This is a little Gerbera daisy for anyone who needs a break or a vacation, including myself, because without one soon I’m not going to make my retirement requirement. Such a sentiment crops up every few months, when things get rough and rowdy, and life throws wrenches and hammers and blunt objects, and we’re all just trying to duck and dodge and not get hit in the head. There’s enough trauma in the world – no need to add to it. 

And so I try to lose myself in shades of salmon, in the radial wonder and over-hybridized excess of a flower-head that can’t always support itself. There are days when I understand exactly how such a flower feels. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. 

If this were a trailer, here would be the music for our upcoming spring season – full of dramatic import and a few key scenes of emotional outbursts ripe for their close-ups. Picture our cast of characters in all sorts of pretty peril and tantalizing trauma, begging the viewer to see what twists and turns may come in the next few months. After twenty years of this website, we have reached the point where any season could be the last, and since I’ve not signed any contracts, any day might be the end too. 

When I bother to pause and look back at the overarching trajectory of life as contained in these electronic pages, the same recurring themes of family and friends come to mind – and for someone who was raised on soap operas, the way our lives intertwine and intersect will be forever fascinating. The highlights of this website have traditionally been of trips and adventures with loved ones – all the fun things Andy and I have done over the decades, all the parties and gatherings we’ve hosted and attended, all the moments we’ve celebrated and commemorated – they all fall under the umbrella of shared experiences, and they wouldn’t be half as fun if I’d done them alone. As much as I genuinely enjoy and cherish solitude and alone time, it’s still so much friendlier with two. 

And so, as we kick off the 20^th spring of this website, we put winter to bed for another year. We are reminded that we must lean on each other if we’re going to make it through another season, even one as typically happy and hopeful as spring. We will be back at winter in due time – for now we have rested enough. It’s time to dig in again – to the ground, to the work, to the garden, to the struggle – time to re-enter the world of the living, to re-immerse in the hustle and bustle. Our hibernation is coming to a close, and while I’ve learned to embrace winter and its subtle enchantments, it’s time for spring to have her turn, along with all the wonder and mess and tumult that she brings. 

The calendar reads spring, but the morning weather reads winter. 

It’s a day for the cafe,

for the young,

for the lovers.

A day for this pretty little song on the piano. 

A cup of matcha, swirled with love in a crescent moon.

Georgia – such a state of mind, such a state of spring. 

Peach blossoms, perhaps, for Georgia.

A switch from the cherry blooms that would otherwise occupy the sky. 

Falling like cream into this cup… caught with the care of a kind barista. 

Small acts of love from one human being to another.

On only the second day of spring. 

Most of the time, the first day of spring holds more hope and promise than the last day of spring. By that point, spring has largely been spent, and with it the happy notion of anything that might lie ahead. Today, it’s all possibility, even if the weather still reeks of winter. I’m someone who thrills in the promise and anticipation, enjoying these moments of what might come rather than the actual days when they do come. This is not a very mindful practice, nor is it helpful in inhabiting the moment, so it’s all a work in progress. For now, let me enjoy this day of possibility, while we look back at the last week of winter. 

Ranch ice cream is a thing, and the world is officially over.

Bathed in candlelight. 

Touch me – this is the night!

Chickpea curry in a hurry.

Entering Boston the back way.

Boston spring sneak peek.

A cheeky leprechaun backs this St. Patrick’s Day post. 

The roar of a winter lion.

…as to astonish the world!

In Our Own Voices for 25 years – and a celebration.

A linky look back at winter before we put it to slumber. 

Dazzlers of the Day included Zolita, Melisa Raouf, Kerry Condon, Lynn Beaumont, and Taraji P. Henson. 

The last official day of winter is here at last, which is cause enough for celebration. It’s also a good pause to look back over some of the more notable posts that went up over this past season, and as this marked the 20th anniversary of this website, there were quite a few. 

It began with the same vantage point as this post: the Winter Solstice. Attempts to embrace the arrival of winter were mostly successful. 

The first ring of fire was blue. The second was gold. Both appeared on the Year in Review for 2022, Part one and Part two.

A new calendar year begins just as winter gets underway. 

Bitter Peach by Tom Ford provided an unlikely scent for the snowy season. 

Bringing the twins to Boston required not just one, but two posts. 

Madonna is going on tour again, and of course I have to go. 

Feeling my years now more than ever.

This website first opened in January of 2003, and for the ensuing twenty years a lot has happened. 

The Amsterdam Mall has turned to crap, so getting kicked out of it is more a badge of pride than shame.

A lavender haze by Taylor and Tom. 

Gazing into the aging that a mirror reveals.

At tea time everybody agrees, so let’s put the kettle on and get into it. 

Exploring mindfulness in a dishrag.

The bookends of a family.

Coaxing a mystery orchid back into bloom.

Madonna’s greatest album ever turned 25.

Two decades of ALANILAGAN.com feels like a terribly long time. But it’s still where I get nakedly raw, providing a diary and map of my life, even when I don’t always want to remember everything. 

The cutest godchild ever.

Feeling the Boston love.

What’s your definition of dirty, baby? What do you consider pornography? 

Twenty years after it premiered, this website is as messy and meandering as ever. (And the typical wardrobe of underwear hasn’t changed so much as shifted a couple of waist sizes up.)

And so we end the winter season 22/23. We made it through the wilderness… somehow we made it through… up next is spring, and I’m going to enter it with gratitude and mindfulness, and maybe just a little sparkle. 

“I’m made of cruel passions, my Lord… and when the time is right we’ll so act on them as to astonish the world…” ~ ‘Elizabeth I’ as portrayed by Helen Mirren

This sounds like something Winter would be saying right about now, before she relinquishes her temporal hold on the northern hemisphere. Unwilling to let it go until the last possible moment (and, let’s just acknowledge it, likely beyond that) the weather will be wild in the weeks to come, no matter what our feeble calendar demarcations may indicate. Mother Nature is never held to human bounds – that’s why I love her so.

After our recent humdinger of a snowstorm, the reward came the following day, when the sun came out, the sky turned blue, and all the snow and ice glistened and sparkled like the winter wonderland a certain song promised us all those months ago. 

“I have love and compassion too.” ~ ‘Elizabeth I’ as portrayed by Helen Mirren

March likes to remind us that she is still mostly winter, ready and able to attack with lion-like stealth and determination. Such was the storm scene this week when the season’s first true Nor’easter tore through our state, dumping a foot of snow in a 24-hour period (and a lot more in other less-lucky areas). After juggling my in-office schedule, I was able to work from home for the entire duration of this nasty weather event, and enjoy the whirling maelstrom from the comfy coziness of a warm interior. 

My parents lost power briefly, but for the most part we escaped unscathed. There are whisperings of another storm, and such is to be expected through April. This is the way it goes at such a tumultuous time of the year. March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, then April showers bring May flowers, but the truth is we can have blizzards until mid-May, so I’m not banking on silly childhood rhymes, any more than I trust the weather prediction by a groundhog (even if it seems to be holding true)…