When you’re fifty fucking years old, you are officially out of fucks to give.

At least, I fucking am.

All fucks gone.

All fucked out.

Move the fuck on.

Fuck all the fucking way off.

And play this fucking song as loud as you can fucking stand it, because I’m regressing to my teenage dreams in a teenage circus… and if you stick around these parts you’re gonna get something on yourself.

TEENAGE DREAMS IN A TEENAGE CIRCUS
RUNNING AROUND LIKE A CLOWN ON PURPOSE
WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THE FAMILY YOU COME FROM?
NO GIVING UP WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG AND YOU WANT SOME

RUNNING AROUND AGAIN… RUNNING AROUND AGAIN
RUNNING FROM RUNNING…

WAKING UP IN THE MIDDAY SUN
WHAT’S TO LIVE FOR WHEN YOU COULD SEE WHAT I’VE DONE?
STAYING OUT OF MOTION IN THE LIGHT OF DAY
I WAS HIDING FROM THE THINGS THAT YOU’D SAY

So many f-words, so much vulgarity. Reminds me of a time I was on the bus coming home from religion class of all places. (That’s what comes when you try to make kids religious.) I was in the back of the bus being bad, swearing my ass off with every dirty abominable word I could think of to say out loud and shock my religious classmates after our extra-long Tuesday afternoons when all the non-religious kids got to home early but those of us godly idiots had to go to the run-down Catholic school and pretend to pray and other shit. A lovely nun named Sister Agnes taught us (lovely in spirit, not in the dark bags beneath her eyes). We didn’t buy half of it, we didn’t believe, and behind her back we were atrocious to one another. The furthest thing from whatever goodness they were trying to instill.

WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE
WE ARE GOLDEN, WE ARE GOLDEN
WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE
WE ARE GOLDEN, WE ARE GOLDEN

I remember the kids listening to me as I swore – one fuck right after another fuck, and maybe even a c-word slipped in at such a young age. It thrilled me to appall them; even the older kids seemed impressed or horrified, and I would spend the rest of my life confusing the two.

I WAS A BOY AT AN OPEN DOOR, WHY ARE YOU STARING?
DO YOU STIL THINK THAT YOU KNOW?
LOOKING FOR TREASURE IN THE THINGS THAT YOU THREW
LIKE A MAGPIE I LIVE FOR GLITTER NOT YOU

Even then, I understood that I would be the one brave enough to say the things we shouldn’t say out loud. That I would be the one to bear the brunt of childish hubris, the one to burn up from flying too close to the sun. I knew it was my destiny to fall. Lucifer whispered sweet seduction in my boyhood ears, and I listened; dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight to a song like this would become my habit.

WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE
WE ARE GOLDEN, WE ARE GOLDEN
WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE
WE ARE GOLDEN, WE ARE GOLDEN

TEENAGE DREAMS IN A TEENAGE CIRCUS
RUNNING AROUND LIKE A CLOWN ON PURPOSE
WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT THE FAMILY YOU COME FROM?
NO GIVING UP WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG AND YOU WANT SOME

As we neared the end of the bus ride, I realized that my voice was the lone voice that was carrying to the front. All my bravado, all my evil words, all my brazen audacity – how much had reached the bus driver’s ears? As we squeaked to a stop and filed out, I suddenly panicked at the idea that the driver had heard what I was so foolishly screaming. I left a healthy length between myself and the kid ahead of me, so that I could rush past the driver in the event that they tried to scold me or say something. Even after I’d hurried by and stepped off the bus, I worried my actions would catch up with me, that a call would come in that night to my parents and I’d be belted for spewing such language from my lips. Religion class might have been working after all – the guilt was wreaking havoc with my head, fucking up any possibility of a carefree childhood.

NOW I’M SITTING ALONE AND I’M LOOKING AROUND
LEFT HERE ON MY OWN, I’M GONNA HURT MYSELF
MAYBE LOSING MY MIND, I’M STILL WONDERING WHY
I HAD TO LET THE WORLD, LET IT BLEED ME DRY

No call came into the house that night. And the next Tuesday afternoon after we finished another religion class, I heard my mouth release another torrent of bad words in the back of the bus, and watched some of the kids again thrill at what they would never have the courage to say or do. I worried a little again at whether the bus driver would finally hear or notice, but again no call came in, no comeuppance. And then all I felt was empty.

WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE, WE ARE
WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE, WE ARE
WE ARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE
WE ARE GOLDEN, WE ARE GOLDEN…

Stepping slightly aside from the 70’s disco gold sound that opened the season here, on this third day of summer we move into something a little more recent with this song by Harry Styles – this is ‘Golden’ from his album ‘Fine Line’. It speaks to the golden moment of loving someone, letting them know you love them, all while being terrified of getting your heart broken. Summer has barely begun and already the emotions are mixed.

GOLDEN, GOLDEN, GOLDEN AS I OPEN MY EYES

HOLD IT, FOCUS, HOPING, TAKE ME BACK TO THE LIGHT

I KNOW YOU WERE WAY TOO BRIGHT FOR ME

I’M HOPELESS, BROKEN, SO YOU WAIT FOR ME IN THE SKY

YOU’RE SO GOLDEN, YOU’RE SO GOLDEN

I’M OUT OF MY HEAD AND I KNOW THAT YOU’RE SCARED

BECAUSE HEARTS GET BROKEN

I DON’T WANNA BE ALONE, I DON’T WANNA BE ALONE

WHEN IT ENDS

DON’T WANNA LET YOU KNOW I DON’T WANNA BE ALONE

BUT I CAN FEEL IT TAKE A HOLD I CAN FEEL YOU TAKE CONTROL

OF WHO I AM AND ALL I’VE EVER KNOWN

LOVING YOU’S THE ANTIDOTE

Golden is the hour, golden is the time. Golden is the summer, washing the luster away in the rain, because nothing gold can stay. Summer isn’t usually this pessimistic, but this is no ordinary summer. It’s my 50th full summer, and I can finally say I don’t really know what I’m doing. Some say that is the first step to learning anything. It’s a tenet of Buddhism, and the art of not knowing anything means you are fully open to learn of the present moment, allowing you to fully inhabit the time at hand with curiosity – ever seeking knowledge, ever open to learning more. Consider summer school in session.

GOLDEN – YOU’RE SO GOLDEN

I DON’T WANNA BE ALONE

YOU’RE SO GOLDEN, YOU’RE SO GOLDEN

I’M OUT OF MY HEAD AND I KNOW THAT YOU’RE SCARED

BECAUSE HEARTS GET BROKEN

Summer is drama.

Summer is histrionics.

Summer is soap operas and Crystal Light and raspberry hard candy.

You have your summer memories, I have mine. Let’s make a new one together to this classic Donna Summer cover of ‘MacArthur Park’; it fits into the Solid Gold Summer theme rather loosely, as Alysa Liu won her gold medal skating to this song. Consider it gold-adjacent via the Winter Olympics. A campy golden reference that is deceptively at odds with how deep this post may go. For now, let’s get lost in the cheesy drama of a pressed pair of striped pants or a cake being left out in the rain…

SPRING WAS NEVER WAITING FOR US ‘TIL

IT RAN ONE STEP AHEAD AS WE FOLLOWED IN THE DANCE

BETWEEN THE PARTED PAGES WE WERE PRESSED,

IN LOVE’S HOT, FEVERED IRON, LIKE A STRIPED PAIR OF PANTS

MACARTHUR’S PARK IS MELTING IN THE DARK

ALL THE SWEET GREEN ICING FLOWING DOWN

SOMEONE LEFT THE CAKE OUT IN THE RAIN

I DON’T THINK THAT I CAN TAKE IT ‘CAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO BAKE IT

AND I’LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAIN

I RECALL THE YELLOW COTTON DRESS

FOAMING LIKE A WAVE ON THE GROUND BENEATH YOUR KNEES

BIRDS LIKE TENDER BABIES IN YOUR HANDS

AND THE OLD MEN PLAYING CHINESE CHECKERS BY THE TREES

There is something both insanely ridiculous and incredibly moving about the words and imagery and music here. When you’re in the throes of heartbreak, when you find yourself suddenly left behind and out of love, you do what you have to do to cope and survive. Sometimes that’s in a cheesy pop song (see ‘Bye Bye Bye’ by N’Sync for how I got over one previous paramour) and sometimes that’s in more probing mind tricks.

MACARTHUR’S PARK IS MELTING IN THE DARK

ALL THE SWEET GREEN ICING FLOWING DOWN

SOMEONE LEFT THE CAKE OUT IN THE RAIN

I DON’T THINK THAT I CAN TAKE IT ‘CAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO BAKE IT

AND I’LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAIN

Can you force yourself to feel or not feel things? I used to think you couldn’t force your way out of either of them, but I don’t know if that’s entirely true. So much of life is in our perception and perspective – change those and you change what you might actually feel. Like grieving or lost love. Is it better to allow ourselves to feel all of it, to embrace the sorrow and hurt and get into it, or does that run the risk of diving deeper and possibly irreparably into an everlasting funk? The past few years I’ve leaned into feeling all of it, even when it sucked, even when it hurt, because I understood that burying it all inside wasn’t helpful or healthy.

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER SONG FOR ME AND I WILL SING IT

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DREAM FOR ME

SOMEONE WILL BRING IT

I WILL DRINK THE WINE WHILE IT IS WARM

AND NEVER LET YOU CATCH ME LOOKING AT THE SUN

AND AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE,

AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE, YOU’LL STILL BE THE ONE

‘Fake it until you make it‘ was how I made it through my college years and early 20’s. Sometimes you have to hang curtains of glistening gold material to hide the scaffolding and machinations behind building the bones and structure of self-worth. I know I can do that – I’ve trained myself to shift my perception and perspective, to coldly and analytically examine my feelings then take them carefully and resolutely apart, rendering them mere sections and segments, bits and parts and pieces of something that once constituted something grander. But do I want to do that anymore? I’m conflicted.

I WILL TAKE MY LIFE INTO MY HANDS AND I WILL USE IT

I WILL WIN THE WORSHIP IN THEIR EYES AND I WILL LOSE IT

I WILL HAVE THE THINGS THAT I DESIRE

AND MY PASSION FLOWS LIKE RIVERS FROM THE SKY

OH AND AFTER ALL THE LOVES OF MY LIFE,

AFTER ALL THE LOVES IN MY LIFE

YOU’LL STILL BE THE ONE AND I’LL ASK MYSELF WHY…

As we embark upon this Solid Gold Summer, it is worth noting that there is nothing solid about summer. There is only irony, hollowness, emptiness – the sheen, the shell, the facade. There is no sure footing here. Every step is perilous and you must watch for slips and falls, cracks and ruin, degradation and destruction like some marble faun sculpture falling to the ground and smashing into pieces. Fake gold, false gods, imitation metal – there is nothing real to this summer. Reality is dead.

Along those lines, there is no such thing as a stable summer either. The atmosphere is too volatile, the conditions too prime for tornadoes and hurricanes – the peaks and valleys too high and too deep for a smooth base of stability or permanence.

There, that’s your first day of summer for you. Hot enough yet?