Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Not gonna lie: this week has worn me down and worn me out. 

I’m exhausted and drained from the inexhaustible disappointment of humanity. 

I’m tired of shouting righteous outrage on social media. 

I’m sick of watching the news, almost as sick as I am of what’s happening on the news. 

I’m just spent – empty, hollow, deflated – and I’m not sure what kind of self-care will change or alter that. 

I spent the past few days watching the news, which is never a great idea, but it felt important. This is not normal, this is not ok, and the people who pretend it is, or that there are two sides to this, are just as culpable. 

What’s worse, and what scares me just the slightest bit, is that I’m starting to not care. Maybe that shouldn’t frighten me so. Maybe that’s survival. I know it’s a coping mechanism because I’ve reached points of exasperation with the state of the world this past week when I had to shrug off the news, retreat into my daily meditation, and gain the fifteen to twenty minutes after the session for a window of peace and calm. That helps. Meditation always helps. But it’s not enough to inspire me. 

I don’t even feel much like writing here. 

Today I just need to eat a few cookies and limit time online. 

We shall see…

(Here’s the circuitous route to the recipe.)

Hey MAGA Member –You aren’t fighting for freedom – you’re part of an insurrection against the United States of America. You’re not fighting for #BlueLivesMatter – you just fought and terrorized police officers to breach the Capitol. You’re not an Antifa member disguised as a Trump supporter – you ARE a Trump supporter, waving your confederate flags and Trump flags, defiling and desecrating our American institutions. And we see you.

We see you breaking and entering a federal building. We see you stealing Nancy Pelosi’s mail and sitting in her office. We see you punching police officers and chasing unarmed guards around the halls. We see you rummaging through the desks of elected officials. We see your attempted coup and we will note it for posterity.

At first I was disheartened and saddened by what was unfolding today, but as I watched in such horror, my husband gently reminded me that your small band of terrorists will not topple America so easily. There are so many more of us – the vast majority of Americans – who will not stand for such an atrocity. We watched aghast as you paraded your faces and images across videos and television and social media – and we watched you pose for selfies amid your destruction. And it will not stand. We have seen you. You have pushed yourselves into the light, and we have seen you. You have tried to destroy our country, and we have seen you. The whole world has seen you. And we will remember.

America is better than this. 

And America will not stand for it. 

The floating world exists even in the snowy days of winter. 

Sometimes it feels closer then, with ice dancing down from the sky. 

On wooden blocks, paper umbrellas sealed with wax echo the pitter-patter of snowflakes. 

This floating world rustles winter snow drifts with the silk sleeves of kimono – an almost-imperceptible sound gleaned only under the hushed quiet of a snowfall. 

Winter solitude—
In a world of one color
The sound of wind. 

~ Basho

The morning after a snowfall is a thing of beauty and wonder, restoring the grace of the world from the blackest of nights. Most of us consider winter days to be the darkest of them all, but when there is snow, coupled with sunlight, there is a brightness unparalleled by summer, no matter how low the sun may hang in the sky right now. It’s the secret recompense of winter, the sweet spot of light and ice crystals, and clouds as fluffy as cotton candy. 

Let’s just take a moment to enjoy the beauty, to take in the wonder, to pause and gauge the grace. 

When the weather turns dreary, and darkness comes early, our basement provides a warm little retreat and respite from winter winds and snow-filled skies. A little gas fireplace provides heat and coziness, while a mid-century sectional has a couple of corner nooks that spill over with heavy blankets and fluffy pillows. There is a chaise lounge beneath a wall sconce that is ideal for reading, and I will sit there for hours with a book, no music or television to bother or make noise, no computer or phone to draw distraction, and no cares for the winter that rages just above and outside. 

There is a small silver tinsel tree that has a silver bowl of fairy lights beside it that I will keep lit for the remainder of the month. It was our only Christmas tree this year, and our only holiday decorations really, so I’ll extend its stay and enjoy the light. We need all the help we can get when winter has just begun, and the days have only started to elongate. By February, I will remove the tree to the storage area, and think more seriously about spring. For now, let there be this light. 

“You see there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was one known as humanity. Indeed, that’s what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant.. oh fuck it.” – The Grand Budapest Hotel

It was the week that saw the blessed end of 2020 and the quiet beginning of 2021. We are all taking things carefully and gently, a bit more-so than last year based on all the things we’ve learned and all the places the wise ones among us didn’t go. This first recap of the year crosses that calendar threshold, and in it is contained a multitude of recaps and memories, like some Russian nesting doll. Let’s get into this new year by letting the old one go.

A winter poem beneath the icicles.

Mask up. This is far from over. 

A New Year’s resolution. The only one I will make.

The bouquet of winter.

Let’s get naked & ridiculous!

The wretched awfulness of 2020: Part the First.

The awful wretchedness of 2020: Part the Second.

The frosty start to 2021 came with subtle beauty and quiet calm. 

Sparse space and spare style, fit for the new year.

A rose-tinted winter.

Making pepper nuts from a box. 

Shirtless glamour break, wreathed in tinsel.

A rose frag for a winter’s day.

Hunks of the Day included Spencer Treat Clark, Avan Jogia, Brandon Kyle Goodman, and Mark. S King.

After gingerly tip-toeing into the year with careful steps so as not to offend or upset it (goodness what a lesson we learned when entering with pomp and bombast!) I think we need a little levity, a little dance break, a little moment to remind anyone who comes here for an escape that there is still room for ridiculousness in this world. To that end, let’s get away, and save our troubles for another day. Not quite an actual escapade as there’s nowhere to go… but up… so get down!

There’s something very noble and refined about the person who runs about in a tattered fur coat and worn-out satin slippers, blithely and bravely unaware of their spent nature, the one who dances in the face of misery and neglect. The days of freshness long past, the blush brushed from the rose, and even the will to get up again largely gone, there is still something defiant and touching about those who hold onto glamour in whatever measly, piffling form we can find. Faded echoes of the past parading like Miss Havisham or Little Edie, we desperately cling to our hopes and dreams in the face of harsh, unrelenting reality. It’s not just that some of us keep playing while the ship is going down, it’s that we dare to do it in style, with some pizzazz, even when it doesn’t matter anymore, even when we know we’re doomed.

Where would we be without an audience, even an audience of one? Would we bother when no one else is around? Personally, I’ve always put on my best shows to an absent audience. Writing this blog, as I’ve done almost every day like a diary for the past seventeen years, is largely a lonesome activity, void of human interaction and reaction. Its ramifications and effects reach me, if they ever end up reaching me, in distant form, worn down by delay or fractured by technologically-glitched transmittal. The result is a buffered, hazy idea of you – yes, I’m speaking directly to you – and who you are. Not by name or identification, but the truest and most honest essence of who you truly are. When the lights are out and no one is around, when your thoughts and your inner-dialogue mesh into one defined recognition of the self you know to be true, no matter how dark or different or destructive it might be.

 Who …

Are …

You?

Only the bravest and most heroic would dare to attempt an answer to such a question, and maybe it’s simpler to do that with an audience, with a mirror to gauge whether what we are doing is resulting in a laugh or a shrug or an angry huff. Maybe that’s why it’s easier to see ourselves in others, especially our faults and failings. There’s too much risk in rocking what we consider our baseline of stability. For those who dare, however, there’s a freedom unmatched by any other sort of freedom – an exhilaration unparalleled by fantasy or faux-fabulousness. It is the freedom of being who you are no matter what, and staying true to that even as the world changes and drifts without you being a part of it. It’s the freedom of being that unafraid to be alone, to take what you need to survive, the very bare minimum, and putting it on your back like a worn-out coat or a faded bonnet, and having that be enough. It’s having only your own brilliance to sustain you, and having that see you through without worry or care.

When you discover that light within, you suddenly don’t need all the fancy trappings and trimmings. You don’t need to stand there like a Christmas tree as the party revolves around you. You don’t need accolades or applause or an audience at all. It’s a glorious sort of freedom – it lets you do and say all sorts of wonderful things – and it’s the sort of freedom that exists in love, in that strange way that love becomes more than a particular and specific sort of passion or desire, transforming into something more omnipotently benevolent. It’s the moment you become aware and accepting of the love of humanity, a love that is shared by all, no matter how different we might be.

So do your dance!

Don your tinsel!

String your fairy lights! 

Strike up the one-person-band that is you, and only you, and begin the parade. If you’re in it, it can never pass you by.

A new year signals a new start, as well as a clean slate. To make motions in keeping that idea alive throughout the coming months, I’m working on paring down the extra and the excess from our home, as well as from this site. Things have been getting too cluttered and constricted, and I want to breathe space and light into this winter, setting the stage for a return to spring. The days are already getting longer, and while summer is still a long way off, it’s nice to hold it in our hearts as we hunker down for the snowy days and nights that are ahead.

Such editing is where the good stuff is produced. I never used to believe in that until I started re-reading some of these posts. It’s easy to drone on and write hundreds of words, all without really saying anything. Sometimes I think the bulk of this site is fluff and nonsense, whimsical filler to pass the time with some minor artistic merit thrown in every once in a great while. There’s something to be said for frivolity and fluff when done in the right manner and at the right time. There’s something more to be said for an economy of words and expression, when a feeling or insight is delivered without fanfare or flash, and the sparse eloquence results in a more focused and intense experience.

Poetry is like that – the grand sweep and sentiment of entire novels encapsulated in a meticulously assembled shortage of words and spaces. As such, poetry has dazzled and confounded me – a genre I can only fully appreciate with the guidance and expertise of a teacher, and something at which I have largely failed in producing myself. It’s deceptively difficult to do well. It’s not a pop song, it’s not necessarily a rhyme, and it can veer so easily into something trite and silly that I’ve refused to take such a dare.

But I appreciate the form, and will strive to translate that to this website in ways that open up the space, expanding its reach and creating the moments of stillness and quiet that allow words to fully unfurl. It’s a bit of an experiment, and mistakes will be made. That’s the beauty of a blog, and in this now-ancient mode of sharing and expression, I shall endeavor to impart a little of this evolution in style.

There will be time for fanfare later. For now, let’s welcome the new year in stillness and reverence. In the quiet patter of squirrels’ paws on snow. In the pings of ice falling from the bowed flower heads of dried hydrangeas. In the rustling of bare stalks of fountain grass and cup plants, separated from their summer and looking forlornly lonely against a bare sky. Let’s enter this new year with peace and calm, in the way that most of us need a new beginning.

It often happens this way – the bombast and build-up to the end of the year holidays, filled with excitement and hype and mayhem – suddenly followed by the crushing silence and quiet of the break of a new calendar year. I find comfort in the quietude, as novel and disconcerting as it seems to be to many. People would generally be happier if we could learn to live and exist in these pockets of silence, instead of reaching for a phone or something to occupy the mind or the body. Why isn’t it enough to simply sit still and be alone with yourself? In that respect I’ve always been lucky. Being alone and sitting in a quiet space has never been a problem for me. In fact, it’s often my preferred mode of being.

Not to say that I don’t enjoy your company – oh you know I do. But I fear we are losing the ability to be in a place of comfort without a constant source of stimulation or distraction, and so many problems and issues arise when boredom breeds discontent. As a kid, every once in a while, on rainy days mostly, I would wail, ‘I’m so BOOOOOOORED,’ to my mother as she sat at the kitchen table studying or making dinner. I thrashed about and writhed on the floor to no notice or concern, and then it was out of my system. 

I don’t think I’ve been bored a day since. Well, I’m sure I have been, but there’s something very powerful and true to the adage that only boring people get bored. When you can remember and imagine and dream and think, world upon world opens up to you – and if you can read, well, you can go just about anywhere and do just about anything. How one can be bored in a world where we will only ever be able to read but a small fraction of all the books that have been written is beyond my understanding. How could one ever be bored or feel that they’ve done it all with everything the human mind can conjure? A failure of imagination is a dismal failure indeed.

And so we open the brand new year with the space and the silence of a day kept in quiet. Even the space of a few minutes held in relative silence can expand into a portal that gives peace and calm to any hectic activity that might surround you. I’m a little more expansive about it, indulging in about half an hour of mediation each day, and taking the time to stretch and take a few deep breaths throughout the day, even when working in the comfort and peace of home.

A new year is the perfect time to clear the head, to make more head-space for nothing, to pause the constant barrage of information and technology and simply exist. In the moment. In the breath. In the life that we can still hold precious. And maybe we can begin again.

By summer, we were developing a new way of life, isolating amid the pandemic, managing with outside visits, and I wish we’d known what a luxury that was. The hindsight of a full year is seldom a solace, though we will attempt to make the most of it, learning the lessons we needed to learn, adjusting and modifying and evolving for a new world. As we close out this calendar year on the blog, I wish you and your family peace and health and happiness. 

July 2020 – The height of summer found the best pool weather we’ve ever had – day after day of sun and heat, perfectly consistent and unending – as was the continued closure of our pool. We could only find respite in the shaded parts of the garden. 

Patriotic posing.

A summer Sunday of self-care.

Red-hot American recap.

The saddest photos of the summer. 

A shirtless, and waterless, recap. 

It was a summer of anti-racist reckoning, and the work continues. 

Recapping with summer wings.

Andy and I celebrated our 20th anniversary of being together.

A look back at two decades of companionship and love. 

Taylor Swift provided the fittingly low-key soundtrack to the heat of summer. 

Another sad loss in 2020 – our friend Eric. 

A recap in high summer. 

August 2020 – Continuing the stretch of sunny weather at odds with emotions and the state of the world, August brought forth somber beauty and quiet mornings. 

It also brought our pool back from the brink!

Even Madonna makes mistakes.

Summer smelled good.

At last, a poolside recap.

Summer setbacks.

Turning 45 years old in fine and fabulous fashion. 

A turn in the birthday suit.

Popping some cherries. 

September 2020 – On the first day of the month, this recap signaled for me to pause. 

An evening meditation.

My amazing father turned 90 years old. 

Wearing summer out. 

Before the summer ends.

And just like that, fall arrived in fanfare and glory. 

A song named Betty.

A rabbit’s hole of recaps, all of which are worth exploring.

October 2020 – The spooky season was at hand. 

A rocky recap filled with fuckery.

On the day we celebrate a cultural genocide.

Maintaining mindfulness amid the madness of 2020.

An autumnal recap alight. 

Andy’s birthday visitor.

Wrinkled low-hangers and sexual reconciliations informed this recap. 

My first full-year of not drinking alcohol.

November 2020 – It began with a finale.

The world turned upside down and this recap did little to fix it. 

Trump lost the Presidential election more than any other loser in history. 

Finding a way to forgiveness.

Before the holiday mayhem ensues, a look back.

A proper Thanksgiving scandal.

That for which I am the most thankful. 

Boston, 25 years later.

A recap of gratitude.

December 2020 – And so we reach the end of another year that could not end soon enough. Glimmers of light and hope flickered through the darkness. 

Beneath a mystical moon for a few minutes. 

A Christmas river.

A recap hued in silver. 

This year’s holiday card, with special guest appearances by Mom and Dad.

As with much of the year, the Holiday Stroll in Boston was canceled. Or was it…?

Taylor Swift, take two.

Tay Tay sang and I recapped.

A high school holiday memory fueled by Bette Midler.

Champagne sparkle.

Bending time and space, we managed to make The Holiday Stroll 2020 happen after all.

Festive recapping.

Thus ends the year, just in the nick of time. Not going to say it can’t get worse because we all know it can. But I hold hope for something better… Happy New Year to you and yours! Let’s meet back here tomorrow for a fresh start.