Category Archives: General

…As we wait in joyful anticipation…

While the very beginning of ‘Swan Lake’ opens with the sly and mysterious Introduction, it is this Allegro giusto that shall set us off on this year’s sparkle sequence. It is a more fitting musical introduction of preparatory excitement, building the anticipation, and hinting at the shine and shimmer of such seasonal exuberance. It is this piece that marks the entrance of our holiday season, as an impossibly-magnificent coat of pink swings out behind us, unfurling in billowing fashion. 

Today marks our unofficial start to the season, as christened by a sparkling event – The Pride Center Gala – that may be the new kick-off we need in the age of on ongoing pandemic. Andy and I haven’t been to a public event like this since 2019, so in many ways this feels like a recalled-to-life moment, fraught with all the frisson that such a grand return brings. 

It used to be the Beaujolais Nouveau Wine Festival that started our holiday season rolling, and this has the same energy and feel to those golden days, with a comforting sense of both wariness and resignation that the world has forever altered. We have been changed as well. We can never go back to before, and so we forge new paths, finding new ways of celebration, be they comprised of gestures grand or miniscule~ or something wonderfully and whimsically in-between.

The holiday season has changed quite a bit for us – the days of immense and bombastic parties and extravagantly-overhyped events have fallen happily by the wayside, replaced with smaller dinners and intimate gatherings where friends can actually talk and share things with friends, Sunday dinners with immediate family, and short weekends in Boston, quietly ensconced in a candle-lit condo while the city whirls its winter dervishes of wind against the windows. 

The music turns like a little ballerina on a music box, and we have shifted to a Waltz – a majestic beast in traditional 3/4 time – and it carries us to lofty heights – landings on dim staircases overlooking swirling party scenes below, where banisters adorned with sparkling boughs of evergreen and eucalyptus keep their perfumed secrets, winking and blinking at the unaware crowds laughing beneath them. 

Swept back down, along a staircase that was once cramped with revelers, we shall rejoin the party, as if we were rejoining life after some extended state of suspension, like some vampire that slept a century in a silk-lined coffin, only to wake in tattered confusion, and having to start again. One finds the world greatly transformed in ways one never thought possible. It very much feels like we have been asleep for three long years. Where does one find the lifeblood after so much stagnant time away? Where does one find the energy to sparkle and shine? Where is the compass or map to help guide us through these overgrown paths? I seek for answers, I look for keys, I search the skies for signs. 

Perhaps it’s in a crystal brooch, or a necklace of semi-precious stones. Perhaps it’s in a diamond and sapphire ring to set off a coat of velvet rose. Perhaps it’s in the smoky wisps of a perfume that smells like it was delivered in an ancient decanter of Venetian glass, unmarked and sealed with some spell of enchantment, leaving a trail of sultry sillage in its wake. Hints of antique roses and sacred incense like fairies wreathed with flowers and dancing about a fire. 

And so our holiday season gingerly opens, as both a return and a new beginning – armed by a calmer yet more formidable sense of what truly matters, accented by a willingness to be open to all things, and to all people. 

The days grow ever shorter, and daylight grows ever briefer. For anyone with the slightest case of seasonal affective disorder, the elongated periods of darkness can wreak havoc with our usually-cheery dispositions. The holidays often offer a period of light, coming in tandem with the shortest days of the year, but even they can be tinged with melancholy and sadness. To offset all of that, I dive deeper into my meditation practice, focusing on clearing the mind and finding longer periods in which the body and mind may become accustomed to quiet and peace. The longer we practice, the easier it is to find such a state when we really need it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yZnI14omYw

For those who may be madly uncomfortable at the idea of total silence during a meditation practice, here is a brief video of some Tibetan singing bowls. It offers some gentle ‘noise’ to make the discomfort of complete silence easier to abide. Personally I prefer the total quiet where all I can hear is the breath. Either way, whatever form of meditation you may employ is better than no meditation at all. 

This relatively fresh ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea bloom rests amid a sea of brown and decaying ‘Annabelle’ blooms, revealing the stark juxtaposition of old versus new in bright, clarion tones. Given the warmer-than-usual autumn weather we’ve had lately, this is an anomaly akin to the azalea blooms that have been appearing next to their fall-colored leaves. It’s slightly jarring to see such bright spring-like blooms next to the red and yellow autumn leaves about to drift away. It feels off, even if we can’t be mad about the gentler weather. 

While its summer foliage gets all the green glory, the towering stalks of this fountain grass have one more trick up their sleeves as they revealed the fluffy seed-heads to top off a banner growing year. I thought they were done with this flaming post, but I’m happy to be reminded that I sometimes speak too soon. 

When the skies begin to drain of blue, and cloud cover and shades of gray become the norm, these textural aspects of the garden will come into play, made more prominent by the lack of more competitive visual stimulation. It is then that the garden takes on a subtler, quieter element – an aspect that demands closer and extended examination and rumination to fully appreciate. A lesson of late fall and winter.  

Easing into the day is an art most of us don’t make the time and effort to pursue. We sleep until the last possible minute, then rush and ramble through the preparatory things we need to do to simply function – a quick shower, a quick cup of coffee, a quick wardrobe selection – and after forty plus years it all becomes a habitual rush. When we arrive at the office or the classroom or even our desks at home, it is often as a frazzled mess of nerves and anxiety. For those of us with any level of social anxiety, the nerve-fraying is often much worse. 

To that end, I look back at how I’ve dealt with such morning mayhem, and it’s actually been rather simple. It’s also been something that came about naturally, in unforced and unplanned fashion, in one of those rare moments of your body and mentality forging a way that works for their needs. In this case, I made a habit of getting up much earlier than needed in order to afford a few moments of calm and relaxation before officially starting the day. 

This meant that at college I would rise well before anyone else, take a shower and head to the food hall for a very early, and very peaceful breakfast, which I would take alone and in silence, reading the newspaper like we did in the old days, and gently starting the mind. In later years, nervous about new jobs and new offices, I would employ the same tactic – rising much earlier than needed then sitting at my desk and slowly allowing the senses to wake, while building whatever confidence and emotional fortitude would be needed to get me through the day. That preparatory chunk of time – where I could sit in stillness and silence – was, now that I look back upon it, its own form of mindfulness and meditation, grounding me in ways that would prove helpful when dealing with whatever madness the world had in store. 

These days I do a much more formal and structured daily meditation, and I’m at the point where I don’t need as much preparation and calm to navigate the average day, but I still take a cup of matcha in the morning, pause to admire the morning be it sunny or sour, and gently ease into something as innocuous as a Tuesday morning. 

Sundays are family days – a tradition instigated by Mom when people started to gather again in a vaccinated world – and kept going as we make the most of our time with Dad. He doesn’t always make it into the dining room, as pictured here, so sometimes we will bring our plates into his room and share the meal there, as we did yesterday. It’s a shift, but after the past few years we are all more malleable, all willing to go with the flow. Now on with the weekly recap as we head into the holiday season…

It began with a head of gray hair, as everything does in the mirror these days.

A sweet treat makes any Tuesday more manageable.

An almost-full moon over Amsterdam.

Under a Maxfield Parrish sky.

Assuming the ax pose.

Fountains of gold.

The Madonna Timeline rises again.

At tea-time everybody agrees.

Music of madness.

The Pride Center Gala 2022 takes place this Friday.

Beneath the blood-red maple leaves of autumn.

The Full Beaver Moon.

You’re on your own, kid.

Likely the last daisies.

Dazzlers of the Day included Sexiest Man Alive Chris Evans, Maura Healey, Jason Momoa, and Chanel Lopez.

There is more than a little cheeky irony to the fact that I used to love beavers as a child. Yet it was absolutely true – I adored beavers. Did all my school projects on them, made dioramas of their lodges, read all I could read on how they raised their kits, and even had one of my birthday party celebrations at a place called Beaversprite, which was basically the house of a woman who had a beaver living in her basement. 

Yes, there are things most people don’t know about me still left to reluctantly admit, and my love of beavers is actually one of the less-embarrassing ones. 

This past Tuesday we had a full Beaver Moon, which sounds like an oxymoron, or at the very least some supremely confusing sexual symbolism. Something for the front and the back at the same time? I digress… 

The full moon has wreaked much havoc in our lives, but in the last few years I’ve learned to take a little extra care during the days immediately preceding and following a full moon – and definitely during the actually full moon period itself. That has made a remarkable difference, and if lunacy is just a matter of the mind, this is the easiest solution. 

Do there seem to be more instances of foibles and fumbles and just bad luck during the days the moon is full? It does seem to be that way, and some studies have proven it to be true – others illustrate that the moon has little to no effect on things. 

I choose to hedge my bets when it comes to the moon. Around the time it gets full, I take things a little slower, and a little more carefully. I remind myself not to get offended at the little slights, not to be argumentative on silly points because they always lead to bigger fights, and to go a little easier on myself. It allows the blunders to happen without blame, making the room for imperfection and mistakes, which should be there always anyway, and it has turned these full moon sessions into times of learning and, dare I admit, genuine enjoyment. If you can learn to laugh at yourself, and the occasional misstep we are all prone to make, life suddenly becomes much easier. And fun.

So here’s to the full Beaver Moon! Shine, shine, shine!

Scarlet leaves bleed their colorful carriage onto my neck and shoulders as I seek shelter and a place to hide beneath their brilliant canopy. Summer is better for disappearing, when so many dark green leaves work to camouflage the shy and timid. Fall strips the trees and bushes of their privacy screens, but this Japanese maple is still providing a bit of safety for those of us not quite ready to bare it all. 

This is the season where one begins seriously contemplating hibernation, and wondering if the bears know wisdom that isn’t accessible to foolish humans such as myself. Would it be so awful to sleep the winter away, emerging in the spring just as the earth is waking again too?

The red leaves of this Japanese maple surround me like a scarlet cloak. Fall finds a way of protecting those who require it, working in strange and unexpected ways to see us through the winter to come. Whether it’s a trick of the mind, an altered state of perception, or an actual shift in reality, fall provides a cozy blanket, a spiritual balm, for all that is about to come. 

Beneath the blood red leaves of a maple tree… 

Suzie brought us this beautiful hand-made cup from Denmark from her visit there this past summer. She has always had exquisite taste, though she rarely employs it ~ day-to-day life being rather inhospitable to the exquisite. We usually see photos of teacups and such while holding tea or coffee or other nourishment, and that’s typically what I post here. Everyone wants to see the purpose and the action – no one wants the emptiness. 

In this post, we examine the emptiness, and the vacant vessel, and I see them instead as filled with something else. 

Hope.

Possibility.

Opportunity.

I also see something different, something that expands the realm of what we think we know. Do not limit yourself to coffee or tea just because it’s what we have always done. Even if that’s always worked. Why not cider? Why not hot chocolate? Why not chocolate milk? Why not grapefruit juice? Why not granola? Why not bread pudding? Why not jelly beans? Why not salted pumpkin seeds? Just because we label it a tea cup doesn’t limit its capability to hold something more. 

People can be like that too. Just because they seem vapid or empty doesn’t mean they can’t fill themselves with possibility or hope or even love. When we expand our ideas of what’s possible, we create the space for something exquisite, even if our daily life doesn’t feel like it can hold it.

Rising to a full ten feet, our enormous stand of fountain grass has grown just as wide, meaning it is in need of some severe pruning and reining-in next season. I’ve been putting it off because that is arduous and difficult work – this specimen is about two decades old, and has steadily expanded over that time thanks to an early dumping of manure over its crown and then some steady watering through dry spells. 

I’d forgotten how glorious their end-of-the-season finale can be, but yesterday morning this sight lit up the backyard. Structurally, these stalks will remain largely as you see them, slowly being stripped of the foliage as winter progresses, but the feathery seed-heads will remain, and the spindly stalks will form their own winter interest. 

For now, the fountains of gold shine brilliantly on a sunny day, rapturously resplendent against a blue sky. When a breeze gets them waving, it’s an especially gorgeous sight.

“I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.” – Henry David Thoreau

My love of the forest goes back to my childhood, when I would lose myself there without care or concern of getting lost or being found. Instinctually, I knew my way, and could sense wherever I was, no matter how deep I went. Of course, the woods near my childhood home were anything but vast. Bordered by streets and houses, it was easy to keep one’s place. Even when I explored unfamiliar forests near baseball fields and parks, I still managed to keep my bearings, and sometimes I spun around in circles, daring my senses to lose sight of where I was. Always, I found my way. 

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” – John Muir 

When one embarks on a woodland walk, there are dangers inherent to the expedition. Will your ax be wielded in protection or destruction? Perhaps you wish for a little of both. The blade is rusty in physical and metaphorical terms, and the pose is silly and histrionic, because all poses are. Poses have no place in the forest – not even on the edge.

“No one who loves the woods stays on the path.” – Millie Florence 

A useful tool for certain acts of destruction, this little ax fits perfectly in hand, lending a false sense of safety for the one who carries it. In truth, such a trifling object is no match for the might of the woods, even when the day is warm and glorious and just like mid-summer. 

“We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne 

A chopping block of secrets, where whispers are splintered like aged wood – not always as easy as it seems, not so simple as it looks – this is where tales are wound like that unchecked bittersweet vine at the end of summer. Such thin and wiry stems of green all too quickly thicken and harden into chokers of wood – a poisonous piece of deadly jewelry that will strangle its trusting host. 

Hence the ax. For taming the invasive beast. 

Waves of wind sounding like ocean roll through the trees in the distance. A spattering of crow calls is incongruously answered by a barking dog. Somewhere a hanging set of chimes tangles and untangles itself, tinkling with the arrival of said wind. In the sky, clouds move swiftly, indicating they are anything but trapped in a Maxfield Parrish painting. But the light speaks other words, telling of colors and art and beauty that the wind refuses to hear. 

Streams and rivers mirror this strange light, and the fish must wonder at the water’s queasy hue. Water rippling slightly from the brush of the wind, sky putting on a late afternoon show, and forest deciding whether to slumber now or when the darkness has fully unfurled. We are incontrovertibly, and inconsolably, into November. 

While visiting family this past Sunday, we were treated to this view of the then-almost-full moon. Tonight it fulfills its fullness, amid the mayhem of whatever else today brings. In years past, I went about largely unaware of the lunar cycle, only to question whether it was a full moon when things started blowing up in my face. These days, I eye it cautiously, warily, but with a different sort of energy. Prepared for the unexpected setbacks and mishaps, I choose to harness the good energy as it comes, and accept the glitches and snafus as a reminder of the imperfect nature of life. Be flexible, and be open. 

The rest is out of our hands, which makes it much easier to enjoy the moon rather than obsess over what trouble it may cause. As a wise woman once sang, “Go with the flow! You know you can do it.”

Beginning this full Blood Moon Election Day, not knowing whether this country will do the right thing or just continue its mad descent into chaos and autocracy, I’m hesitant to do anything but peer out timidly from the bedroom, and seek out a little plate of chocolates. What’s on the line if you don’t #VoteBlue this time around? Social Security, Medicare, a woman’s autonomy over her body, marriage equality, transgender rights… and the very essence of American democracy. That we are at such a point is disappointing – once upon a time I truly believed we were better than this. Alas, we are not. And we are all to blame. 

Now, it’s up to us to fix it, if it’s not already too late. Part of me fears it is, and we have already given ourselves over to lies and misinformation. When you lose the baseline of truth and facts, and when you act like there are two valid sides to every story, the moral arc of justice can’t help but suffer. So today I am going to vote a straight blue ticket, to right the lopsided world that acts as though homophobia, racism, and autocracy are viable sides and choices. 

Then I’m going to see what the rest of our country does, and I will likely need these chocolates for that. 

In the immortal words of Kelly LeBrock, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. This is my hair in the morning.”

Actually, this is my hair in the morning, noon and night. 

And I’m cool with it. 

While dying my hair used to be a fun and quirky way of staving off boredom (I’ve been platinum blonde, copper, purple, turquoise, blue, magenta, red, and black, to name but a few) I haven’t dyed it to appear darker because I was getting gray. After my last stint with color (bright flaming red) I dyed it black to go back to my natural hue. By then it was coming in with lots of gray, so after realizing I could either keep dying it darker for the rest of my life, or go with the flow, I buzzed it all off and let it come in as nature intended. That was well before COVID. Haven’t looked back since.

I see friends who are trapped in the dye-cycle, and I just can’t be bothered. For someone so supposedly vain, I’m actually easy-upkeep when it comes to my hair, happy with the quickest Supercuts job I can get, and some leave-in conditioner to keep it from flying this way and that. 

And so, here’s my unofficial coming out. Happy Gray Pride, y’all.