It’s no secret that my favorite people – the ones who impress and inspire me the most – are often artists. They live out a fantasy life that I could only hint at and half-heartedly attempt, and the most talented among them do so because it’s in their heart to do so. My talents rarely coalesced into anything concrete or bankable, and certainly nothing worthy of a career track, so when I see someone like Thomasa Dwyer Nielsen turn her lifestyle into a work of art, it makes my heart feel a little fuller. Thomasa is both artist and teacher, two undervalued and underappreciated roles that still manage to be just as important as any other job, particularly in the eyes of children. Her work as a painter is what first captured my eye, and she was gracious enough to immortalize my own image in this wonderful piece that now takes pride of place in our dining room. Currently, she’s been posting her artwork on social media, turning that cesspool of awfulness into a place of hope and inspiration, lending color and enchantment to a landscape in dire need of both. Today I am happy to name her as Dazzler of the Day for all the beauty she has shared with the world, and all the joy she brings to my life whenever I gaze upon her work.
True, there is less than a month left of the sunny season, but summer will not be done until she is ready to be done. There is more sun to be had, more fun to be had, and certainly more summer to be had. In that spirit, get out there and enjoy it, and I’ll do the same. Happy Friday!
Out of more than 107,900 tweets, I’ve only left out a word in one of them, so of course that was the one that Luke Skywalker himself noticed and replied to. Begging for a birthday tweet from Cher, I added a sarcastic quip about Mark Hamill, who I hoped would be as cool as he appears to be on Twitter, and indeed he was. Hamill has been a hero to me ever since going sleeveless in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and awakening an entire generation of gay boys to their true calling. In recent years, I’ve hung on his every tweet, as his account makes wry political commentary as much as it provides entertaining and uplifting ideas.
Behind it all, the man himself seemed especially good-natured and noble, and if anyone has gained the insight and wisdom to be at such peace, it’s the guy who has portrayed one of pop culture’s most enduring and endearing heroes. While the whole world knows him as Skywalker, the keen and coolest among us know that Hamill has steadily worked and created other indelible characters, much of them through some amazing voice work. In the most recent Star Wars movies, he has been introduced to a new generation of fans, and rekindled the love of all of us who first fell all those many decades ago. Today it is my honor and privilege to give him the small gift I have to give, and name him as the Dazzler of the Day. Check out his Twitter feed here for more majestic evidence of his brilliance.
The day began all hot and humid. Cloud cover was predicted, but August 24th usually offers some sunny breaks, and on this day the clouds were gorgeously ornamental, no more. Clouds can be beautiful at any time, but the ones in late August, backed by an almost-autumn sky, are especially pretty. I begin the morning by taking a walk about the yard, taking in the rain-soaked earth from the night before. Dewy drops still cling to the leaves and flowers, capturing light and blooming all over again.
A song, all pomp and circumstance with darker undertones, plays in the brain, the way certain songs signal an eventful day, or just a day that should have some sort of deeper meaning, even if it doesn’t, even if you don’t. It’s a song for an entrance, or a promenade. It’s a song for a day that could go a multitude of ways.
Rather than indulge in the might and majesty that certain birthdays require, I decide to keep this day quiet and small, wishing to hold it in the palm of my hand. It starts with a breakfast of shortbread cookies, made by my friend Marline. Every birthday should start with sugar and butter and deliciousness.
Andy offers to make an omelet for lunch – a caprese omelet with fresh tomatoes from the garden, fresh basil, and a creamy hunk of mozzarella cheese. It is summer and birthday love on a plate, and I eat it out on the backyard patio.
By early afternoon, the day has grown even hotter, and somehow more humid, even though it felt like all the water had been wrung from the sky last night. I wade slowly into the pool as the sun beat down, indulging in the gentle joy of water against skin, and taking in the quiet around me. Only the low drone of summer insects breaks the silence, along with the occasional splash of a foot or hand disturbing the surface.
After drying off, I sit in the living room and light the end of a stick of Palo Santo incense, then begin my daily meditation. It is a moment of respite, in the cool shade of our home, while Andy showers and prepares for dinner.
We drive into Lenox, Massachusetts for some shopping, followed by a dinner at the Red Lion Inn. My choice – simple and unassuming – tucked away in the Berkshires and away from the madness that the end of summer sometimes brings. An unremarkable birthday, made remarkable because of that. What a grand new lesson to learn at the start of my 47th year on earth. When the pressure is off, when it’s just me and my husband, and when there is no fanfare or hype, the essence of pleasure opens up completely.
A lesson learned upon one’s birthday is a lesson learned forever more.
Some music is too moody to be heard during the day. It goes too deep with its words, or turns too sinisterly in its bassline. This is one of those songs, appropriately entitled ‘The Night’, and perfectly suited for a spell of nightswimming. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get into the pool at least once a day. Not every summer has been as lovely and warm as this one, and I don’t want regrets haunting me in the winter to come.
There is no swimming on a winter’s night.
Summer tells a different tale, allowing for outside loveliness beyond the midnight hour. Summer carries Korean lilacs on its breeze, just as it begins. Summer dapples moonlight on little crests of water – in the pools, the streams, the ponds and lakes, and especially the sea. Summer intoxicates in a way nothing ever could or would.
Summer keeps its secrets in the night, insidiously burying them during the bright sunlight of day. Like slugs and bats, they come back out when the cloak of darkness has safely pulled itself around the edges of the evening, feeding on the good and the bad. Summer is selective sometimes, teasing with clouds and wet air, delivering with lightning and stormy destruction.
Floating in this water, bathed in this light while the night encroaches with deliberate obliteration, I am suspended in a way that feels like what I imagine flying might feel like. There is a weightlessness to swimming that I’ve always loved, a relief and obfuscation from the pull of gravity. An escape from the physical laws of earth is not a typical flight most of us get to take, but swimming allows everyone to experience a few moments of freedom. Indulging in that, I move to the deepest part of the pool and gently paddle, just enough to stay afloat.
A birthday tucked into the tail-end of August, in the last full month of summer, floats by and disappears into the night. No nightingale sings ‘Happy Birthday’, and I wouldn’t understand the nightingale’s song anyway. Another piece of moody music to close the night.
“Such men believe in luck, they watch for signs, and they conduct private rituals that structure their despair and mark their waiting. They are relatively easy to recognize but hard to know, especially during the years when a man is most dangerous to himself, which begins at about age thirty-five, when he starts to tally his losses as well as his wins, and ends at about fifty, when, if he has not destroyed himself, he has learned that the force of time is better caught softly, and in small pieces. Between those points, however, he’d better watch out, better guard against the dangerous journey that beckons to him -the siege, the quest, the grandiosity, the dream.” ~ Colin Harrison
Today I turn 47 years old, and, according to the magnificent writer whose work I just quoted, I have about three more years of danger in which I will do my best not to destroy myself. That’s not always easy, especially when there are decades of self-destructive tendencies in the not-so-recent past. Perhaps that’s why, aside from the gift-getting aspect, I’ve always been rather ambivalent when it comes to birthdays, and why I’d rather celebrate myself 364 days of the year instead of just this one. There, in a 47-year-old nutsack, is the conundrum of my essence. The life that is still within me to be spread, or the life that will unfurl whether I spread or not. These words are as deadly as they are laughable, and that’s another thing about birthdays that has always bothered me – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Marking time has too often been my modus operandi – imparting meaning and impetus to every moment, lending shading and nuance to the ticking of the clock, and then believing that certain hours, certain days, and certain phases of heavenly bodies have any such bearing on how we live our lives. It’s a way of putting method to our madness, of trying to organize and make sense of a world that isn’t designed to make sense. Where is God in a world like this? How would God let all of this happen? Another reason I’ve not wholly embraced the birthday thing: too many philosophical questions come up when we confront another year of our lives, whether ahead or behind us, and it’s always one or both of the two.
The physical vessel in which I navigate the next half of my life has begun to show its wear, the corporeal pressing its early and physical triumph over the ethereal. That’s the race we’re all in, whether we want to compete or not – the battle of the body versus the spirit – and there comes a point when it’s no longer plausible to pick both sides. Someday, and no one knows what day it will be, the body will demand your undivided attention, and with it will go the mind. Whether any spirit survives beyond that point is the eternal question, and one which most of us cling stubbornly to in the mere hope of… well, hope.
And so it is that on this day, the day I turn irrevocably into a 47-year-old man, I ponder again what it all means, what little I have learned, what loads I have lost or let down, what love I have given and earned, and what might happen in the year to come. I ponder the shell that surrounds me, and all of the hollow and full places within. I sit in stillness, in silence, and try to feel the gratitude I should feel for everything – for everyone that is still in my life, for escaping from so many things that might have destroyed me had they hit on just a slightly different day, in the slightest different way. There is much for which to be grateful, and being here, being present, is but the beginning.
“There was something vulnerable and temporary about the moment, and I was attentive to it, for a man, let us agree, is a kind of shelled animal. There is the hardened surface he presents to the world, the face and the words and the behavior, but very often these do not correlate very well with the being inside the shell. By hardened I mean coherent, deflective of attack, and capable of being recognized by others; I don’t mean unchangeable – quite the opposite, in fact. But the shell is always there, growing outward from within, flaking and breaking away, and the quivering wet stuff inside remains largely hidden. Appearances are not deceiving so much as incomplete. What you see is what you get, but what you don’t see is also what you get.” ~ Colin Harrison
This is the last day that I will be 46 years old, and it’s time that I fess up to something: my birthday has always been filled with mixed emotions, and as much as I have tried to celebrate and hype it up, it’s consistently been tinged with a bit of melancholy. I know I’m not alone, and it’s far from a rare feeling; many other people disdain their day of birth, either not seeing what the big deal is, or wanting to rush through it without acknowledgment. For decades I fought against that – doing my best to honor and make that one day extra-special. Without it, we wouldn’t be here, and that’s deserving of notice.
For all the fuss and bravado about it, for all the birthday registries and vainglorious demands and day-long self-glorification, I never quite felt it. It often fell flat. All lead-up, all let-down. How could the one day of the year possibly live up to its hype? What do we really expect to happen?
This year, I’m keeping expectations low, and finding joy in whatever little things the day may bring. I’m hoping to have a quiet one with Andy, with perhaps a jaunt to the Berkshires for dinner, and then a family gathering a little later on. To lift spirits, I’m putting on this song, which is as much a reminder to be kind to others as it is to be kind to ourselves. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I need to work on that more.
Despite its exquisite beauty and elegant grace, the appearance of the Japanese anemone blooms is always a sad sign that the end of summer is near. These blooms show up just as the garden is winding down for the season finale. While the cup plants are still going strong, their branches have been bent and twisted from storms and rain. Most of the ferns have turned the corner to their desiccation and browning. The hydrangeas are still making a fine show of it, as is our lone Rose of Sharon plant. Mostly, though, the garden has begun its preparations for the long slumber ahead.
These Japanese anemones lend a last bit of freshness to the garden at a time when it’s badly needed. It gives a little extra jolt of inspiration and energy for all the tasks about to come into play – planting bulbs, protecting plants for winter, and the general upkeep that fills the last few weeks of summer.
The keen and talented eye behind Snooty Fox Images, Leo Holden has been featured here previously, and now he earns his first Dazzler of the Day thanks to his way of capturing beauty. Crisp, evocative, and brilliantly adept at playing with shadow and light, Holden manages to exemplify the greatest features of his subjects, while illuminating and highlighting aspects that others may have overlooked. Check out his amazing body of work at the Snooty Fox Images website here.
When your birthday falls on a Wednesday, and it’s your 47th, it doesn’t really feel all that special, so I’m preparing for a bit of a wash this week. A blah birthday for a blah pandemic year. Thankfully, this summer has proven to be anything but blah, and I’ve just returned from a wonderful weekend in Boston with my friend Kira. Much more on that adventure to come – for now, feast your eyes on the links below, and the week that came before…
Madonna shares my birthday month, but she’s a Leo and I’m a Virgo. We are the worst of sun signs, in my personal opinion, but we do leave an indelible impression.
Beneath the coral bark maple described here earlier this morning, this patch of lady ferns unfurls its delicate splendor. It’s sending up another batch of new fronds – a second showing to see us through the end of the season, and I’m grateful for such renewed vigor and energy. It’s also lovely to have a fresh supply of green at a time when the gardens have started going brown. The drought-like state we’ve been in (great pool weather, a tad more trying for the garden inhabitants) has been fine when one has time and resources to keep everything well-watered, but we’ve been lacking both lately.
Still, I’ve managed to keep this little grouping of ferns supplied with enough moisture to maintain their lush growth. A lesson in gardening indoors and out: grouping plants together makes for easier watering, more humidity, and less evaporation. There’s a lesson for humanity in there too, and it’s one that I need to heed more often.
A Sunday afternoon in the garden is a blessing. A daily walkabout the yard is good for the soul. Even when the weather turns sour, it’s vital to get outside, if only for a few moments. In winter, that will prove mostly impossible, and so I indulge in this moment with focused intent and presence.
Summer flowers get all the glory when the sun is bright and blasting down upon the earth, but it’s the quiet backdrop of greenery, such as that afforded by this coral bark maple tree, which creates the real tranquility and calm of the sunny season. Conjuring mottled areas of shade and dappled sunlight, this maple stands at one end of the house, softening its corner with its light green leaves and red-hued bark.
When I pass this tree, I always pause beneath its canopy for a moment, stilling the day and deliberately being present. A stand of lady ferns nods gracefully under its boughs, next to a clump of maidenhair ferns. It is a shaded nook of peace, and a reminder to be mindful no matter what mad rush swirls around us at any given time.
Those moments are vital as we careen all too quickly toward the final month of summer. The days are moving swiftly now, carrying the momentum of sun and fun that once felt so happily endless at the start of the season. Summer ripens in front of us, but we don’t seem to pause enough to notice it happening. By the time we see that the blush is off the rose, it’s practically fall.
There are roses to be found then too, and sometimes they are richer than anything which came up in June. The way to delight is to be open and welcoming and ready to accept whatever beauty might surprise us.
Underneath the leaves of the maple, I take in the summer day at hand.
Kira and I are due to be in Boston this weekend, with a planned jaunt to the Encore Boston Harbor for some slot machine madness and a dinner at Red 8. We have no business being in a casino, since neither of us has a clue as to how to gamble or play any of the games, but it will doubtless be another adventure where we at least have fun in our ignorant state of bliss together. It’s what we do, and it’s what we’ve done for the past twenty-four years.
Whether it’s donning ridiculous headgear for a winter walkabout, or ducking along shaded corridors in a stifling heatwave, we manage to peruse Boston and have a wonderful time doing so, mainly because of the company we have kept. Today we’re off on a new adventure, another chapter to add to our book of Boston bacchanalia.
My newest nephew Jaxon Layne was in attendance at our last two family dinners, so we decided to do a little photo shoot to capture everyone before they grew up. Cajoling the twins into posing for any picture at the testy age of twelve is always a crap shoot, but they were game for these. (Uncle Al can be very persuasive.) I won’t burden this post with any more of my superfluous words – the pictures speak for themselves.
