Confession: I haven’t gotten around to seeing the new Spiderman film yet. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid all spoilers, because I’ve generally been laying low on social media sites. I did, however, manage to catch Tom Holland on that hot chicken wing show, and he was such a good sport he earned this Dazzler of the Day honor simply for that.
This month marks the start of the 19th year of ALANILAGAN.com.
Yes, I’ve had this little corner of the internet since 2003, when all it held was a small repository of written and photographic work, and some vague nonsensical ramblings of a 27-year-old. Other than my age (eek!) and body (double eek!) not much has changed all that drastically. I won’t be making a big deal about turning 19 – we’ll save this sort of hype and hoopla for next year’s 20th birthday – still not sure how much longer I’ll be going beyond that, though I can’t imagine not communicating to the general ‘you’ – even if social media has largely afforded everyone such an outlet. At any rate, 25 seems a nicer number than 20, so I will likely try to hang on until then, and goals are appreciated here.
Besides, this is a safe haven for me, and such places are becoming more and more scarce. In the madness that this world has become, in the mess that is social media, a site like this offers a respite and reprieve from all that awfulness, where no one is judged (well, maybe a little, but it’s mostly me) and where all are welcome and embraced. I want it to be feel like that for you too, and for anyone who deigns to visit. Hospitality comes in many forms, and hospitality is a show of grace.
With that, I deliver the same open invitation to join me for another year of ALANILAGAN.com, whatever it may bring.
While I love the American teams for Olympic ice dancing (Chock & Bates, Hubbell & Donohue) my favorite team, and the one I’ll be rooting for, is the French team of Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron. They are named Dazzlers of the Day because in my armchair-amateur opinion they have the best combination of skill and artistry in this competitive field, just edging out their counterparts. Witness the rest at Beijing next month, when the Winter Olympics begin on February 3…
Returning to a daily meditation has been the best move I’ve made in a while. For a few months in late summer through fall my daily practice dwindled to a weekly, if that, routine. From the last day of the last year until now, I’ve maintained a daily meditation for 15 to 17 minutes and the difference is already being felt. What had previously taken me a few months to experience has returned much quicker than anticipated, and the practice of meditation seems to be one of those things that is akin to muscle memory of a mental sort – it inhabits the mind and the return to form is easier the more you do it.
That illuminates the main point of meditation for me. It has never been about some transcendent moment of utter peace and serenity – those may be attainable and they do happen from time to time, but that’s never been the goal. The beauty of meditation, and the reason why I have incorporated it into my life, is that it makes the baseline of my existence more peaceful and calm. That doesn’t mean I operate on some enlightened monk-like plane – it simply means my days begin, and progress, from a place of deeper peace and acceptance, so the times of stress and worry don’t rise to the peaks of agitation that they would otherwise do. Some days that means I don’t get as close to breaking as it once felt like I did. There’s a huge difference in overall happiness that results from that. When you start from a level of calm, there’s more room for acceptance of errors and disasters. When you begin from a place of stress, there’s very little wiggle room before reaching a point of crisis.
That’s the unsold secret of meditation, and it doesn’t get shared enough because most people don’t want to take the weeks and months and years of practice to see that difference. We are too demanding of instant-gratification and results, and we live in a world where no one has any sort of attention span. Unfortunately, the greatest gifts sometimes require the greatest investment of time and focus – two things most people just don’t want to give anymore. That doesn’t concern me. This meditation practice has changed my life for the better.
When I find myself in situations that feel stressful, I go into my deep breathing – which can be done anywhere and at any time – and it recalls those hours of meditation – the body recognizing the slowing of breath and placing the mind back in that place of calm. It’s not an instant stroke of magic and profound revelation – its quieter and softer than that, more of a blunting of the usual reactions to stress, lessening the tendency to lash out or lose my temper or simply get annoyed. It makes for a much more peaceful day.
When you make meditation a regular part of your life, when it becomes a habit and a comfortable place of respite, you can conjure that space wherever you may find yourself. That part does feel a little magical, and I’m grateful for the practice.
Starring and directing in anything is a feat of majesty, purpose, and grace when well-executed, and in the case of the music video for Karel Barnoski’s ‘November Moon’ Summer Shapiro executes both tasks in magnificent form. She earns her first Dazzler of the Day feature thanks to the precision of her vision, and the hints at physical dexterity and skill that inform her other artistic work as dancer and comedienne. The powerful ‘November Moon’ marks a return to this avenue of craft after a few years away, and it’s a stunning sort of re-birth, more phoenix than butterfly, as one gets the sense that she’s taking fiery flight after burning up the ashes of learning to let go. Visit her exquisite website here.
‘The Book of Hygge’ by Louisa Thomsen Brits is a lovely little book if you’re looking for an introduction to the concept of hygge, which I’ve been exploring for a while now. It’s essential for giving winter an aspect of enjoyment, something I never quite found before, and once I did it made a miraculous difference. Hygge has a lot of mindfulness to it, more confirmation that this is the right moment for making a time and place for it.
Lighting a candle, making a cup of tea, snuggling into a cozy blanket, and popping open a book are easy ways to decompress from a difficult day, or begin the morning in a gentle way. Life was once about crafting glamorous and sparkling events, when it perhaps should have been about finding the glamour and sparkle among the daily motions we go through. Those magic event moments were few and far between, but a candle and a spot of tea can be conjured every single day. Isn’t it better to enjoy things on a daily basis rather than once in a great while?
Observance writes the texts of our lives, creating stories to be shared in other hyggelige situations when we conjure the moment again. Traditions and rituals vary from one household and one culture to the next, but the desire to celebrate life unites us all. Through our thirst for connection, our future is created one gathering, one encounter, one moment at a time. Hygge rekindles our awareness of the importance and pleasure of mutuality and celebrates our interconnectedness. It keeps us engaged with the lifelong task of living in intimate and loving relation to the world around us. We pass on the spirit of hygge through the quality of our presence. Ideas and values travel. Through hygge, each one of us can know a sense of deeper contentment that will radiate out from us into a global web of belonging togetherness. – Louisa Thomsen Brits
It’s not often that I get to say that I’ve known the Dazzler of the Day since we were kids, but such is the happy circumstances of today’s Dazzler Karel Barnoski, whom I ‘ve known since we played hide-and-seek in the streets of Amsterdam, NY back in the 80’s. A friend of my brother’s, he was (and is) about two years younger than me, so I didn’t know him that well, but we spent some formative summers inflicting the usual trauma upon the neighborhood as young boys are sometimes wont to do.
Since then, Karel has grown into one of the most inspiring and creative artists I know, making his time matter with musical composition, musical performance, and new forays into painting and video. Witness and hear his ‘Tiny Telephone Sessions‘ collection for a starting point, and the gorgeous ‘Welcome Home’ album which is an absolute balm on today’s mad world, as well as his recent ‘November Moon’ song and video. Also check out his website for previous genius.
Artistic alchemy, when it hits right, can astonish and astound, and sometimes it does so in quiet, poetic, and somber form. When that happens, something like a song and accompanying video transcend their physical boundaries and touch people in a way that proves the necessity of art in a world gone mad with so many other things.
Such is the beautiful experience that results from the recent collaboration between composer and producer Karel Barnoski and director and performer Summer Shapiro. Barnoski’s latest piece ‘November Moon’ stands alone for the wondrous way it pulls emotions and yearning from the inspiring journey of a November moon – but taken with Shapiro’s visual treatise on our pandemic existence, it takes on new import and expression.
Inspired by a moment of solitude in November of 2020, the music begins and ends in somber contemplation, and even at the midpoint in a release of gorgeous cascading arpeggios there is a sense of resignation and resolution in simply existing in the moment. Coupled with an extraordinary performance piece by Shapiro, in which her character all but goes through the entire emotional embodiment of what living during a pandemic can feel like, this project is one of those works of art that resonates because it’s so singular and yet so relatable.
The moon plays a role here in the title, as well as in the creative process (the video was shot during the full moon of November 2021, which was also the date of the longest lunar eclipse since ether 15th century). Seen, worshipped and adored by millions, the moon has only ever been alone – solitary orbiter of the earth – peeking at and reflecting the brilliance of the sun – and such solitude has lent her power, grace, magic, and solemnity. Those themes find creative expression in this music and the accompanying visuals, where the tension of creating art in the midst of being alone – particularly art that reaches out to the very heartstrings some of us are most afraid to pluck – results in an eerie state of release and hesitant exultation. Even in the final minute of the video, when the protagonist finds freedom and escape on a timeless seashore in a brilliant azure dress, she is utterly and supremely alone. Just like the moon.
{Karel Barnoski’s new single ‘ November Moon’ is available here.}
Someone as self-less and giving as my mother deserves more than one day of celebration and appreciation, so whenever I get the chance I try to show her how much she is loved and adored by all of her family, especially her first-born son. (Shout-out to me! No offense, Powie.)
In the last few years, as her focus shifts between grandchildren and husband, she’s had to juggle a number of tasks and responsibilities, but she has done so with the usual grit and determination and care with which she’s always tackled everything in her life. Lately, that means full-time care of Dad as he declines a little more every day, and while I know and see and understand how difficult the can be, I don’t often hear her complain or lament her role. A good nurse serves the needs of the unwell without hesitation or question – and my Mom has always been the best nurse I’ve ever met. Our family is lucky in that way, particularly at this point in Dad’s life.
For all that, I try to implore the idea of self-care as she navigates the daily difficulties of all of us getting older, hoping she takes as much care of herself as she does for us. To that end, this post is a wish and hope that she hears and realizes how much we all love her, and how much gratitude we feel for everything she has always done for us. It will never make up for what she has given, but maybe it’s a small start for her birthday, and every day in the years ahead.
Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.
At the time of this writing, we are poised to get anywhere from 0.1 to 12.9 inches of snow, sleet, and freezing rain, so who knows what mess of slushy muck we will be in as you read this. I’m going to curl up in a cozy sweater and a bed of thick plush blankets, reading and writing, maybe taking a break to put together a quick bowl of soup with noodles. On with the recap…
When all else fails, put on a kettle and take the time to properly enjoy a cup of tea.
Paying respect to Feast of the Ass Day, because religion.
Hello from the other side of the cactus bloom.
My own private social anxiety.
Dazzlers of the Day included Michael Breyette, Nathan Chen, Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, and Jerry Mitchell.
A holiday like Martin Luther King Jr. Day deserves more accolades and appreciation than nonsense like Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Day, but our country is in such a tailspin I’m not sure it will ever prioritize such things. Dr. King’s legacy is surely set in stone, but the very efforts he fought so tirelessly for – such at voting rights for all Americans – are under attack, and from only one political party. Why anyone would argue against voting rights, and actively work to suppress people from voting, is beyond me, and beyond the very tenets upon which this great country was founded. How have we gotten so far from the reasons the Founding Fathers set up our governing system?
On this day, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., I only ask that you think about that when you vote this year, and remember the principles that Dr. King espoused.
My winter sauce is soup these days, and on such frigid days soup is the only sauce I need. Here are glimpses of the making of a Tom Yum soup, with a variation of chicken instead of the traditional prawns. (Prawns not being readily available in upstate New York’s tundra at the moment.) While substituting the chicken for the shellfish changes the flavors decidedly, the other ingredients remain true to the Tom Yum spirit, and its spicy origin.
Fresh ginger, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves, along with a hefty dose of chilis and chili sauce and chili oil add the requisite heat – and that’s precisely what this winter needs.
I made a batch for my parents to stave off the wintry weather and keep the cold at bay. It is said that this is one of those soups that aids any ailment. Not sure how true or scientific that is, but soup is good for the soul, especially if there’s chicken in it. Or noodles. Consider it my bastardization of the traditional Tom Yum soup.
This colander of udon noodles added some heft to the soup I had left, and made for a cozy dinner. A seven-minute egg never hurt any bowl of soup either.
After four decades of feeling confused, out-of-place, and like I didn’t belong anywhere, after four decades of trying to figure out why so many things felt so wrong, and after two decades of self-medicating with alcohol and other destructive behavior, when I finally figured out that I had social anxiety it was the biggest relief, the biggest revelation, and the biggest let-down all at once. That such a simple and unassuming issue had been at the root of all that ailed me – all those missed days of school that were as much from allergies and colds as they were from fear of facing people and making speeches – was as unglamorous and dull as it gets. Yet it solved the previously-impenetrable riddles of so many problems that had plagued and haunted me, opening up rooms that my own inability to ferret out the cause had left locked and empty for years.
When the revelation came to me, right around the time I started therapy, it made quitting alcohol an instant and relatively easy action, even if drinking had become my own lifestyle brand. As soon as I understood how I’d been using alcohol as a crutch to see me through socially anxious moments, I suddenly didn’t need or want it as much. The mere identification of the problem, and all its accompanying offshoots of problems, rendered such a false fix immediately irrelevant. I was smart enough to focus on what was really the driving problematic force: it wasn’t the drinking – that was only a symptom – it was the social anxiety, and my introverted nature.
Not that it was an easy and overnight fix. As easily as I immediately stopped drinking, I also ran into difficulty right around that time with two panic attacks in one day – the first surrounded by a room filled with strangers at a work meeting at a legislative building in Albany, and the second in my own office building, surrounded by people I’d known and worked with for over ten years. I had to call Andy to pick me up early, and I couldn’t even describe what was happening other than I thought I might be having a heart attack (which I didn’t voice out loud because I was certain it would land me in an ER when I was certain it wasn’t that extreme). In both instances, I felt a shortness of breath, and then an uncharacteristic outbreak of sweat that started running down my back and chest. Initially I thought I was just overdressed and overheated in my fancy vest and wool pants, but the feeling of abject terror and something akin to paranoia made it altogether much worse.
My absolute ignorance of panic attacks may have been what saved me that day – the not-knowing may have acted as a strange sort of protective device, the same way that not knowing what was happening during my very first hangover prevented me from throwing up. The body simply did not recognize what it was supposed to do at times of such extreme duress. Discussing the incidents with my therapist, we both came to the conclusion that I’d had a pair of panic attacks, stimulated as much from the new realizations as from the uncomfortable situation of being in crowded groups of people and having to interact with a number of strangers.
When that became clear, and when I understood what to look for and how to better prepare for such situations, I felt some relief in having a plan and a comprehension of how my social anxiety might rear its challenging head. Then COVID hit and I was granted an unexpected, and unexpectedly long, reprieve from testing it all out.
Since then, the world has started getting back to a new normal, and I’ve been around people, albeit on a much smaller scale, and while I still have tough moments, they don’t feel as stultifying as they once did. I’m also ready to talk about it more, something that helps me, and maybe someone else.
A few months ago I was sitting with my friend Julio while on this wonderful visit to Connecticut, and we were catching up when I told him of my social anxiety and how I had stopped drinking. I explained how intrinsically shy and introverted I was at my baseline everyday life – and he was genuinely surprised. It’s a reaction that happens often, due to my own fanciful machinations on this blog and on social media, and the way that I can, when absolutely necessary, muster all my energy and pizzazz and present a fully confident and outgoing persona, even if it’s the exact opposite of how I most often feel. He thanked me for telling him that, saying that it made him feel better about his own challenges and doubts, and I realized in that moment that sharing such things might help others to acknowledge and feel better about their own issues – and dent the fallacy that is my perfect image.
Baby steps. Little goals. Bits of progress. Taking the winter a few moments at a time…
“All winter you carved water jars out of ice.
How well will they hold the summer snowmelt?” ~ Rumi
This is the sixteenth day in a row in which I’ve meditated, and it’s starting to bring me back to a calmer baseline. In my case, that’s the whole purpose of meditation. Not for any transformative earth-shattering shift, just a calmer starting and resting point, one that remains more stable, with gentle and manageable curves rather than the spikes and rollercoasters akin to the latest COVID numbers.
This winter has been especially wanting for something calm and serene. As my Dad declines a bit every day, and the stresses of a worldwide pandemic entering its second year take their toll, I feel the weight that most adults feel, and I understood it was time to make meditation once again part of my daily routine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWwY6K5Vjyo
For now, I’m doing 15-17 minutes of meditation a day, and it’s a good beginning. Gradually I’ll increase the sessions as my body adjusts to sitting still for longer periods, which will make for a deeper experience, and a lengthier place of peace. Winter always has its troubles, and it’s good to have something to keep you grounded.
Listening to Tibetan flute music, and burning thin little sticks of Japanese incense also helps to set an atmosphere of calm and serenity, aided by the light of our living room with its bay window of ferns and tiny fig trees. It’s where I pass the winter weekends, watching the sky for signs that the light is lingering, and waiting for the gray morning to come again.
“And don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” – Rumi
Birthday boy Jerry Mitchell easily earns his first Dazzler of the Day with this post, which he can add to his sterling curriculum vitae (which probably doesn’t include his Hunk of the Day honor seen here). Mitchell is a Broadway superstar, from his time treading the boards to the many producing/directing/choreographing/too-many-slashes-to-mention efforts. His brilliance and genius are in evidence on the stage, but more importantly is the heart ad soul he puts into everything including all of his Broadway Bares endeavors, which have raised an enormous amount of money for the fight against AIDS. It’s so good to see someone whose talents match how much they care for others. Happy birthday to him, and congrats on this latest honor!
