in the hopes that such a reprieve lasts through the end of the year. 

We have found calm in the afternoon sunlight slanting through the leaves of the Chinese dogwood seen here, and the fiery scarlet of the Japanese maple. We found peace in the gentle swaying of the fountain grass and its feathery seed-heads waving in the wind. Thank you for letting such beauty linger longer than you usually do. We needed the extension. 

With a title like ‘Amazing Fall Instrumental Hygge Music‘ how can you go wrong? 

If that’s not hokey or cheesy enough for you, take a close look at the steam rising from the coffee cup in the video here. 

And that flickering flame on a perpetual loop… have you seen anything quite as precious?

I’m utterly transfixed, and as much as I want to shit all over this music and this video, I find myself watching and listening and giving in to the simplicity of a moment where I can merely breathe and be. That butternut squash and dried thistle on the tray don’t even bug me like they normally would. (Do you know how much work peeling the former is going to be?) 

Instead, I’m sort of zoning out, not quite meditating, but letting the thoughts come and go – the annoying and bothersome bits of frustration and anger from a typical day, the push and pull of worry and hope, the promised choice between joy and sorrow – and somehow the mind is eased, the burdens feel lighter. 

Maybe it’s the candle burning beside me in real life, and the active welcoming of hygge as we approach the holiday season. Maybe it’s the quietness of the attic as I write this, save for the music playing from this silly video. Maybe it’s just the embrace of something that I would have decried from cynicism and jadedness in the not-too-distant past.

Maybe I’m just worn out and tired, and the energy required to be angry or cruel feels more daunting than that required to simply let go and enjoy the ease and efforts of something designed and intended to bring calm and joy. Fighting can elicit a win, but I find the cost growing too great to keep it up. 

And so, on this Saturday morning, with Thanksgiving less than a week away, I invite you to sit down beside my virtual perch, to watch and get lost in the schmaltz of this video, and see if it doesn’t lighten your load, if only for a moment.