Mercury in retrograde is nothing if not consistent in its madness. Yesterday, in addition to all the other stresses going on right now, I completely forgot about my scheduled therapy session. My poor therapist texted me asking if I was all right. It was the second time in as many months that I’ve forgotten about our appointment.
Such is the state when Mercury is in retrograde. Hold on to your hats and say a little prayer.
As if on cue for an added dose of awfulness, Mercury shifted into retrograde on October 13th, where it will remain causing commotions until November 3rd. (Yes, THAT November 3rd.) Whether or not one places much faith in these astrological events, I find it best to lay low and focus on self-care and mindful living during such times. Meditation becomes extremely important in these tumultuous stretches, and luckily it’s become a habit on which I fall back and rely.
For the next few weeks, my plan is to nestle quietly into fall mindfulness, embracing the sunny days when I can and finding the subdued beauty in their rainy counterparts. The garden has been extending its show, with hydrangeas deepening in the color of both their leaves and flowers, morning glories that last into the afternoon as if unwilling to shorten their show just for the sake of their name, and the fiery foliage of the Chinese dogwoods bursting into its final flush of flame.
So that we all may get through this as unbruised and unscathed as possible, here are my bits of advice to make things a little bit better. Be kind to everyone around you, and to yourself. Be patient with those around you – tiny peccadilloes have a tendency to flare up into full-fledged battles when Mercury is in retrograde. Shelve any serious conversations or decisions until a calmer time. Take extra care with travel and technology, as much as possible. The former isn’t as much of an issue during COVID, but the latter has taken on greater prominence, so check those connections, plan extra time for technological snafus, and have a contingency plan. Above all else, be prepared to act like a tree and bend – flexibility is key, and the ability and willingness to go with the flow will make for an easier time as we navigate the bumpiest roads. Fasten your seatbelts…
This song has been on repeat in these parts for its introspective vibe, and for my memories of the moment of friendship it marked in the play from which it is writ. Part of Imogen Heap’s wondrous score for the Harry Potter plays, it’s one of the most magical points in the story, not for the stagecraft wizardry at work but for the simple emotional arc it creates.
A quick little counterpoint to the action and the special effects, it reminded the audience that the most mesmerizing moments in the theater – and in life – are not the pyrotechnics and explosions, but rather the quiet little times of connection and friendship that get us through the difficult things life is constantly throwing in our way.
That’s the stuff of magic. That’s the stuff of enchantment.
I’m lucky to be so rich in friends and family that I don’t need the fireworks or the pizzazz – they are fine to complement and accent the tapestry of what really matters, but they are not required. Friendships sparkle with laughter and tears, love glows with glorious warmth and the heat of many years – these wonders conjure all the charms we ever needed.
Our somewhat-annual treasure hunt for the twins managed to take place in this time of COVID thanks to some clever garage and back patio staging, along with some cooperative weather. Before they arrived, I broke out the smoke machine and filled the garage with some atmospheric spookiness, accompanied by the eerie soundtrack to ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ – so that when they arrived the garage door opened in a puff of theatrical fog, portending the spooky Halloween aspect of the day.
Unphased by the Halloween trappings, the twins eagerly listened as I laid out the intricately-plotted outline for the day. We began with a trail of tree identification for seven different trees around the yard, coupled with a list of five objects that would cast a magic spell. We found all seven trees, as well as the list of five items – an acorn, an oak leaf, a pinecone, a green tomato and a sprig of lemon verbena – and by the time our journey rounded us back to the garage, two Halloween baskets filled with candy and treats had miraculously appeared. The spell had worked!
From there we moved to the back patio, where curtains hung from the circular canopy, closing us off from the wind. A group of candles flickered on the table lending some warmth and light. I brought out some hot cocoa, marshmallows and fresh cinnamon rolls to keep us toasty. The twins also started in on their candy, which Uncle Al allows because he’s the funnest uncle ever.
They wanted to decorate pumpkins, so we stopped at Troy’s Landscaping before our lunch at Smashburger. We found a koi pond and some cacti, then made our way to lunch.
They showed me the Smashburger pose, we ordered our meals, and made a quick stop at Starbucks for dessert.
Back in the garage, we finished up the day with some pumpkin-decorating and more marshmallows. Apparently the hottest contest right now is figuring out how many marshmallows you can fit in your mouth while still being able to recite a sentence.
It was a very good day – the longest of our treasure hunts by far. They are more talkative now, and there are more things to say, and they also have their independent streaks so I don’t need to lead absolutely everything. That said, it wiped me out. After four and a half hours, their Dad arrived to take them home, and I laid down for a two-hour nap. Next stop will be Thanksgiving, and we worked on some special name cards for that…
When it looked like the temperature was going to tip-toe toward 80 degrees, Andy hurriedly heated the pool one last time, and we squeezed out an extra unexpected pool moment in the year when we needed it the most. The day was warm and humid, and after doing some yard clean-up and early winter preparation, I found myself in dire need of a dip. I took one final spell of laps, floating and flying one last time this year. Andy jumped in a little later, easing his back and letting the stress go on a sunny fall day.
A late-season reprieve. Gratitude.
Sweet solace.
This year simply won’t let up, and it’s finally starting to wear on me. So when I found this monster mix of Peanut M&Ms, I bought it, poured it into a bowl, and between Andy and me, we devoured it in two days flat. Not sure what I put into my body based on these colors alone, and quite frankly I didn’t and don’t care. They were sweet and crunchy and got me through a rainy afternoon. It won’t be a pattern, I hope – my pants aren’t quite ready to expand for the winter – but in a pinch, candy lifts the spirits.
Such is the ear worm of a teaching song that appeared on ‘3-2-1 Contact’ or some other PBS educational show in the 80’s, and it’s stuck in my head ever since. It came up and reared its head when our power went out for a whole night thanks to a recent storm. Our electricity went out at 4 PM, and was originally scheduled to be back by 9 PM – of course that didn’t happen, so I went through the house finding all the candles, because it’s remarkably darker than you think it will be when you’ve been accustomed to electric light for 45 years.
A stunning pair of scarlet beeswax honeycomb candles – a gift from our friend Anu – made for perfect light, especially when paired with a mirror to double their illumination. As for the rest of the night, it was passed in relative quiet and darkness, with our phones making the most of the Vice Presidential debate, each switching out at various points, at which time we would change to the other one, forming a patchwork that largely allowed us to hear most of what was going on. Just another typical night in 2020.
Sleeping proved remarkably more difficult in complete and total darkness. Not because of fear or anything, but for the simple unaccustomed totality of the darkness. Maybe I’m not quite ready to return to that level of basics. Luckily for us, the power kicked on early the next morning, which was not the case with several people I know, who went without for two more days. They’re the real profiles in courage. We didn’t even lose the ice cream (but just in case I went in the next day and ate it all – preventative measures, you know).
This blog is showing its age and slowing down a bit, because its creator is showing his age and slowing down a bit. After hosting our annual fall treasure hunt with the twins yesterday, I promptly took a two-hour nap, and I’m only just now coming to awareness. That post and some spooky pics from the day will be coming up later – for now, I invite you to take a moment and pause to enjoy the day. We’ll be back in a bit, recharged and reinvigorated.
Being a good ally takes effort and work and understanding. We can all play a part, but it means we have to be brave, and sometimes bold. It may also mean confronting our own discomforts in ways that may require readjusting things that have been part of ourselves for decades. With all that 2020 has wrought, one of the silver linings may be a reckoning with our collective bias and the racism that is a product of growing up in America. It’s there within almost every single one of us, and the first step in eradicating it is examining and owning up to it. To have been raised in this country is to be unwittingly part of systemic racism in some form. When you realize that – when you realize it’s not your fault as long as you make a concerted effort to grow and change – it suddenly loses its shame, and you can find a greater integrity and honor by living an actively antiracist life. We have that choice in more ways and at more opportunities than we know.
Ahsante the Artist offers the following steps on how to be a good ally, which is a great place to begin.
We won’t get into the atrocities of Christopher Columbus right now because the world has gone divided enough – look that cultural genocide up if you are so inclined. For now, let’s take a quick back-gander at the most recent tumultuous week of October. How we will make it to November is anybody’s guess…
At the ripe age of 56, Lenny Kravtz got shirtless and showed us how glorious abs could be.
Reaching the end of my rope, a bit of wisdom to keep hanging on.
Rob Gronkowski finally found his balls.
Fall paints with light and ferns.
Hugh Jackman got naked save for some shoes.
A wicked fall storm signaled we weren’t in Kansas anymore. Or vice versa.
Follow the doughnut path to my heart.
The fall song for 2020: Dynasty.
Another generation on the way.
Celebrating National Coming Out Day – because it’s still necessary and it still matters.
A time to learn and a time to be brave.
“You deserve so much more than just to be tolerated. You deserve to be loved for exactly who and what you are right now. This, of course, is a double-edged sword. This also means you must return the favor. Learn more about racism and sexism and ableism, too. You, unfortunately, are probably already well aware of how much homophobia can hurt, inside and out. Learning more about how different kinds of oppression work and where they intersect will help you build better bridges with others and create a safe and respectful…culture for everyone. Bullies are almost always outnumbered by the bullied. We just need to organize.†― Ivan Coyote
October 11 marks National Coming Out Day, and since I’ve written many a gay post here over the past seventeen years, I’ll not regale you with the tale of my own coming out because it’s been done before. Rather, I’m asking a simple question that hangs in the air with the idea of a new Supreme Court justice taking Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s vaunted place. How would you feel if your marriage was suddenly up for a vote, and if it went the wrong way would be deemed null and void? Or better yet, how would you feel if you grew up in a world where you weren’t allowed to marry the one that you loved? National Coming Out Day is about coming out and being true to who you are. That’s a relatively new luxury – and for many it’s still not a luxury at all. We met remember that. We must safeguard it. And we must work to protect the rights we’ve earned when hate and homophobia make motions to rise again. No one is equal until everyone is equal.
Presenting a binary choice in anything these days seems rife for complaint and fuckery, so of course I had to put up some of these polls on Twitter for the Halloween season! (That’s just the kind of dick I am.)
‘Hocus Pocus’ or ‘Practical Magic’? This is an easy one for me: ‘Practical Magic’ all the way, mostly for that magnificent Victorian and setting, that glorious little greenhouse where the starry paperwhite narcissus get a guest shot, and the cute little soap store that Sally opens.
‘Hocus Pocus’ has Bette Midler, it’s true, but I feel like you had to experience it growing up to truly love it, and I simply missed that. On FaceBook, this one generated the most heat, with people mostly demanding both because it was too much like ‘Sophie’s Choice’. Twitter seemed decidedly in favor of ‘Hocus Pocus’.
‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ or ‘Clue’? Tim Curry plays the main parts in both, so maybe it’s a question of whether you prefer him in a butler get-up or garters. Strangley, I’m going with the former, as ‘Clue’ will always be a favorite (again, because I grew up on it and recall watching it on rainy Saturday afternoons with my brother).
I came to ‘Rocky Horror’ much, much later than just about everyone else, and I’m weird in that I really don’t like getting water and rice thrown at me in a public theater (or anywhere for that matter). [At my first public viewing of it I had more rice in my underwear than I put in the rice cooker on certain nights. Luckily I’m so hot and wet that some of it was edible the next morning.]
‘Sleepy Hollow’ or ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’? Tim Burton gave his weird and wonderful directorial touch to both, and Danny Elfman composed his hauntingly atmospheric music for both as well. I’m a big Burton fan, again largely through nostalgia and growing up to some of his classics.
Though ‘Nightmare’ brought an instantly iconic character to animated life and is undisputedly the more artistic endeavor, I fall prey to the enchanting upstate New York setting and classic story of Ichabod Crane in ‘Hollow’, even if it was more grossly and blatantly commercial, so my preference leans to that. (Christopher Walken does another chilling turn that is so indelible you feel his menace even when he’s missing his head – I don’t even care if that wasn’t him in those scenes).
Based on all the polls, my picks are three-out-of-three not the favorites of the majority of those who frequent my Twitter account, and I’m ok with that. Good taste doesn’t always translate to mass appeal. To each their own.
Her name is Shelly 2. (Shelly 1 met an all-too-early demise when we think someone poisoned her.) The wonderful news is that Shelly 2 is about to have a baby. Two in fact.
Shelly 2 is a Spider plant that I have from the office, now residing in our guest room as she wouldn’t get enough water with my limited office hours these days. She came from a parent plant that did quite well in its bright office corner but suddenly got stricken with something that ended up killing her. I saved a few plantlets in some water just in time to produce Shelly 2, who is now sending forth a couple of plantlets of her own. Even in this crazy state of the world, there is still hope to be found.
Pulling his yellow raincoat on and rushing out with the rest of his classmates, the boy looks up into the gray sky and feels the sting of rain. Looking further up the hill, he searches for his mother’s station wagon, always there on the days when it rains. He pulls his hood over his head and hurries the pace. The rain comes down steadily and as he reaches the top of the little hill outside school, he still cannot locate her station wagon.
Tentatively pushing forward through the rain, he is unsure whether to wait, or keep moving. Time travels differently for children. He doubles back, suddenly doubting himself, and passes the same cars he did before. She is not there. He returns to the way home, passing each car and looking down in shame and embarrassment. He’s done nothing wrong, but he doesn’t feel that way. Surely there is shame in being forgotten?
The initial flash of abandonment is replaced with a sudden prickle of anger, which is quickly subsumed by a feeling of guilt and worry – what could have happened to his mother? The worry and the stress stays with him as he walks to the end of the block and turns up the long hill that brings him closer to home. His eyes wet with rain and strain, and the nagging fear of guilt gnawing on his heart, he walks into the rain, letting the hood fall from his head, letting the rain sting his face, giving in to the dimming of the day. Halfway up the hill, his Mom’s station wagon speed into view. He gets in, wet and a bit of a mess, relieved and hurt and mad and silly. By dinner, he pretends he’s moved on to something else.
It’s strange the way hurt seeps into the soul, and it’™s different for everyone. One person’s sensitivity barely registers a forgotten ride in the rain while someone else feels it so acutely it stays with them for life. First world problems, some would snarkily suggest, but if it’s your very first first world problem, and you’re only a child, who can say what scars will be wrought in the end? Who can say how deep they will run?
The most frightening moment of my life thus far was not when I let a stranger bring me back to Brandeis from Boston in a big white van, which he pulled off the road on some dark, desolate stretch of Waltham only to park and negotiate questions on when he might see me again, but when I was five or six and holding my mother’s hand in the Amsterdam Mall. I let go for a second to look at some storefront, not letting her silhouette out of my peripheral vision, and when I reached up again to the hand beside me it wasn’t my mother’s. Immediately I panicked. I didn’t see her right away, and the terror was intense. It lasted a few mere seconds – my mother didn’t even know I was gone – but the fear was instantly crushing, crippling and debilitating. When I saw her just a few feet up ahead, unaware and unconcerned with our separation, the world returned to normal, but my heart had been stricken forever. It’s something I recall vividly to this day – one of my first memories, seared indelibly on whomever I was about to become.
The Fall Song of 2020 has been selected and it’s called ‘Dynasty’ by the amazing Rina Sawayama. With its familial themes and defiant streaks of rage and independence, as well as its dramatic musical bombast, this is a perfectly powerful statement in an age when families are being rendered apart thanks to things as light as politics and as deep as four-decades of mistakes and angst.
Those relationships with family members are what run the deepest, my therapist confirms after I recount a childhood memory that has haunted me for years. Almost inextricable, they have hooks that are intertwined and entangled with the entire history of a human being, conveyed from the moment of birth and running through the formative stretches of a person’s existence. They are the most difficult patterns to change, and their chasms run deeper and darker than we usually realize. Our families mark us from birth – they know our most vulnerable weaknesses, they know our most formidable powers, and if we’re lucky they only want what’s best for us. Yet it’s never quite that easy, at least not for me and mine.
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
In the midst of my teenage years of turmoil, when social anxiety was heaped on the impossible fact of being gay, I was the oldest child in a family where I did everything I was supposed to do, was the perfect son in every way I knew how to be, and still felt the chill of being different and never quite belonging, sensing even then that love was contingent upon how proud I made my parents, and one wrong misstep would result in punishment or desolation. Whether or not it was all in my head is a question that creeps into my mind to this day, a lasting effect when stability is rocked, such as when you come out as gay and it’s not greeted with a hug or instant love and assurance, but rather concern and worry and the desire to keep it secret and silent.
Every dynasty has its outcasts. Every dynasty has its rebels. And every dynasty has its stars who rise above the binding shame of history and biological bonds to ascend to something they deserve. Call it survival, call it independence, call it the righteous rage that results from a person finally refusing to be anything less than beloved – the human spirit will forge a way and we will craft our own families when the ones we’re given cannot or will not play fair.
I remember a morning in high school, trying to rush my way out and feeling utterly defeated by something someone did or said – I don’t even remember what it was, but I remember throwing open a desk drawer, ripping out a sheet of paper, and violently scribbling in bold, black, smelly marker: ONE DAY I WILL LEAVE THIS PLACE AND NEVER COME BACK.
Every dynasty has its drama queen. I taped it to the mirror of my bathroom, hoping someone would find it, hoping someone would try to help. No one did. I took it down when I got back from school. It was still hanging there from the mirror, the same dejected face peering behind it, only the tears had dried and the rage had dissipated. I had to let go of the anger, and the notion of fairness and equity. The world was not fair or equitable. Families weren’t either.
Families beg for forgiveness, over and over, and if you happen to be the one who continually gets hurt, who continually must forgive and forget, it does start to feel a bit personal. You feel a bit paranoid. You wonder if it’s you, and what might set you apart from everyone else. When you’re gay, you wonder if that’s the difference, because what else could it possibly be? You’ve done everything else right, you’ve done everything else perfectly, you’ve never messed up, and still somehow you stumble enough to be the one who gets hurt.
When parents try to correct things in the past by doing better in the present, it’s rarely with the original cast, even if we’re still around, only older. Back then I didn’t see that, so I fought harder, even as I understood less.
Every dynasty has its trials and tests, those moments when you decide whether to stay or go, whether to keep working at it or to give up and find an easier path. Every person has their own journey to take, in whatever dynasty they find themselves, and even if their family isn’t the one they would have chosen, there is no denying the bonds and the love that almost every family has at its heart. We don’t always do it well, we don’t always do it right, but we are still there, repeating some mistakes, making new ones, hoping that this time it will be better, that this time it will all work. Humans have that basic primal need – the need to belong, to be part of a tribe, to be a valued member of a family. And luckily for us, we can make our own families, because that’s what you sometimes have to do to survive.
