I saw myself as the source of existence I was there in the beginning And I was the Spirit of Love Now I am sober There is only the hangover And the memory of love And only the sorrow I yearn for happiness I ask for help I want mercy
And my Love says “Look at me and hear me Because I am here just with that”
Oh sweet bitterness I will soothe you and heal you I will bring you roses I too have been covered with thorns
“Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you’re allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It’s like killing yourself, and then you’re reborn. I guess I’ve lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” ~ Charles Bukowski
“I drink to make other people more interesting.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
“It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
“After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“My days of pleasing men are over. You know, I’ve said how I used to sit in bars and learn how to drink cause they wanted me to drink with them and all that. It’s the end. I’m not going to do anything anymore for anybody… As far as being pleasing to men, well, yeah, I would try and cook up nice costumes…” ~ Little Edie Beale, ‘Grey Gardens’
Thirteen years ago – which was 2009 for anyone who wants to be horrified by the passage of time – I completed a project entitled ‘FireWater’ which never saw the dark light of the internet. A printed copy was shown to a very few select friends, but for the most part this long-lost project went silently into the dim recesses of the forgotten, particularly when compared to the bombast and hype surrounding others (see ‘PVRTD‘ and ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour‘).
Designed as an elemental companion piece to 2007’s ‘StoneLight‘, ‘FireWater’ was my exploration of cocktails and drinking, and was intended to be a very dramatic and dark look at the possibility of becoming an alcoholic. It was more of a character study, something I would explore in works like ‘The Circus Project‘, ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea‘ and ‘Bardo: The Dream Surreal‘. Rather than a straightforward autobiographical narrative (something early projects relied upon), the story of ‘FireWater’, while based on actual events, was more of a what-if scenario, deliberately playing up the danger and risks of someone teetering on the edge of control.
2009 was around the time when I was just barely beginning to figure out the way to artistic expression without actively being a direct participant as a subject. That was not a journey that could be completed in a single project or small span of time – that would take years. One of the main reasons ‘FireWater’ was not released then was that I understood, all too well, that putting it out there would only fuel the fire of misunderstanding and mistaken beliefs on my own drinking. In other words, the world would assume I was an alcoholic.
Not to say that I’m not… and not to say that I am… but that’s a discussion for another time. For now, let’s note that I have not had a drink in almost three years, nor have I wanted one, and that has been one of the easier choices I’ve made in my life. Which brings us to another reason why I’m releasing ‘FireWater’ at this moment: like so many other things I’ve recently made a certain peace with lately, this can no longer hurt me. And what others make of my journey has never been within my control anyway. When you reach a certain place of security and self-knowledge, those things fall away.
Entire truth be told, the main reason I didn’t release ‘FireWater’ back then was that I was scared. I knew that it was entirely possible that I was headed toward becoming a problematic drinker, and that was something I wasn’t ready to face or address. For the first time, a project was hitting too close to home, and it felt too immediate to safely post for all the world to see. Some things are better worked through on one’s own time and in one’s own safe-space. I’ve given enough of my soul to the world, laid bare too much and too often. One of my infallible instincts is self-preservation, and it always kicks in when I’m right on the verge of doing something too destructive. It came through then, and so the project was shelved, literally, until I dusted it off a few weeks ago and realized it was time to put it out there.
This week, the online premiere of 2009’s ‘FireWater’ takes place – and this post will act as a placemark and disclaimer, particularly for those who have come to expect mocktails and non-alcoholic mindfulness in these parts. As a creative project, this is not an authentic description of my life, nor should it be seen as an endorsement of heavy drinking. It does describe a certain time period, and certain events, but it is also largely exaggerated, the way many of my projects have been, to play up the exciting or dangerous aspects of what is otherwise a mundane and un-noteworthy existence. The role of an artist is sometimes to make the mundane into something exciting, even if that means accentuating the darker parts of life, and pretending that things are more perilous than they may actually be. ‘FireWater’ was originally a hint at that darkness – and while much of it still stands up to the years that ensued, it is now also a hint of the artistic process, and what role the artist plays in the action.
As mentioned previously, I have’t had an alcoholic drink in almost three years. Alcohol is no longer a part of my life in the way it once was, and being thirteen years removed from this project is more than a safe distance so as not to get burned by it in any way. That said, there are whispers and glimpses of danger here – warnings and forebodings that I see in retrospect, and that makes it all the more compelling. Our journey back to such a place begins in a few days. If you think you can handle it, please join us for the ride.
“There are other ways to kill yourself, I really do think, than swigging down that rotten stuff…” ~ Little Edie Beale, ‘Grey Gardens’
Try to erase that image from your mind as you enjoy the color and form of the dogwood fruit. Too mealy and filled with seeds to be much good for human consumption, the fruit is a favorite of the squirrels and chipmunks right now. They scramble up and down the limbs, daring to inch their way right along the most slender of branches to capture the hanging fruit, and often will hang upside down nibbling at a prime specimen. It’s a circus-like atmosphere and show, and Andy and I have been watching them perform since the fruit has been ripe.
Fall arrived with all its fiery pomp and pizzazz, but I’d rather go the blushing and bashful route in our first weekly recap of the season, framed by these pink-tinged chrysanthemum blooms. It was a week that saw summer wrapping itself up in wonderful fashion, setting the stage for a fall that’s going to be red-hot. Join me for the first look back…
While things heat up here, I give you this blue-hued break to douse the flames and give soothing relief. This may very well have been my last swim of the year, though I’m still holding out for a stretch of warm days to inspire Andy into kicking on the heater for one last romp in the water. We shall see. For now, this is a respite for the slow burn this site is going to be taking from here through the holidays.
Water and fire will come together in a long-lost project that will be posted next month, so this post and the one before it, as well as the one coming up tonight, make a lovely lead-in to such a juxtaposition.
A little soul-searching and a little swimming – such was how the summer was largely spent. We shift away from the pool to the inner-sanctuary of home as the nights grow colder and the days dimmer. There will be other methods of relief then, different ways to metaphorically cool down when the fires of this site burn too hot.
“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” ~ Frederick Douglass
One of the ways we are instructed to safely extinguish a fire is by burying it. Suffocating its access to oxygen is one effective way to stop the burn. That doesn’t work quite as well for the human heart. For far too many years, I made a habit of burying things that bothered me – hurt that went unreconciled, forgiveness that never found the air to flourish, and those messy emotions that only served to trip me up. It was the only way I knew, the only method I’d learned to deal with something that might otherwise derail the tidy life I tried so hard to assemble and keep.
Maybe that’s one of the setbacks of being in the closet. For my generation of gay people, we made a habit of burying things – secrets, desires, attractions, feelings, emotions – and we became adept at living out various lies and masquerades until it was difficult to tell the difference between what was real, what was in our hearts, and what the world perceived.
Looking back over the decades, I pause and wonder at how much I’ve truly addressed, and how much still needs to be exhumed before I can genuinely claim to have let it all go.
My mind returns to the fall of 1994, when I met a man who would inform so many of my experiences with men that would follow. He was the first man I ever kissed, the first man I was ever naked with, and the first man who pulled whatever capacity he might have had to love entirely away from me. It all happened within the span of a couple months, and there is a journal of those days which I recently removed from its bookshelf, blowing the dust off its cover and returning to the words I wrote when I was only 19 years old.
It’s largely an embarrassing and painstakingly detailed account of mostly nothing, given the import and drama of an average teenager. One phrase struck me, pointing out how young and naive I was then: “Am I doing something wrong?” The moments of doubt and uncertainty, because I had never been with a man before and there had been no examples or guides or the merest whisper that what I was feeling and going through wasn’t wrong or sinful, feel keenly raw, even to this day.
There was so much innocence to what I wrote, as much as I tried to protect myself with a jaded attitude and prickly disposition. There was haughtiness too, and the college kid’s typical bravado in the way we thought we knew it all. The writing is stilted and clumsy, but it was only a journal. The magic was in the process of writing it all down.
I read another passage:
…I asked if he was falling in love with me, and he had said, “Not yet, no.” Neither was I, if I could help it. He also said he couldn’t wait to spend the whole night with me, and wake up and watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat cereal. I wasn’t so sure. If I wanted that. Or of anything…
So many words, and so much emptiness. When I read what I wrote all those years ago, the overriding sense is one of incredible loneliness, which is strange, because I rarely recall feeling lonely. Yet that’s the essence of all those words… and they’re only words unless they’re true.
The journal goes into the days after we met – from September into October – and the eventual dissolution of our ‘relationship’ – something that I didn’t even realize I was in. Near the end, all I focus on is the collection of his own words. I don’t think I’ve really listened to them since that year. Seeing them there, in print, an exact quote of what he said, I’m somewhat shocked.
In one entry, after I’d tracked him down after he ghosted me, I was invited to walk with him while he picked up dinner. He asked if I wanted anything from the store to drink – he was getting a Coke. I told him no.
“Oh that’s right, you never want anything.”
We went back to his place, where he sat down and ate his dinner of Chinese food, drinking his Coke. I blurted out a question on whether I was a major or minor part of his life. A rookie mistake, but I knew no other way to communicate other than in the most direct and honest way. He didn’t really answer. He said it was hard to get to know me, that I was so quiet and I had this double-level. One part was the small bit that I let him and the world see, and the other part was this hidden, secret life. He said I was always having an internal conversation and thinking it through in my head and that made it very difficult to get to know me. He said maybe it was because I was alone so often, and that he knew, he was weird too. He said more, but I wrote down that it had already escaped me.
This was actually the next to last time I would see him, but I write as though it will be our final encounter. Playing a game I was just starting to learn, I drew back.
“So this is the last time,” I said.
“That we’re going to see each other?” he asked.
“Yeah, at least that’s what I gather.”
“No, I mean, I’d like to see you again.”
I rose from the bed and picked up my back-pack.
“I have to go now,” I said – and then I left.
Reading that now, I feel confused. I didn’t remember this part of our story. In all my tellings of it, I focus on the end, on our last meeting, when he says it’s not working out, that our age difference is too much and we are incompatible. I forgot that there was this moment when he wanted to see me again, and I pulled away. The startling way a written record brings the past back into focus, no matter how many times you have tried to retell it.
There is a photograph of me in my dorm room at the time, glued to the back of one of the journal pages. The sunset is coming in through the windows, and it looks like the room is on fire. I hold a pillow in my arms, looking upward into the light. I remember that room. I remember that light.
What I don’t remember is how close I came to destroying myself during that stretch of time. It’s there on every page, the danger and the desire for danger, just to prove that I was alive. I don’t think I realized how badly I was burned by the whole experience, how deeply the wounds went.
Fall always brings me back to that place, but I usually resist its pull. This year I’m going to stay there a while, looking at it from the safe vantage point of the life I’ve made for myself, allowing the feelings of loneliness and fear to wash over me. It’s time to acknowledge the past.
Stalwart ornamental guardians of the season of gourds, these pumpkins look ready to stand sentinel at entryways and porches and anywhere that needs a dose of fall splendor. Andy and I don’t do much decorating with pumpkins, and I don’t think we’ve carved a Jack-o’-lantern since 2000, maybe 2001. I’m fine with that, as my memories of pumpkin-carving are messy and gross and never quite worth the effort.
Rarely is there ever a distinctive line between summer and fall, other than the calendar we as humans have assembled to demarcate the shift by the precise date and hour. Nature is more nuanced about it, slipping a bit of fall into the cooler nights we’ve had of late, while letting the heat and sun linger on a bit, giving the scents of fallen leaves and drying acorns more pungent resonance. That subtle shift has been in the works for weeks – this is merely our official proclamation that autumn is here, and summer is done, so let’s get on with the show.
In my head I hear a million conversations
I’m spinning out, don’t wake me up until the end
The rivers flowing in denial I can’t fake it
I’m paranoid that all my thoughts are all my friends
Fall has been aptly named in my lifetime of falls. It used to be the time of the year when I would fall madly, defiantly, and foolishly in love with someone – anyone really – who didn’t love me back. The battle of unrequited love was one I fought every autumn, kicking away fallen dried leaves as I felt my heart jerk against such perceived injustice. It’s been many years since that happened, and while there is mostly relief in that, I no longer look back with bitterness over those lost gentlemen, or my idiocy at pursuing them. That kind of passion and excitement is the province of the young, and without having experienced it, I wouldn’t be able to find the sense of calm I can usually locate these days.
The province of the young – that feels more like spring than fall. Yet fall has a freshness that often gets forgotten. It gives the sort of jolt that time sometimes uses to remind us that it’s constantly in motion. It lights the fire that impels us to prepare for winter, that gives the warning there isn’t much time left. And so we bolt and hasten to our tasks, work and school alike imbued with a new urgency, household tasks given immediate deadlines, as we prepare the outside for the long march to and through the slumbering months.
I was broken from a young age
Taking my sulking to the masses
Writing my poems for the few
That look at me, took to me, shook to me, feeling me
Singing from heartache from the pain
Taking my message from the veins
Speaking my lesson from the brain
Seeing the beauty through the…
Trying to light it
This fall there are big burning plans for this website, as we are about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The lead-up to that (occurring in early 2023) will include metaphorically burning this place down, with a never-before-released ‘lost’ project going up next month, one that almost say the light of day in 2009 but was used at the last moment in a rare moment of conservative judgment on my behalf, and ultimately it was for the best. I think it’s ready for its close-up now, and all the incendiary shit-storms that usually rage upon the release of a new project can light it all up.
All (pain) these thoughts I battle
Creeping up my skin, creeping up my skin
Fears (pain) they try to rattle
Who I am within, where do I begin?
It’s (pain) one of those days, my world is crashing everything
looks on fire
It’s (pain) one of those nights, I’m dreaming but I’m walking on a wire
All (pain) these thoughts I battle
(believer) Creeping up my skin, (believer) burning from within like
Fire
The song chosen for kicking off the fall season here is a mash-up of ‘Fire’ by The Score and ‘Believer’ by Imagine Dragons. An epic collision of emotions, the kind that happens when someone has reached the point where there are no more fucks to give, when they have been pushed to the edge where it’s jump or die, and the only thing left to do is see whether they have wings. There is beauty in that space… danger and treachery too… and it will be up to us to make the choices that bring us closer to the fire. Whether salvation is there, or something worse, we can never know.
Third things third
Send a prayer to the ones up above
All the hate that you’ve heard
Has turned your spirit to a dove, oh-ooh
Your spirit up above, oh-ooh
I’m a fighter, lighting fires, knock ’em dead
Falls of the past contained a multitude of mixed feelings, and amid the best-laid plans were failures and falterings that I originally viewed as marring the season. Looking back, everything that happened turned into a bit of destiny – lessons and triumphs could only come from mistakes and losses. When you begin to view the world in such a way, it becomes much easier to cope. Because this is not an easy existence. Even the most charmed lives contain their own heartache and misery, and absolutely no one gets out of this alive.
Blood in my chest
Fight in my step
No sleep no rest
No sleep no rest
Sparks in my brain
Am I insane?
Trying to light the flame
Trying to light it
All…Pain!
You made me a, you made me a believer,
Believer
Fears…Pain!
You break me down and build me up, believer,
believer
Pain!
Oh let the bullets fly, oh let them rain
My life, my love, my drive, it came from…
Pain!
You made me a, you made me a believer,
believer
burning from within like
Fire
Let it rain, let it rain
Through the pain like
We summon the fires of fall, with all of their burn and vicious bite, and we take that energy and light and transform it into warmth and sustenance, into the drive and impetus to ignite a new chapter. Setting it off with the frisson of promise, using the kindling of hope, and feeding it with the fuel of memory and rage and right, we send our fires into the sky. Limitless suddenly with the wonder of the realization that we burn together, we meld into everyone else’s fire, enjoined with everyone else’s spirit. In the frightening nights where it can feel endlessly dark, a lone candle flickers, and from one single light so many more can be lit. We raise our little candles in unison, in a collective conjuring of whatever magic and enchantment each of us can cast.
Last things last
By the grace of the fire and the flames
You’re the face of the future
The blood in my veins, oh-ooh
Clench my teeth, I need to end this
conversation
Strike a match cause now it’s time to hit reset
No more doubt, no more running from the half
truth
(and rained down
And rained down, like)
Fall brings out the fight still left within us. The fight we are not yet resigned to lose or leave behind. It lights the fuse of one more hidden bastion of explosive energy, illuminating those parts we may have forgotten about in the dark. Once lit, it will carry us to greater places, to greater understanding and compassion, to acceptance and glory – where glory is the simple state of existing in calm and contentment. There are times when one must rage to find peace.
I’m a fighter, lighting fires, knock ’em dead
All (pain) these thoughts I battle
Creeping up my skin, creeping up my skin
Fears (pain) they try to rattle
Who I am within, where do I begin
It’s (pain) one of those days, my world is crashing everything
looks on fire
It’s (pain) one of those nights, I’m dreaming but I’m walking on a wire
All (pain) these thoughts I battle
(believer) Creeping up my skin, (believer) burning from within like
Sometimes you have to burn it all to the ground to start again. As we lead into the winter that will mark this website’s 20th anniversary, it’s time to do just that. Burning the past, burning the memories, burning the hurt and pain and suffering… and beginning again like some phoenix seemingly lost to the flames. Are you ready to burn, or are you ready to rise?
Continuing the Summer Renaissance we started here, another Beyonce track lends dance pop history and celebration to the scene, the perfect backdrop to a summer that came scented with nostalgia and hope, for the first time in a long time. Andy and I embraced the sun and the pool and the friends and family who could stop by, and we embraced each other at twenty-two years into our relationship. It was a summer of celebratory gratitude, of exhaling and releasing, of leaning into the loveliness that we can sometimes, at our best moments, create for ourselves and our loved ones. And now, before the summer leaves until next year, let’s dance.
IT’S SO GOOD, IT’S SO GOOD, IT’S SO GOOD, IT’S SO GOOD…
By the time August arrived, we were riding the happy rest of summer, and it showed no signs of abating. It doesn’t always work that way, so we took advantage and made the most of each day.
Some summer days, when one can’t be by the ocean, were spent making plans for future trips, even if that meant the arrival of fall. On this day we planned for Ogunquit again.
A historic farewell to a wonderful summer, we took one last wild ride on the high seas, and there was enough good behavior that I may bring them back to Boston for the holidays.
Who else but Beyonce could have provided the soundtrack to this past summer? With her incredible ‘Renaissance’ album, she gave us the beats to move our feet, and the melodies to move our hearts. A celebratory return to the sunny and hot summers that I remember from my childhood, it was a season steeped in happy nostalgia and future hope. On this last day of summer, let’s recap the glorious few months that came before, backed by this killer Beyonce beat.
A corrupt Supreme Court decided to strip women of the control they once had over their own bodies in a move that some of us called way back when certain people were hemming and hawing over Hillary Clinton. You reap what you sow. Vote Blue in November to see if we can right this ship, or we may have more decisions like this.
Continuing our Summer of the Rainbow, this full beauty appeared while I was looking for post-its at Staples of all places. Such is the state of the office worker these days. How brick and mortar stores manage to stay afloat is beyond me, and given the conditions and supplies of the store at hand, it may not be long for this retail life. I digress, and from the main point of this post, which was this gorgeous and complete rainbow that spanned the entire sky before me. Parking lots always work best when trying to capture rainbows on camera, but even the best timing and opportunities seldom give the full picture as seen here. There are usually only bits and pieces of it – one of the ends or the middle – so this was a rare gift the universe bestows every few years. I’m taking it as a fond farewell to the wonderful summer we’ve had – one that will find a full recap in a pair of posts that go up tomorrow. Come back for that celebration.
The monarch butterly was recently added to the list of endangered species, thanks to so much of its native habitat being destroyed. Humans will never be as noble as this magnificent creature, and my heart hurts at the idea that their numbers are dwindling. I left a stalk of milkweed alone in the garden (where it really didn’t belong) in a sad attempt at making the area more hospitable to these regal beauties. Alas, it preferred the flashier butterfly bush, where it paused to pose for a few pictures.
In keeping with the dire news of their declining numbers, this was the first monarch we’ve seen all summer. We used to have many fluttering about the lofty stalks of the cup plant and aforementioned butterfly bush – this year there was only this one. But one is better than none, and a single being is enough to give the smallest sliver of hope to see us through the winter.
The big summer recap posts arrive later, on the last day of summer, but for now we do our Monday morning quarterbacking with this weekly recap. Our last full week of summer – how did we ever end up here? It went way too quickly, and now we are looking back, at all of it…
This is the week that summer ends and fall begins, and after completing the summer recap posts, and making inroads with the few new fall posts (including a revamped look for this space) I find myself thoroughly exhausted and spent. Do you know how many words I actually write every single week for this blog? Copy and paste them somewhere and let me know. I’m sure it’s a lot – and this isn’t even my day job.
Luckily, it’s a labor of love, and as I’ve kept my writing largely to the realm of joy and self-expression, I don’t have to worry about deadlines or perfection or word-count limits. That goes for minimum counts as well, and so I shall end this brief Sunday morning post with the promise of some fiery new content coming within the next few days. ALANLAGAN.com is about to be LIT.
I’m not at all confident that this will be the last time I go for a swim this year, but it’s a definite possibility, and rather than look back a few weeks from now and wish I’d made more of it, I dove into the water determined to make a memory. The air above the water was chilly – the first notably cool day we’ve had in months – but the sun was out, still cutting through the wind that was suddenly picking up.
On the water, little white blossoms from the seven sons flower tree floated across the surface, and occasionally the perfume from the flowers still dangling above the pool carried on the breeze. All these vestiges of summer should have been a comfort, a sign that bits of the sunny season were lingering until the very end, but mostly it just felt a little sadder being this near the close of the season. We are less than a week away from the arrival of fall.
It will be sad to see this summer slip into the past, so sunny and warm and glorious was it, but most of me is ready. Too much of a good thing has rarely been a good thing. Nature knows how to pace herself, and I trust in the seasonal time-table she has put in place. I know a number of people who would love for it stay perpetually summer, the way the sun sticks around year-round in places like Southern California – and there are moments when I think that would be lovely, but those moments are almost always at the tail-end of winter, just as the wondrous cycle of spring is about to begin.
Right now, the idea of nine more months of summer feels stale and stagnant, and I’m ok with turning to the next seasonal page. After this one last dip…
