Every year I promise to sprinkle forget-me-not seeds about the backyard, and every year I forget.
There is a message in such madness, but I’m too tired to figure it out.
It’s too soon in the week to be so exhausted.
It’s only fucking Tuesday for fuck’s sake.
And it’s only May.
Maybe the cold nights are getting to me.
Maybe Tuesdays just suck.
Vanity underwear lines often get a bad, if pretty, name. I’m not sure how well such endeavors by the likes of Chris Salvatore, Mario Lopez, David Beckham, Steve Grand and Cristiano Ronaldo are doing, but I know that Todd Sanfield sets himself apart from the rest with years of dedication and investment. As his own best model and spokesman, Sanfield puts himself in and behind his product, and with new varieties and styles coming out, he manages to consistently remain fresh and inspired by something as basic as underwear. That takes an eye for beauty, and a dedication to an under-appreciated craft. Check out his stuff here.
I’ll never be a guest at the Met Gala, but every year I watched faithfully to see what everyone wore on the red carpet for the up-until-now annual event that took place on the first Monday of May. Like most things this spring, and probably most of the summer, the Met Gala was canceled due to our current state of affairs. That meant we missed out on fashion’s most important night (yes, the Met Gala gorgeously beats out the Oscars and every other red carpet night).
There was some sort of online hashtag challenge this year to dress up and post pics online but I didn’t quite care enough to look into it with any seriousness. Instead, I pulled this canary ruff out of the attic closet and propped it up behind a head of hair that I left unruly and spiky in avant garde honor. I needed something sunny and bright, something equal parts Big Bird and Phyllis Diller and Lemon Party. Those who attempt to create beauty, even when they fail, are bound to something gorgeously noble.
What a wild, wonderful and whimsical week we’ve had. As I write this, a snow squall is bearing down upon the area, and I’ve just wrapped a plastic tarp around the poor fig tree that’s already outside behind the house. The peonies have kept their heads bowed after a night of snow, and this evening looks to dip into the frost zone as well. There once was a time when the frost-free date was May 6, but that sort of stability has gone away. Nothing is stable anymore. Mother Nature refuses to play according to human-imposed deadlines and rules, and she will not be ignored. We would do best to listen and pay some respect – especially as the rewards may be quite beautiful. Beauty and love informed the highlights of this past week, so let’s go back and quickly revisit them.
Proof of beauty was in the cherries that started popping.
The wisdom of a webmaster, and a friend.
Dressed up by leaves of coriander.
‘American Life’ and ‘Bedtime Stories’ by Madonna, and maybe some justice.
There can be beauty in resilience.
Hunks of the Day included Rufus Gifford, Lachlan Glen, Callum Kerr and Mark Mester.
Shirley Horn sang to us of violets for her furs, a song straddling spring and winter, not unlike the weather of the week.
Pissing the night away, literally, not in the British manner.
The night before the big event.
Our 10th wedding anniversary was celebrated in subdued style, befitting 2020, and we’ll put a pin in a proper Boston celebration when it’s a bit safer to go. We reconstructed our wedding day pose in the same shirts we wore a decade ago (see main photo and the original below), and the day was equally sunny and beautiful beneath the cherry tree in our own backyard. It was also a good time for looking back at ten years of anniversaries.
Speaking of cherry trees, this one is currently putting on a fine show.
Another sad part of 2020 was the cancellation of our annual Broadway weekend for Mother’s Day, but we celebrated by looking back at all our previous excursions with this post and this post.
The final installment of the ‘Awakening to Awareness’ mini-series concluded in full bloom, setting the stage for the rest of spring and a whole new summer.
“What kind of feeling comes upon you when you’re in touch with nature, or when you’re absorbed in work that you love? Or when you’re really conversing with someone whose company you enjoy in openness and intimacy without clinging? What kind of feelings do you have? Compare those feelings with the feelings you have when you win an argument, or when you win a race, or when you become popular, or when everybody’s applauding you. The latter feelings I call worldly feelings; the former feelings I call soul feelings. Lots of people gain the world and lose their soul. Lots of people live empty, soulless lives because they’re feeding themselves on popularity, appreciation, and praise, on “I’m O.K., you’re O.K.,” look at me, attend to me, support me, value me, on being the boss, on having power, on winning the race. Do you feed yourself on that? If you do, you’re dead. You’ve lost your soul. Feed yourself on other, more nourishing material. Then you’ll see the transformation.” ~ Anthony de Mello
We have come to the conclusion of the ‘Awakening to Awareness’ mini-series, and while the posts for this book are at an end (for now) the work continues. Self-improvement doesn’t come with a deadline or end-date -it’s entirely up to us whether we plateau, fall back down into bad habits, or keep going to better ourselves. I’m going to try for the latter, as I like the way I feel lately. With all the insanity of what’s going on in the world around us, to feel better at such a time is a major feat in and of itself. Something is working.
The idea of a Sunday afternoon/evening post of something positive and uplifting is one I will seek to maintain, so this space will be reserved for similar sentiment in the future. It’s a nice way of reconnecting to what matters at the end/beginning of a week.
I like the above quote from ‘Awareness’ because it touches on feelings most of us have experienced. The worldly feelings the author addresses are the one that society has conditioned us into thinking we want. Popularity. Appeal. Being #1. They feed on any shred of competitive nature within us and drive us to excel at goals. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Without some elements of drive or compulsion, most of us wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Yet I’m more interested in the soul feelings – they’re the ones that matter. They’re the ones who will sustain us in times of darkness and doubt. Would you rather the mass, superficial adoration of the world, or the genuine affection of a singular dear friend. In my younger years I might have debated the two lightly, but I’ve always erred on the side of the genuine and earnest, even back then. (Hell, if this was a popularity contest I’d be going about things in a drastically different manner.)
If we put our minds to it, most of us can figure out a way to win an argument. We can use facts and reason and a bit of subtle persuasion in order to prove ourselves consistently ‘right’. I’ve done it for years, and after being challenged on it by family and friends I can always come up with a long litany of examples where I’ve been right and the world has been wrong. It’s there in history. It’s there in the facts. Looking back over those moments, however, I’m left with a sad realization: being right can be one of the loneliest places to be.
And so I strive to focus on the soul feelings, because I know those well. They don’t come along all the time – but when they do I tend to recognize them immediately. A sunny pocket of afternoon when I stood alone on a stream bank in Ireland, watching the water weaves its way through the reeds as the bright green of a late spring scene played out before me. The way time seems to evaporate when I’m in the midst of a new project that suddenly clicks into place and the pages start making sense, connecting as if compelled by a force of magical destiny. A dinner with Andy in Boston when we were trying to figure out wedding restaurant options and the young couple next to us, on what looked to be an awkward but sweet first date of sorts, offered their support for our upcoming nuptials. These are the memories of my soul feelings, and they’re the ones I hold closest to my heart. All the rest of it doesn’t much matter.
{See also Awakening to Awareness: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five.}
Our recollection of Mother’s Days that came before continues with this concluding post of previous Broadway weekends. Theater, shopping, dining out, and simply spending time with Mom are happy events taken on their own – combined they are a bit of magical alchemy that lent such joy to our trips. The look back continues with the last three years of outings.
For 2017, we celebrated a triumvirate of shows, and to keep track of it all I created the first of our printed itineraries, because I love a good itinerary. We began with a quiet lunch at Saks, because when you can meld shopping and dining, you do it. For that weekend, Mom splurged on the accommodations with a room at the Lotte Towers, which afforded this spectacular view.
Before our first show, ‘Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812‘ we ran into the co-star of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in Times Square, one of those happy coincidences that only seems to happen in New York. A decadent lunch at Cafe Sabarsky was perfectly fitting before checking out a performance of ‘War Paint’ with Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. For our last full day and night, the rain arrived with ferocity, though it didn’t dampen our dinner. Glenn Close, twenty years after we first saw her in the original run of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ helped us close out the weekend with a touching performance as Norma Desmond. We had come full circle in many ways.
Our 2018 Mother’s Day Weekend in New York began with ‘The Boys in the Band‘ and a suite at the Warwick Hotel. Some downtown shopping and a Mexican dinner presaged the wonderful revival of ‘Once On This Island‘. Ducking the rain and avoiding the wind, we bar-hopped a bit on the day that we saw ‘Dear Evan Hansen‘. A banner Broadway weekend for Mother’s Day closed out with a brunch at Norma’s.
Which brings us to last year, 2019, which began with a beautiful view of Central Park, hinting at art and florals and all things camp. At the Met, these campy creations created inspiration and aspiration, while the flowers along Central Park offered to put on their own subtle show.
Suzie was back for one of our dinners this time, as was her Mom Elaine, so it was a triple Mother’s Day extravaganza, as I was the only non-mother at the table. (I’ve been hailed as a different kind of Mother, and I’m talking MoFo.) Over the course of the weekend, we saw ‘Hamilton‘, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird‘ and ‘The Cher Show’. A little bit of everything basically.
We all reconvened the last morning for a Mother’s Day brunch ~ a lovely end to a lovely weekend.
Thinking back on all these wonderful times leaves me with a pang of sadness that things are so different right now, yet there is such happiness and love in all these memories that they will see us through until we can make new ones. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you.
The calamity that is 2020 ended up canceling this year’s Mother’s Day Weekend on Broadway, making this pair of posts the closest we’ll be getting to the stage in quite some time. Originally we had tickets for both parts of ‘The Inheritance’, ‘Jagged Little Pill’, ‘The Minutes’ and ‘Six’. That’s quite a lot of dashed dreams, but such is the price of being safe so we’re not complaining. And while social distancing has kept Andy and I from properly seeing Mom and Dad since mid-March, I sent her a Mother’s Day gift box (fully sanitized of course) in the snail-mail which has already been delivered. With that, I wish her a very Happy Mother’s Day, and with this we’ll take a moment to look back at what we’ve done over the last few years.
Since we have some time, here’s a detailed and link-filled revisiting of our previous Broadway jaunts, all of which are filled with happy memories and wonderful recollections. We’ve been doing this off and on since the 90’s (see the photo below, taken the first time we saw ‘Sunset Boulevard’ in its original Broadway run in 1995). Our Broadway tradition has taken hold as a Mother’s Day mainstay, one that we’ll miss this time around, but we’ll make it up in different fashion sometime in the future.
It was 2013 when we first resurrected our old tradition of seeing a Broadway show together. That year we saw ‘Kinky Boots‘ and ‘Pippin‘, and we had such a grand time it ushered in an annual celebration of Mom and Broadway. That first year, Suzie joined us for dinner, making things even more special. We skirted Times Square as best we could, ducking into this cozy space and escaping the madness for a moment.
In 2014, we found our footing and the tradition began to take root. This time we began with a stroll in Central Park, amid flowering trees and spring bulbs, along with some classic NYC sights. The show selection that year included a Terrence McNally play, ‘Mothers & Sons’, as well as Jason Robert Brown’s ‘The Bridges of Madison County‘ ~both of which were excellent. We also had amazing seats for Neil Patrick Harris and his run in ]Hedwig and the Angry Inch‘. Suzie joined us for dinner at Beautique and we closed out the weekend with a Mother’s Day brunch off of Central Park.
By 2016, we had honed the weekend into a streamlined affair, with just two shows to give us proper breathing room for leisure and shopping. ‘Fun Home‘ and ‘The Humans‘ may not have been the most uplifting shows to see back-to-back, but they were excellent enough to offset their dour themes. Also aiding in the cheer quotient was this amazing meal at La Grenouille, matched perhaps by this other amazing meal at Felidia. We closed out that weekend with tea at the Plaza which was about as perfect as it can get.
{More Mother’s Day adventures to come…}
My first brush with the Kwanzan cherry was a pair of ancient trees near the condo in Boston. I would walk beneath them, coming home on late spring evenings back when I worked in retail and had not a care in the world. I didn’t pay much attention to them, other than a passing glance, mostly because they carried no discernible fragrance. At the time, I wanted everything – beauty and fragrance and ease of cultivation, and anything that lacked one or any of the aforementioned traits got nary a notice. Yeah, I was that bastard.
The beauty of the Kwanzan eluded me until my first spring with Andy at his old house in Guilderland. Off the wooden deck was a glorious cherry tree, alight with blooms on sunny spring days. It was a perfect posing spot, one that I used for work included in The Talented Trickster Tour: Reflections of a Floating World. That floating world was echoed in the falling petals of the Kwanzan cherry tree. The beauty was transient, making is all the more cherished.
This year the Kwanzan in our backyard is putting on a spectacular show. Andy thinks it’s one of the best and I would agree. We posed under it for an anniversary photo (come back in a couple days for that post). One of the benefits of the cool spring weather lasting a little longer means that the floral show gets extended too. We’ve had years where our blooms have lasted only a couple of days, wilted beneath a brutal sun or ripped off in a windstorm. Expecting similar catastrophic results in this crazy year, I’ve been making the most of the show while it lasts, taking frequent breaks to walk outside beneath its beauty and soaking in the prettiness as much as possible.
That terrifying moment when you get up in the middle of the night to pee, and it’s dark but you’re pretty sure you know where to aim because you’ve been doing this for well over four decades, and you let loose but don’t hear the sound of urine hitting water – there is just silence, so you’re pretty sure you’re still somewhere in the ceramic basin and you adjust a bit hoping to hear that reassuring sound of liquid pouring into liquid, but it still doesn’t come, so you readjust again, only to more silence. Then you shake it off, flush the toilet, and hope for the best in the morning.
Though they are the bane of our lawn’s existence these days, the little violets seen here are a happy memory-inducing plant from my childhood. Back then, I’d explore the woodland behind our backyard and these flowers shone in wide swaths and groups, mostly in their white and purple form. There’s something more peaceful and lovely about the simple violet hue you see here. I would hunt these out among the more plentiful white ones. Maybe I valued them more for their scarcity. At my current home, the pure violet ones outnumber the multi-colored version.
Nowadays they are wreaking havoc with the uniform green carpet of our lawn, and so we must eradicate them. I’m not bothered by it – they will never be entirely gone. There are too many, their realm is too vast, and there are always more to be found if ever we make a complete eviction. For now, I’m enjoying their little blooms as they pop up, reconciled to their bothersome invasive tendencies, content with being granted the memory they evoke.
(If I pick all the flowers, there will be no seed to spread, so bouquets like this provide beauty and purpose, the best of all possible worlds.)
Shirley Horn sang this song about violets on her ‘Violets for Your Furs’ live album. I never gave it much thought until this day. Memory is strange that way. Ms. Horn gives it her trademark slow-burn treatment. The full set of lyrics yearn with romance and longing, and though it’s marked by snow and winter references, there are peeks into a coming spring. Besides, the best songs can be heard year-round and still maintain their resonance.
If lyrics aren’t your preferred way of listening tonight, give the John Coltrane Quartet’s version a spin. It’s the perfect accompaniment to a breezy spring evening that doesn’t yet feel like spring.
Every year at around this time, Andy and I have made our way back to where we got married to celebrate our anniversary in Boston. This year we are unable to do that just yet, so we will put a rain-date on the calendar for a 10th anniversary celebration in the (hopefully near) future. In the meantime, here’s a link-filled journey down memory lane, in which we recount the wedding day, and some of the anniversaries that followed. A few things remained constant (that chocolate cake at the Four Seasons was a decadent mainstay) while other things evolved and turned into brand new fun. I don’t typically like to look back, unless it’s about things like this. Indulge us for the day.
Part 1: The Arrival & Accommodations
Part 3: The Last Call of a Bachelor
Part 4: The Dawn of the Wedding Day
Part 6: The Perfect Day in the Park
Bonus Post: The Residual Glow of Marriage
Our 2013 anniversary came on the sad heels of the Boston Marathon bombing, but we made the most of it. The Public Garden was also in full fragrant bloom, lending to our celebratory vision. For the first few years I didn’t do many blog posts about our anniversary adventures because it was enough simply being in Boston and re-treading our happy tracks. We made it a point to get our wedding rings washed at the place where we got them, which became a ritual, as did a burger or some sort of mid-day event at the Bristol Lounge where we had our wedding lunch (thank you Aunt Elaine!) And always we found a way back to the Public Garden for a brief stroll through the place where we were married.
It wasn’t until 2017 that I started documenting our new anniversary expeditions in detail. Like, major detail. I’m talking nine-part detail. Observe:
The following year, 2018, we returned to a sunnier situation (and I edited it down to just seven parts, so you’re welcome).
Last year we reverted to a rainy start, but even a bit of dampness couldn’t dampen our spirits. In fact, it reminds us of our early days vacationing in Ogunquit, when for a good five-year stretch we had nothing but rain almost every day we visited. I’m told that rain is auspicious for wedding days, so I’ll take it without complaint.
All these happy memories beg the question of how we will celebrate our tenth anniversary. As with many hyped-up events super-hoopla days, I think we will swerve into the unexpected lane by keeping things quiet and simple for now. When the world around us shifts to shaky, uncertain ground, it’s enough just being together in our backyard, underneath a cherry tree in beautiful bloom. We’ll take a rain check and return to Boston with a chance to start a whole new adventure…
Ten years ago Andy and I were married in the Boston Public Garden.
How do you encapsulate a decade of marriage in a single sitting?
Moreover, how do you contain two decades of sharing your life with another person?
Overall, the tapestry we have created is a beautiful one. Like any marriage, ours has had its share of peaks and troughs, and these are woven like mistakes into the fabric of our history together. At this point we can appreciate them for helping us make things better. They add texture and nuance and contrast to life. You appreciate happiness and contentment a little more when you’ve had some share of sadness and hurt.
So much of what I am and do and love is due to Andy. So much of our life together has enabled us to weather the difficult times ~ lost loved ones, disappointments, and even the current crazy state of the universe. Whenever the world has gone dark and run amok in terror and strife, we have had the good fortune to close the door and turn to each other, finding comfort and solace in love and companionship. Andy has been that safe haven and home for me. I’m fairly certain he would say the same.
Today we celebrate and honor ten years of married life, and I remember with love and deep fondness the day it all happened…
Awakening first, I pad quietly out of the bedroom into the sitting room of our suite overlooking the Public Garden. The sunlight is streaming into the room. Remnants of an impromptu gathering before the rehearsal dinner stand on a side table as I make my way to the window that looks onto the Garden. Grateful and relived for the sunlight, I breathe in deeply and find myself unexpectedly ensconced in the moment, making an indelible memory and smiling at the luxury of realizing it as it happens.
Andy and I had already been together for ten years, so in some ways marriage seemed like a mere formality, yet on this day, at this moment, there is something sacred in the atmosphere, some shift to something more resonant and powerful. A touchstone moment of commitment and love and promise. It is, I realize, an important day.
Soon, our little wedding party arrives, and we meet up with them in the Public Garden, walking to our chosen spot near several flowering cherry trees. Andy and I are dressed casually in jeans and polo shirts. When all was said and done, it never really mattered to Andy what I wore, and he was just as happily comfortable in jeans as a suit and tie. We would get fancier for dinner. For our wedding ceremony, all I needed was Andy and a bouquet of peonies. (I wasn’t just wearing any pair of jeans either ~ they were the same pair I’d worn when I met him ten years earlier.)
Our friend Chris performed a lovely ceremony ~ simple and sweet and surprisingly moving. After ten years together, you don’t think you’ll be moved, but then it arrives and it’s a little overwhelming in the best possible way, so you let those tears well up a little, and you hug your new husband tightly after the kiss because you’re just so happy to be there with him, to have made it through all those years together, to have such a partner in life and not have to go through it alone.
In the ten years after those first ten years, life has brought what life usually brings – more love, more loss, more tears, more laughter, more happiness, more difficulty, more comfort, more work, more gratitude – more of life, and like all humans, we want more of that. Even the sadness and sorrow, even when we miss the people we’ve lost, even when we occasionally lose ourselves.
In the end we always came back to the life we created together. It’s a life we work on every day, and it’s a life of shared dreams and desires. It’s a home in which we can find refuge when the world turns dark, a place that offers comfort and warmth when the winter rages, and a space where the promise of spring will always be followed by the sun of summer.
And so we add to our tapestry, weaving new rows in different colors and textures, enriching and fortifying what we have while adding nuances and grace and the rich resonance that comes with knowing someone so well, and still being able to learn more about them. I love that we are still growing together, and I love that Andy is the person who has shared his life with me.
Happy Anniversary, Drew. I love you.
Our suite at the Taj Hotel was perched ideally over the Boston Public Garden. Looking out the window, I spotted my parents, Andy’s Dad and Andy’s sister making their way along Arlington and then across Newbury Street. Suzie, Chris and Elaine would soon join us for a quick gathering in the suite for photos, and then a brief cocktail hour at the downstairs bar before the rehearsal dinner.
For some reason, the song I remember playing in the background was this portion of a Wizard of Oz suite:
Not entirely unfitting for the end of our wicked single lives, especially as threads of ‘Over the Rainbow’ ran whimsically through it. It was music for the preparatory excitement of a night before. Is there a happier moment than the night before? When all is promise and hope and anticipatory delight? Back then I lived in the night before, and the night before our wedding was especially lovely.
Tomorrow marks our 10th wedding anniversary and I have two posts slated to celebrate the occasion. Given the state of the world, it will be a different anniversary than all our other ones, and that gives us a chance to start again, with new traditions and new adventures. Even if they take place in our own home.
When the Lenten rose first emerges, sometimes before the winter is even done, it is often ragged and half-rotten, its leaves torn, any early blooms tattered and battered by snow and ice and wind. The first showing is deceptive. No one, well, no one I know, and most certainly not the man in the mirror, looks good first thing in the morning. We require some time to pep up, to re-hydrate our skin and wrinkles, to smooth out the sleep lines and fatigue. In much the same way, the Lenten rose needs a few weeks of recuperative conditions to fully become the beauty you see before you in this post.
And like every year, it’s more than worth the wait.
Through some quirk of the internet and iTunes sales, Madonna’s ‘edtime Stories’ album from 1994 just shot to #1 on their chart, with ‘American Life’ gaining in chart action as of this writing. The #JusticeForBedtimeStories and #JusticeForAmericanLife tags were in full effect on the Madonna fan pages, contributing to their successful drive to bring her under-rated and under-appreciated works into the spotlight again. (Personally, I think a #1 for ‘Ray of Light’ is the more obvious choice, but that was widely regarded as a super-success/comeback so perhaps that’s why no one remembers it only ever made it to #2. If it wasn’t the damn Bodyguard soundtrack, it was the damn Titanic soundtrack blocking her perch on the top limb.)
As for these two albums, fans have always appreciated them, for the most part. It feels like ‘Bedtime Stories’ is the more favored of the two, though die-hard ‘American Life’ devotees will argue with that assessment. Such arguments used to be fun and engaging – now they’re simply tiresome, so we won’t get into it any more here. For now, let’s look back at the songs from the albums that have been examined in the Madonna Timeline and celebrate the legacy that such interesting pieces of her oeuvre has ensured.
