It may be the coldest week of the year (and the universe doesn’t have to keep breaking the record to prove me wrong) but inside the windows of our cozy home, there were the first signs of the spring to come, and the longer days already moving in the right direction. These are photos of our ZZ plant and a fern – both of which are sending out new shoots to indicate that their growing season is back in effect. 

While the real thing is still a long way off, we are well over a month into winter, meaning we’ve already finished a third of it up. ‘Well begun is half done,’ or some such nonsense, and when you’re in the midst of winter, you’ll hang onto the lamest catchphrases if they give the slightest bit of hope, even if you have no idea how to use them correctly. 

Another frigid work-week began this morning, but I switched things up and had a moment of calm and peace before posting this recap. It’s a trick to ease more gently into the weekday drudge. But now we can’t postpone a moment longer, so let’s get to the weekly recap.

It began with a celebration for Mom’s birthday, to the extent that anyone celebrates anything these days. 

Karel Barnoski came out with a new song and video, ‘November Moon’, that was simply exquisite.

To keep you warm: some cozy reading.

Meditative alignment. 

This website is now nineteen years old. Holy shit. 

The saddest thing about therapy is this…

A shitty start to the day, courtesy of Mercury in retrograde.

Some of us are fragile blooms.

A day of hygge with Dad.

Monday morning matcha to ease into the work-week.

Dazzlers of the Day included Karel Barnoski, Summer Shapiro, Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, and Tom Holland.

Reigning on the porcelain throne and taking an early morning dump (which is not my usual gig, though it happens now and then to begin the day) I was lost in blissful non-thought when all of a sudden what sounded like an explosion and a shattering smash of glass sounded right behind me. It wasn’t coming from my butt so I knew it wasn’t me, but it took me several seconds to register what the hell had happened – so loud and startling was it. 

I turned around and saw the shards of the candle that had fallen. It was one of those two-wick glass jar candles – heavy and thick and now shattered on the tile floor around the toilet (and decidedly not the cute little votive now pictured there). I shrugged, finished my business (once my heart settled down and I could concentrate on the business at hand, err, ass) and then realized that Mercury was in retrograde and this shit was going to be the norm for the next few weeks. 

May God protect us all. 

{This post has been brought to you mostly for those people who don’t think I have bowel movements. They’re usually the same ones who think I don’t drive, and live with a sugar daddy. It’s also here to shatter any remaining of vestiges of perfectionism to which I may unconsciously be clinging. Although Rabelais may argue that there is something perfect about taking a crap… Anyway, to those who have a hard time envisioning me defecating, I say scat.}

In all my years of dabbling in therapy, and I’ve dabbled on and off since high school, I think the saddest thing is this little fake potted plant in the waiting room of my current therapist’s office. 

All joking aside, therapy has been a Godsend for the past two years, when adulting and grown-up concerns have made life difficult to manage. I wish I’d seen the light sooner, but I just wasn’t ready, and as much as I think absolutely everyone could benefit from a few good therapy sessions, I realize not everyone is of a similar mindset. For myself, I went through a number of periods when I would feel the vague need for a therapist, but derail the process by trying to find the perfectly attuned person who instantly ‘got’ me and understood what I needed/wanted without me having to say a word. Basically, the antithesis of therapy. I didn’t see the error of that for many years. 

From my very first therapy session in high school, when I sat across from a male therapist and interrogated him about his earring, wondering how the fuck some middle-aged guy with an earring could possibly be qualified to help me run my life, I was a challenging disciple. Part of me knew that therapy would be a great help, but my perfectionist tendencies were in full effect for most of my life, during which I would occasionally attempt another round with a new therapist, all of whom failed to help me make any breakthroughs, and all of which was because I simply wasn’t ready to properly engage in the process. 

What I didn’t see until two years ago was that it wasn’t the perfect therapist I needed, it was the will and desire and drive to take the therapy and work through it. I had to be honest with myself about what work needed to be done, and then honest with a stranger who was there to facilitate that work and help me see things in a new way. When I reached that place of openness and humility, as much out of desperation as out of genuine maturity, it didn’t matter that my therapist didn’t appear as the perfect person to solve my problems – and that wasn’t the point of therapy anyway. It worked because I was finally ready to work. In the ensuing two years, I felt good about my therapy sessions, and the way they improved my life. 

So if you’re struggling with the idea of talking to someone, I totally understand. And I would suggest not giving up, just expanding your mind and opening up to the idea of trying to work through the process. If I’d understood that earlier, or just planted the seed of such a possibility, I could have saved myself years of difficulty. 

As for now, my therapy takes place about once every two months, and it’s become more of a chance to re-align and examine how the process has progressed, discover what more I may need to work on, and check in on how far I’ve come. All good things.

This month marks the start of the 19th year of ALANILAGAN.com.

Yes, I’ve had this little corner of the internet since 2003, when all it held was a small repository of written and photographic work, and some vague nonsensical ramblings of a 27-year-old. Other than my age (eek!) and body (double eek!) not much has changed all that drastically. I won’t be making a big deal about turning 19 – we’ll save this sort of hype and hoopla for next year’s 20th birthday – still not sure how much longer I’ll be going beyond that, though I can’t imagine not communicating to the general ‘you’ – even if social media has largely afforded everyone such an outlet. At any rate, 25 seems a nicer number than 20, so I will likely try to hang on until then, and goals are appreciated here.

Besides, this is a safe haven for me, and such places are becoming more and more scarce. In the madness that this world has become, in the mess that is social media, a site like this offers a respite and reprieve from all that awfulness, where no one is judged (well, maybe a little, but it’s mostly me) and where all are welcome and embraced. I want it to be feel like that for you too, and for anyone who deigns to visit. Hospitality comes in many forms, and hospitality is a show of grace. 

With that, I deliver the same open invitation to join me for another year of ALANILAGAN.com, whatever it may bring. 

‘The Book of Hygge’ by Louisa Thomsen Brits is a lovely little book if you’re looking for an introduction to the concept of hygge, which I’ve been exploring for a while now. It’s essential for giving winter an aspect of enjoyment, something I never quite found before, and once I did it made a miraculous difference. Hygge has a lot of mindfulness to it, more confirmation that this is the right moment for making a time and place for it. 

Lighting a candle, making a cup of tea, snuggling into a cozy blanket, and popping open a book are easy ways to decompress from a difficult day, or begin the morning in a gentle way. Life was once about crafting glamorous and sparkling events, when it perhaps should have been about finding the glamour and sparkle among the daily motions we go through. Those magic event moments were few and far between, but a candle and a spot of tea can be conjured every single day. Isn’t it better to enjoy things on a daily basis rather than once in a great while?

Observance writes the texts of our lives, creating stories to be shared in other hyggelige situations when we conjure the moment again. Traditions and rituals vary from one household and one culture to the next, but the desire to celebrate life unites us all. Through our thirst for connection, our future is created one gathering, one encounter, one moment at a time. Hygge rekindles our awareness of the importance and pleasure of mutuality and celebrates our interconnectedness. It keeps us engaged with the lifelong task of living in intimate and loving relation to the world around us. We pass on the spirit of hygge through the quality of our presence. Ideas and values travel. Through hygge, each one of us can know a sense of deeper contentment that will radiate out from us into a global web of belonging togetherness. – Louisa Thomsen Brits