Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

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. 

If you look quickly and not too closely, it almost looks like the pool is still open, with this new blue cover that Andy selected. Sadly, that is not the case, though yesterday would have actually made for a decent pool day. Instead, the pool is closed until next spring… on with the recap of the previous week, complete with extra hour and all!

It began with this cheeky spin on my new favorite song ‘Made You Look’ by Meghan Trainor. (Warning for the prudish – there is a return to gratuitous nudity in this one. Click accordingly.)

A moonlit November entry.

This should be your new Thanksgiving dessert if you like pumpkin but are tired of pumpkin pie.

Season of the slurp.

Violet revitalized.

The magical light of autumn.

The room for meditation.

From maroon to scarlet.

Friday night lights in the attic.

Summering echoes.

Flightless song lost in mid-air memories.

Crinkled figures.

Cozy November night.

Dazzlers of the Day included Dylan Mulvaney, Jonathon Soroff, Harvey Guillén, and Paul Richmond.