Whenever we are away from the garden for a few days, it’s amazing the transformation that happens when you don’t see things unfurl hour by hour. Just a couple of days reveals changes that would have slowly gone unnoticed had I been watching them like water heating to a boil. This time, the seven sons’ flower tree was in bloom – something the tree had been teasing since early July when the little buds first appeared. The blooming for this one takes its sweet time, holding off until now, the very last month of summer, and the final days of August. It’s a balm and solace for the post-birthday let-down I always felt right about now.

It’s a lovely sight – and scent – to discover upon our return, and a welcome reminder that the garden still has magic to perform. The ostrich ferns may be browning up and shriveling away (after an extended showing this summer) and the cup plants have just started to fall over with each rain, getting lower and lower to the ground until they will eventually arch to the point where the stems all but break. Then they will remain there for the winter, frozen fountains of dead stems and branches notable only for the architectural interest, and whatever seed heads might remain for the birds.

That f-word is in the air again – fall – and I’m not mad about it. The garden has had its time, and after a few more weeks of glory, it will be time for its slumber. A rest more than well-earned.

The title of this post says about all the nonsensical things I wish to say, as I vamp and stall for more time away from this blog. Having spent the bulk of this past weekend with good friends, and the last couple of days with Andy in Boston, I just didn’t have the chance or heart to spill my guts out here for the umpteenth time. Check out the past few posts for gut-wrenchingly-silly soul-searching, and come back later this week when I’ve had a chance to properly collect myself from all the birthday fun and mayhem.

Sharing my birthday with a weekly blog recap is just the sort of generous endeavor I do for my soul now that I’m grown. Just kidding – Monday birthdays suck but the calendar ceased being my friend years ago. On with this weekly blog recap…

What the actual duck?

A rose for your sins, because when you sin you win.

What happens in the elevator…

Rainbow predilection.

A snippet of wisdom.

My secret super-powers.

Summer plate with all the trimmings.

The happy begonia.

End of August ambivalence.

Throwing August all away…

… or maybe just these few things, which needed to go anyway.

Rainbow reprise/reprieve.

The final night of my 50th year.

My 51st year begins in my birthday suit (if a birthday suit is a jockstrap).

Dazzlers of the Day included Michael Johnston, Steve – the Naked Florist, Kara Young and Jon Ossoff.

Today I turn fifty-fucking-one years old.

How did my 50th year go now that’s come to a close? I spoke a bit about that last night, but I’ll break it down again here.

Fifty was a wilder ride than I anticipated.

I felt the years. I felt the weight. I felt the fact that there were more days and years behind me than would ever be before me again. I felt the rush. I felt the hushed, icy lack of turned heads when I’d enter a restaurant. When you’re fifty you blend better into the background, and after fifty years of not blending into the background, there was wickedness and relief in that.

What might be most surprising is that I could still access the tumultuous emotions of life without having to actually go through any of them – a removed yet thrilling way of remembering and experiencing what I once thought solely the province of the young. My 50th year ran through gamut of emotional highs and lows, even as nothing extreme really even happened. In that respect, things got decidedly more exciting, merely from the shift in my own perspective and how I experienced everything. That bodes well for the next half of life.

As for this 51st birthday, I’m laying low and keeping things relatively quiet, enjoying a day in Boston and trying not to take any of the social media flowers too seriously. Fifty-one isn’t one of the big milestones anyway, though some might argue that anything over the halfway mark is worth celebrating. My own love/hate relationship with my birthday doesn’t find reconciliation one way or another – not quite that evolved yet but definitely working on it.

Anyway, have a gander at previous birthday posts, most of which feature some element of my birthday suit because I’m nothing if not a goddamned giver.

Birthday #50: A letter to myself because if you can’t do you on your birthday, what can you do?

Birthday #49: One on the cusp of many things.

Birthday #48: An uneventful year that faded to black.

Birthday #47: A real birthday suit post with only a sheet between me and the eyes of the world.

Birthday #46: A skinny-dipping party and I’d cry if I wanted to.

Birthday #45: Feeling young and fancy and free.

Birthday #44: A real suit for a birthday, and everybody hated it.

And for all the rest (because I’m tired of linking right now) check out this more comprehensive birthday suit post.

Most people would not welcome a rainy Sunday morning, but I’m not aligning with most people these days. On this particular morning, I step onto the front steps of our home and listen to the sound of the rain, grateful for the downtrodden aspect of atmosphere. My lifelong friend Ann has just departed after a weekend of fun and friendship rejuvenation – a time where two old friends could just relax into the easy cadence of our youth, reveling in how much things have changed – and how our friendship remains the same.

Pulling the golden streamers that framed the doorway, I toss them down and see them pool into a sparkling pretty mess. This will likely be our final Solid Gold Summer gathering – I’m too tired and apathetic to rally and plan for more golden moments – and scheduling things with kids is too impossible to try. Leaving it in the hands of others means nothing will happen, and I’m happily reconciled to that.

Spending the weekend with Ann (and a dinner with Missy and Carla) reminded us of how important it is to nourish the soul by having this kind of time together. We did little else but talk and laugh (with a quick trip to Schenectady to get some goodies at Perecca’s) and it was absolutely what we needed to highlight this tender time of summer.

I miss her already, and the rain feels like a fitting coda to complete a beautiful weekend – a happy echo that will reverberate throughout the fall and winter whenever we need a memory of joy.

As previously mentioned, August is a time of plentiful rainbows in these parts. Whenever one appears, I go online to see how many others saw the same thing – it’s one of those increasingly rare moments when humans come together under a single event and have a sort of communal experience – the way we used to all watch the same television show at the exact same time and talk about it the next day. The world is at our fingertips now, but I’ve never felt so far removed from people.

Not that I’m complaining – for someone who’s largely an introvert with a few bothersomely-extreme extrovert aspects, I enjoy solitude and separateness. Distance, but with the option of connecting/disconnecting at the touch of a phone screen. Modern-day living. Depressing as fuck.

But then there are still rainbows to light up the sky and guide our path back toward something that looks and feels like happiness. Maybe it’s beauty – maybe it’s more…

Even solid gold gets old after a while – time being the ultimate equalizer, no matter how pure or whole any element might be. My own golden trappings of this summer are much flimsier than just about any other sort of gold, assembled from the deepest and darkest recesses of the attic wardrobe and supplemented by the nonsensical sparkle of Amazon junk. At this stage, I’m ready to tear off all the golden masks and scratchy sequins, starting over from a place of minimalist majesty. Of course, I always say this, and the stripped-down bare-bones version of me never lasts – my preference for all that is extra invariably returns to rear its ugly insistent head; proof that fighting who you are is a losing, futile, worthless battle.

Perhaps we should be throwing away all the guises we assume to please others – the roles we feel we should be playing to be more acceptable – more loved – in the world. Maybe that’s the real garbage in our lives, these ideas that we should try to fit in and be like everybody else. What a stupid thing to desire – and how difficult it is to not want for the comfort of it. I’ve always considered myself a bit stronger than most when it comes to that – able to defiantly march to my own beat, in my own strange sense of style but even I know it’s often easier to make my way through the average day in jeans and a t-shirt than some sparkling golden ensemble that practically glows in the dark. There are more than enough battles to be waged – battles that will be thrust upon us without say or choice – why would we create any more?

That said, I still want to sparkle – and I will always want to sparkle – and I’m going to throw away all that ever inhibits that from happening.