More photos from lost posts of wet suits, with ghostly taunting from a pool on the verge of being closed. I remember the water being so warm all season – a shortened season perhaps, and all the more pleasurable for it. Fleeting joys for summer boys.
I tried to get in at least once on every possible sunny day, and I was largely successful. An afternoon float, coupled with a meditation, marked the end of working-from-home sessions – a lovely demarcation that will have to live solely in the meditation realm from here until next spring, and what a long journey that seems right now.
That said, I’m not entirely sad about the situation. Summer was actually pretty decent to us. The plants on the patio are testament to the heat and sun we had. Long lines of sweet potato vines dangle all the way from the canopy to the ground. An angel’s trumpet plant towers high in the sky, still dripping with its gorgeously-scented blooms. And pots filled with ferns have grown up and out, unfurling their fronds in lush tropical splendor.
We will hold onto this visage until the first hard frost, and the memories well into the winter. But I know these plants are tired, and the rest of the garden needs a rest as well. As long as we can try again next year, it’s ok to take a brief nap. We’ve earned it.
“When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them.” ~ Andy Warhol
IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND LOVE WHAT A TALE MY THOUGHTS COULD TELL JUST LIKE AN OLD TIME MOVIE ABOUT A GHOST FROM A WISHING WELL IN A CASTLE DARK OR A FORTRESS STRONG WITH CHAINS UPON MY FEET YOU KNOW THAT GHOST IS ME
Fall has always been about the drama. This was when the night-time soap operas returned, and in my formative years I was all about the soap operas. New plot lines were set into motion. Cliffhangers were resolved or spun into secondary moments of suspense. The start of the fall television season in general was always an exciting time. Worn-out characters were replaced by new ones, sets were energized, haircuts were revamped, and styles shifted slightly with the times, whether period or modern. In some ways it was a lot like the start of school, when everyone came back slightly altered and reinvented.
Perhaps this year more than ever we are in need of such a re-boot, so I’m taking this moment in time to re-energize my good practices, and curb some of the unhealthier things that have started to become habit (we will stop buying so much chocolate and so many cookies, and instead invest in fresh fruit). My meditation practice will continue as well (on the 25th of this month I’m moving up to 25 minutes per day), and I’ll refocus energy on my mindfulness. When things turn lighter in the summer it gets easier to be more naturally mindful – that will take more effort when there’s not a pool or gardens or a pleasant outdoor day just around the corner.
As for a reinvention here, you may have noticed the darker theme and header and sliders, as befits this marker in history. We are on the precipice of something, and it feels like the middle of night. I’m sidling up to it in the hopes of reconciling myself to the darkness, while glowing a little brighter to make up for it. There is a pair of new categories here as well – Antiracism and Mindfulness – serious topics I’ve been more interested in expounding upon and exploring, and which have naturally grown into what I hope will be substantial pillars of what makes this site vital.
A new season is at hand. A new chance to be better has arrived. The opportunities unfurl to improve from within. Just as we begin a retreat from the outside in, so too do we return to the interior of our mental make-up, and to improving the constitution of our soul.
I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE WENT WRONG BUT THE FEELING’S GONE AND I JUST CAN’T GET IT BACK
“Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, So what. That’s one of my favorite things to say. So what.” ~ Andy Warhol
The whisper, urgent and fierce, came to me in a blackness so dense I couldn’t be sure it was from another human being. For all I knew, and for all I could see in that night, it came from some feral being that was part ghost, part manifestation, and part spirit. But I felt its heat, felt its fetid moisture, and every once in a while I heard the click and grinding of teeth. Then, the ice cold essence of absence, as if its breath crystallized into tiny daggers of ice which fell to the earth like the delicate, barely-heard rustling of snow falling on hard ground.
“Do you hear me? Do you know what I’m saying?”
In that first semester at Brandeis, I was hearing voices in my head. Looking back, it was just the one voice, and it was less an actual voice and more a manifestation of all my doubts and disbeliefs in myself. But it repeated itself, growing more vicious and more relentless as the days turned colder. At the time, I simply wasn’t listening to my heart, and so it spoke for itself. I couldn’t see it then. I couldn’t hear it then. All I felt was confusion.
And the whispers grew increasingly ferocious.
IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND LOVE WHAT A TALE MY THOUGHTS COULD TELL JUST LIKE AN OLD TIME MOVIE ABOUT A GHOST FROM A WISHING WELL IN A CASTLE DARK OR A FORTRESS STRONG WITH CHAINS UPON MY FEET YOU KNOW THAT GHOST IS ME AND I WILL NEVER BE SET FREE AS LONG AS I’M A GHOST YOU CAN SEE
In the family station wagon, I was probably ten years old when this song played over the easy listening station my parents favored. The melody was sweet, the hook was catchy, and the tinge of folksy accessibility made it a natural choice for people who introduced their kids to music through Peter, Paul and Mary. As our wagon careened through the streets of Amsterdam, I sat in the backseat looking out at the world of fall.
I remember passing McNulty Elementary School, where I would attend kindergarten through sixth grade – the formative childhood years that feel simultaneously sweet and dangerous, innocent and somehow teeming with terror. Seeing it in my mind through the lens I’ve chiseled in the past year, I mourn that I couldn’t put voice to my social anxiety and the issues it caused. It was a thread that ran throughout all of my schooling, including that first semester at Brandeis when I was already a young adult. Fall was always terrifying that way, and I went through it all without fully understanding or grasping what was going on behind the scenes.
IF I COULD READ YOUR MIND LOVE WHAT A TALE YOUR THOUGHTS COULD TELL JUST LIKE A PAPERBACK NOVEL THE KIND THE DRUGSTORE SELLS WHEN YOU REACH THE PART WHERE THE HEARTACHES COME THE HERO WOULD BE ME HEROES OFTEN FAIL AND YOU WON’T READ THAT BOOK AGAIN BECAUSE THE ENDING’S JUST TOO HARD TO TAKE
In this, the fall of my 45thyear on earth, I’m beginning to hear that little voice, but unlike it sounded on those fall school days, it comes with nothing frightening or fearful. Instead, it is a gentle guide, nudging me this way or turning me slightly that way, so that I’m always on the right path. The message is finally being heard, even if I don’t always like what is being said, even if it’s going to mean more work, more effort, more confronting those difficult demons so deeply embedded from so many years ago.
Fall is the ideal time for such a reconfiguration: a moment to reset and restart. Right after every restart, the screen has to go dark for a bit. In the past, I would have turned away from the darkness, and possibly offered something lighter and frivolous to counteract the lack of illumination. This year – the wretched beast that is 2020 – I’m not going that traditional route. I’m going to embrace the darkness. I’m going to walk with it, and try to understand it better. I’m going to befriend it and fold it into my life. There is no true daylight without a night that comes before it.
I WALK AWAY LIKE A MOVIE STAR WHO GETS BURNED IN A THREE WAY SCRIPT ENTER NUMBER TWO, A MOVIE QUEEN TO PLAY THE SCENE OF BRINGING ALL THE GOOD THINGS OUT IN ME BUT FOR NOW LOVE LETS BE REAL
I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD ACT THIS WAY AND I’VE GOT TO SAY THAT I JUST DON’T GET IT I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE WENT WRONG BUT THE FEELINGS GONE AND I JUST CAN’T GET IT BACK
Not gonna lie, this fall is likely to be brutal, and in all bluntness I don’t know how we are going to do it. How do you heal a nation so divided? How do you repair and mend all the emotional damage that is still being rendered? How do you socially distance for an entire holiday season?
But everything that has already happened in 2020 has revealed that we can do it, even if nothing is stable, even if there is nothing of which we can be certain anymore. There is something terrifying about that. Something incredibly freeing too. When the notions of safety and security turn out to be tethers, sometimes it’s better that they break.
Into that darkness, may we fall with freely-given abandon, and let it bring about something more beautiful, more colorful, more enriching and more empowering.
Fall begins again…
IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND LOVE WHAT A TALE MY THOUGHTS COULD TELL JUST LIKE AN OLD TIME MOVIE ABOUT A GHOST FROM A WISHING WELL IN A CASTLE DARK OR A FORTRESS STRONG WITH CHAINS UPON MY FEET THE STORY ALWAYS ENDS AND IF YOU READ BETWEEN THE LINES YOU’LL KNOW THAT I’M JUST TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE FEELING THAT YOU LEFT
I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD FEEL THIS WAY AND I’VE GOT TO SAY THAT I JUST DON’T GET IT I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE WENT WRONG BUT THE FEELING’S GONE AND I JUST CAN’T GET IT BACK
And so summer ends, as quietly and unassumingly as it began, which feels fitting, and fittingly a little sad. The world isn’t having its best moment. It’s not the time to celebrate, and that’s usually what summer is all about. Did we find ways to locate the joy of the season? I think we did, but it was much different from every other summer we’ve had. It wasn’t always easy to lose those traditions, or cut those ties, but there were valuable lessons in that. On with the final part to this summer recap. Tomorrow, fall comes…
We have made it to July in the recap, and within this lovely celebratory summer recap we finally shift into the portion where we finally open the pool! In honor of that happy event, here’s a summer remix slip into the seasonal musical repertoire with Dua Lipa’s ‘Levitating’ (and some help by She-Who-Was-About-To-be-Exiled). Because this summer wasn’t all bad, and glimmers of sunshine and carefree happiness signify the season when a song like this suddenly brings you to your feet.
This Project of the Past was actually the most recent creative project I’ve done, so we only had to go back a year. But what a difference a year makes.
Traditionally, summer is a time of travels, parties, and sunny adventures.
This year, that all took place mostly in our minds, and the power of imagination is what kept us going. A regular schedule of mindful meditation made it mostly manageable. Largely, though, this summer was spent in suspension: waiting for the pool to be opened, waiting for a sense of normalcy to return, waiting for a pandemic to end. Only one of those wishes came true.
Summer was usually the time we got back together with everyone, gathering about the pool and grill, inviting friends for dinner and weekends and impromptu get-togethers when the day looked to be especially brilliant. All of that was absent this season, and there was something very sad and doleful about it. Staying safe meant staying socially isolated since March. For the introvert in me, it wasn’t a difficult lift, but it turns out I am much more social than I realized, and the continued isolation took more of a toll than expected. We made do with social media networks, even as politics made them more miserable than usual.
The most notable things that set this summer apart was how quiet it felt. There are a couple of songs that will be featured in later parts of this recap – for now, let’s inhabit that silence, embrace the quiet, and lean into the stillness. Here’s what happened in the first part of the summer…
The big summer recap begins with our next post, and it will bring us through the next week, so this weekly recap is to whet your appetite for that much grander recap – an amuse-bouche if you want to indulge in some fanciness, and who the fuck doesn’t? On with the weekly recap, because I haven’t said ‘recap’ enough for one day.
“Those bitter sorrows of childhood!– when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.” ~George Eliot
Summer is like childhood in so many ways. It holds its innocence ever so briefly, cashing in on its wonder before it realizes its worth. It is temperamental yet resilient, stalwart yet delicate. It can begin and end in fiery fashion, or enter and leave in peaceful calm; every childhood is different, every summer is different. And always – always – it is gone too soon.
It feels like we’ve already said goodbye to this summer. Maybe we never really finished the mourning of spring. In truth, it almost seems like I’ve been in mourning since last autumn, when things had to fall completely apart before rebuilding into something better. It was a lot of work, and it remains a lot of work, but it is work I have grown to love – work I’ve always loved but never quite realized as love. “It gives me purpose, gives me voice… to say to the world… this is why I live…”
And so our summer draws to its close. It’s something we will never get back, no matter how much I attempt to pin it down here, no matter how many words I put together to keep it intact. Summer, in its everlasting elusiveness, slips away unscathed, while we are left with the scars and the sunburn, and even they will fade until we no longer remember what it was like to swim in the night and not feel a chill.
“I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You’re going to trip over that for a good part of your life.” ~Maurice Sendak
At the turn of summer, attention shifts from the outside back into the kitchen, and comfort food is tantalizingly on the horizon. After some cajoling (maybe begging) by me, Andy made the first batch of lasagna that we’ve had in months – and it was more than worth the wait and the want. Using his own sauce, and some fancy beef and sausage, along with some magically-seasoned ricotta, Andy fashioned a dinner that was perfectly delicious in every way. There’s something very comforting when he steps into the kitchen to work his magic.
My pants may not be happy about it, but my mouth is ecstatic.
These wild asters have subsisted behind my childhood home’s backyard for over forty years. Some summers they are sparse and scant, others they are extensive and robust. This year falls under the latter, with an impressive showing of blooms and colonization, especially resplendent in the late afternoon light. Summer insists on showing off right until its very last moment.
Their smaller blooms, almost insignificant when compared to bigger and brighter glories of early summer, make an almost echo of those earlier days. Our second bloom is always smaller and more delicate, and, because of that, often more beloved.
These are hardy little plants, managing their survival beneath some rather deep shade and the selfish roots and barren soil of several ancient pine trees. A portrait of hardiness and beauty, even as the world is unforgiving and unaccommodating.
This summer’s soundtrack belonged indisputably to Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ album, which was gorgeously low-key, saturated with a searing melancholy, and accented by a melodic beauty missing from a lot of pop music these days. For these last few days of summer, and just before we begin the seasonal recap, give this cut a listen – it’s called ‘This Is Me Trying’, and it makes the perfect accompaniment to one of the last swims of the season, fittingly cloaked by the night, perfumed by the angels, and draped in ambivalence.
I’VE BEEN HAVING A HARD TIME ADJUSTING
I HAD THE SHINIEST WHEELS NOW THEY’RE RUSTING
I DIDN’T KNOW IF YOU’D CARE IF I CAME BACK
I HAVE A LOT OF REGRETS ABOUT THAT
PULLED THE CAR OFF THE ROAD TO THE LOOKOUT
COULD’VE FOLLOWED MY FEARS ALL THE WAY DOWN
AND MAYBE I DON’T QUITE KNOW WHAT TO SAY
BUT I’M HERE IN YOUR DOORWAY
I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ME TRYING
It’s the way the water pulls you down, at that time of the year when the water is warmer than the air, when the only way out is through, when the wilderness of night floats above the break of day, and you swim down deeper into the warmth, into the place from which we came. That crux of summer and fall, that space between happy and sad, and all you want to do is let go and release and succumb to the darkness. It might be easier that way. It might be better to sink all the way down…
THEY TOLD ME ALL OF MY CAGES WERE MENTAL
SO I GOT WASTED LIKE ALL MY POTENTIAL
AND MY WORDS SHOOT TO KILL WHEN I’M MAD
I HAVE A LOT OF REGRETS ABOUT THAT
I WAS SO AHEAD OF THE CURVE, THE CURVE BECAME A SPHERE
FELL BEHIND ALL MY CLASSMATES AND I ENDED UP HERE
POURING OUT MY HEART TO A STRANGER
BUT I DIDN’T POUR THE WHISKEY
I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ME TRYING
Will we ever make sense of this summer, or better yet this year? I don’t know… I don’t know. What were the lessons we were supposed to learn? Even the teachers don’t seem to know. Where has all the wisdom been hidden? At the bottom of the ocean ~ deep and dark and impenetrable ~ or the bottom of the pool ~ empty and full at the same time, like the heart and the head? In this warm water of life, like the fluid in which we all began before being expelled or pulled into cold, vicious air, I float down, falling gently, waiting for something or someone to break my fall. Only no one is there.
AT LEAST I’M TRYING…
AND IT’S HARD TO BE AT A PARTY
WHEN I FEEL LIKE AN OPEN WOUND
IT’S HARD TO BE ANYWHERE THESE DAYS
WHEN ALL I WANT IS YOU
YOU’RE A FLASHBACK IN A FILM REEL
ON THE ONE SCREEN IN MY TOWN
AND I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS IS ME TRYING
We laughed and we ran, we played and we danced, we stumbled and we fell – that’s what summers are for, and we took our cues from the stars and the moon. We weren’t perfect, and we made mistakes, but we never gave up. The older we get, the less we understand, and the less it seems to matter. There comes a time when understanding is a luxury, when survival is more the raw stuff of breathing and sleeping and moving solemnly through the silence, through the hurt.
And so I move through the water and the summer, and if I come out at the other end maybe we’ll find each other there.
Today local treasure Ken Screven celebrates his 70th birthday. In addition to that, the Albany Damien Center has honored Mr. Screven as their 2020 Hero Award recipient. Currently making a social media splash with his thought-provoking and continually-challenging posts, Mr. Screven is a pillar of Albany, past and future. Happy birthday Ken!
Out of the three varieties of tomatoes we tried this year, only these cherry tomatoes came to any serious fruition – and boy were they serious. For the two of us, one single plant provided more than enough cherry tomatoes for salads and snacks and even a Virgin Mary. Next year we will do two containers of these, and forego trying to grasp at the elusive glory of the Beefsteak ones. Andy could make some great summer sauce from the cherries if we get a slightly larger harvest.
This year I kept it simple, focusing on their flavor by popping a couple in my mouth on my rounds around the backyard, or slicing up a bunch for an afternoon snack, drizzled with some Balsamic vinegar and freshly-ground pepper. The joys of summer need not be extravagant or complicated.
The picture hardly does it justice, but after sixteen hours of intermittent fasting the chicken sandwich from Popeyes is probably the most foodgasmic moment I’ve had in years. There’s nothing left to say.
Oh wait, fuck Chick-fil-A – who wants to taste hate?
It’s a little before 8 in the morning, and I just finished up my first morning meditation. That’s what happens when you get old and insomnia wreaks its havoc and you wake up at 6 AM for no apparent reason. I know I just extolled the beauty of meditation deeper into the evening, but many people begin their day with a meditation, and being contradictory suits me.
In a lot of ways, the break of dawn is the most peaceful time of the day. It certainly is in our home, when Andy is still asleep and there is no television or radio or coffee-maker on. In this quietude and stillness, I assume the lotus position, light a stick of Palo Santo incense, and deep breathe my way through 24 minutes of meditation. It’s a good way to begin the morning, and for those days when the schedule is packed and there is a chance of missing out on a meditation, getting up a bit early may be worth it. I’ll see if it affects the rest of the day, or if the serenity fades by the time the first work issue rears its head.
