Two nights after I found out she died, Alissa visited in a dream. For the first part she was in a car with me where hilarity and mayhem resumed. We were laughing like we always did, in a way that we could not laugh with anyone else, and it was so much richer because of it. Then the fun was over, and over much too fast. The last part was when everything went suddenly still and somber. I found her in the front seat looking straight back at me, her eyes burning into mine and trying to convey something that I couldn’t get. She stared so seriously, so intently, and it felt so real. I couldn’t speak, and didn’t know what I should do. I still don’t.

I don’t know if her keenly analytical mind would attribute her appearance in the dream to the simple fact that she had been on my mind all day or if her whimsical side would indulge in the possibility of a visit from wherever she was. It doesn’t matter – I realized what her brother had alluded to in his last message – Alissa was still here with us, inside each of us, and all that we once shared we will continue to share even if she is no longer physically here. It was a small comfort but a comfort nonetheless. 

As the days passed and realization that she was gone began to sink in- grief is woefully tricky that way, especially when you don’t see someone but for once a year, if that – my despondency was checked by her brother’s reassuring idea that she did live on within each of us. 

Still, when I was in Boston for the first time after her death, I was not prepared for the wave of memories and sadness that washed over the warm amber floors of the condo. Where we had toasted so many happy events over the last twenty years – graduations and parties and sleep-overs and birthdays and Christmases – and those nights when it was just the two of us, when one or both of us had been too scared and too proud to call anyone else to say that we might actually be lonely. We didn’t need to say it. We just pulled out an extra set of sheets and some pillows and got through the night together.

In the silence of the empty condo, I light a candle with a box of matches she had given to me a couple of Christmas holidays ago. Like all of her gifts, it was a piece of art in itself, covered by an artistic scientific rendering of a pair of bees. On the marble table in the middle of the room was a red ceramic bowl, and inside the bowl was the note Alissa had attached to the Christmas gift she and Sophia had given to me last year. When I saw her handwriting, my heart caught in my chest. She had been there, right where I was standing, less than a year ago. We had no reason to believe she wouldn’t be there again, and part of me still couldn’t quite believe it. Even though I know it’s true, and my brain understands and comprehends that she will never be with us again, still I feel that she is present. Part of me will always feel that she is merely halfway around the world, still reading and studying and working. Still raising her daughter and finding her path, still seeking and searching for love, still living out her life in her own way… and then, briefly, I begin to cry.

Boston will be different from this point forward, and in a year filled with difficult changes, this may be one of the saddest. I put the box of matches away and place the note on the fireplace mantle. When everyone gathers a few days later for the Children’s Holiday Hour, it is for the most part a happy occasion, mainly because we don’t talk about it. I am still not ready for that, still not ready to process or think about what we have lost. I occupy myself with my niece and nephew, who unknowingly carve out a space of salvation so that I can safely navigate us through the weekend.

The bluster and havoc of the holidays is difficult enough distraction, and maybe a distraction is exactly what I need to keep me just off-balance enough to not be completely destroyed. When that is over, and when the silence of early January descends, and there is no snow to buffer the darkness, I begin to work through the grief.

In our home we have many vases. It’s not unusual for us to fill a number of them at one time, especially in the spring and summer. But only one of these can be considered a favorite, and it’s the one Alissa gave us for our wedding. No matter what the happy occasion, this is the vase that gets filled with flowers first. This is one of the many objects that will remind me of Alissa. This is what we will fill with flowers again, when the spring comes back and when the summer returns, and we can remember all that we once shared together. An end to new memories is not an end of old ones – it only emboldens them. I hold onto this and hope that it will be enough.

Dear Alissa – I’m beginning this letter to you in Savannah, Georgia. Sitting on a bench in Forsyth Park beneath a magnificent magnolia tree, Spanish moss dangling down from every branch, I try to find solace in the soft and quiet beauty here, because I miss you and I know I will never see you again. How strange to be in Savannah again and find out that you passed away, in the very place where I only found out you were sick a few months ago. Only a few months. My God, the world is quick and brutal. 

I think you would like it here. I can’t remember if you’ve ever been. It’s a clamp on my heart to think we cannot talk about it, to think I cannot ask you anything anymore, because I still have so many questions, and we still had so much to share. And there’s so much that has happened these past few years, and even just these past few months that I need to tell you…

I am thinking back to that day in Cambridge when we first met. Chris had brought me there to meet you, and as you stepped off the bus, not expecting me to be there, I shouted and screamed and ran up to you like a complete maniac. You looked startled when I wanted you to be amused. Skeptical when I wanted you to be instantly embracing. Aloof when I wanted you to be enamored. You were all the things that I was, and from that moment we got on splendidly. 

Somehow, even though you were his girlfriend, you became a friend in your own right. We were similar in so many ways, and where most people thought we were too blunt or cold, we each knew that it wasn’t coldness or aloofness – always the opposite. In a world where we would each be perpetually misunderstood – our concern mistaken for criticism, our false carelessness mistaken for apathy, and our self-protection mistaken for cruelty – we had each other. On many a cold Boston evening we would reach out to connect, and it was almost enough.

The world wasn’t always kind to you. It wasn’t always fair. We shared a kinship and a cynicism when it came to that. We’d been hurt enough. But when the right person came along – friend or lover – we would always give in to love. With all that went on in our heads, too often we led with our hearts. 

Even after you and Chris went your separate ways, we stayed friends. That’s not an easy thing to do, but we did it, because certain friends are meant to be together. Chris was too kind and sensitive to have a problem with it, and he did his best to stay close to you too. It was easier for me, for us. When things fell apart for you in California, you and your mother and daughter came to Boston to start again. You asked if you could stay with me for a night and of course the answer was yes. I still remember the thud in the middle of the night as Sophia rolled onto the floor and you scrambled to scoop her up and, in a panicked, muffled voice intoned her that it was ok, when all the while she went right on sleeping as if nothing had happened.

I don’t know how you did it – how you started over after all that had happened. I suppose you had no choice, and I hope I never know the terror of that. Yet even if I do, the example you forged will remain locked in my mind, a memory of the strength and survival that the best people can summon at their worst moments. I watched from afar as you and Sophia made your way through the next few years. Who would this child turn out to be? How would she grow into her space in the world? What would she make of her mother’s quirky, sequin-bedecked friend from so long ago?

We talked about these questions on the sporadic visits I made to Boston then. Every few months we would touch base, going out for drinks and dinner at a carefully-selected restaurant – a favorite pastime of ours that no one else quite shared or enjoyed as much as we did.

I think back to one of our first shared dinners at Geoffrey’s, when it was the anchor of the South End, when everything was still tottering between good and bad, when our lives could have gone either way as well. I’m so glad we were there together. Not even my closest friends could understand some of what I was going through in the way that you could. We shared a certain chilled view of the world, having been left wary after one too many bad experiences. And maybe we each did our part to set up such circumstances. I can say that now. I can admit those mistakes. I know you would too. At least I think you would. There is no consolation in not knowing for sure, and so I miss you even more. 

On this bench in Savannah, where I type these words into my phone and the world goes foolishly on around me, I think back to last April, when I was in this same city, experiencing this same beauty, and I remember exactly how this sad journey began. I was checking e-mail when I saw your name, and immediately I opened it because you always sent the best messages. This was different from all the rest, and you didn’t sugarcoat your diagnosis. I was out walking and just returning to the hotel when I opened it up and read it. Andy saw my face as I walked into the hotel room and asked what was wrong. I told him the news, then instantly wanted to cry. Even as I had hope in your strength, even as I couldn’t imagine a world without you in it, I went into the bathroom and let the grief pour out of me. Maybe you knew then. But you had a plan, and you had a goal, and you had a daughter who needed you around and you were not going to do anything other than survive. And once again I marveled at how you could do it.

In the later days of fall, as we readied for a return to Savannah, your occasional updates dwindled, and in that silence I felt worry and sadness. I thought about Sophia, and one of the first dinners we shared together in Boston. For a few years you would get a babysitter when we would meet – it was as much a night out for you as it was for me, and since you had been her sole caretaker, I understood (and quite frankly had no objection to an adult dinner between friends). When she was old enough to join in, I inadvertently picked a place that was across the street from a park with a giant jungle gym, and after dinner she climbed and swung and impressed me with how strong and agile she was. You were raising a warrior, and I was happy that she would have the power and grace that you did. She would survive. It was just you and her, and she was getting the skills and the love that she needed to make her own way. Yet again I was amazed and awestruck.

By November it had been several weeks since anyone had heard from you. I arrived in Savannah with Andy and my parents, going through my own emotional stuff, and I had made my way to the river by myself as the sun was just beginning to leave the sky. I remembered a sculpture in the area of a girl waving to the boats. She was waiting for her lover to return and she waved each day at each passing boat but he never came back. He never returned. Still she waved, arm perpetually raised, head held high in perpetual hope. We know what she does not. 

Chris texted me and asked if I could talk.

I knew right then that you were gone.

He didn’t need to say much, and what was there left to say? I couldn’t fathom his pain, not for all your shared history and time together. We spoke for a bit, then said goodbye, and I was alone in a strange beautiful place, as the river lapped the shore and evening lapped the edges of the sky. We’d never lost a friend like this. 

Walking away from the river, I follow a path that leads to steep stairs. There is a sign warning readers that these are historical steps, and to tread with great care. They are steep and thin and dangerous, and when wet the moss turns slippery. I pause before climbing them, stopping to examine the little ferns that poke out through the crevices and cracks in the ancient stones. This is how life exists and persists in the minutes after I learn you had died. How it could be is beyond my grasp, how it should be goes against every grain of my sadness. The entire wall is splattered with ferns, defying the vertical incline, the inclement and inhospitable environment, yet here they were absurdly insisting on surviving when greater beings went on dying. 

Up these treacherous steps I walk, through the squares of Savannah as dusk falls and the light goes out for the day. I find a single camellia bush in bloom – most of the ones I’d seen on the way down had only been in bud, but in a shady side street I find these magnificent blossoms and I inhale their perfume hoping to find some bit of calm, some signal that the world hasn’t gone dark forever. I don’t find it there. 

By the time I return to the hotel, there is no more light in the sky. Church bells toll somewhere nearby. A fierce sense of rage suddenly ignites in my heart. I’m mad at myself for not doing more. For not being closer. For not hugging you one more time last Christmas, for not insisting you stay, for not pulling Sophia a little bit tighter to me. 

Before I finish writing this letter in Forsyth Park, I pass a wedding party. There are children playing in a jungle gym, like we once watched Sophia doing in the South End. They are shouting with glee and laughing with abandon. Normally it would annoy me, today it just makes me want to cry. 

I will put this letter away until I can finish it properly.

I will say goodbye when I am ready to say goodbye.

I will hold you in my heart and pretend that I will see you again at Christmas.

I don’t know what else to do.

Certain winter weekends cry out for quiet. They demand a sense of stillness and tranquility. They want to whisper, to pad around softly on sock-covered feet, to wrap a cozy blanket around huddled shoulders. To hunker down with a book on a conversation couch, itself an exercise in coziness, the way it closes in on itself, creating its own nook and staving off the outside world. From this vantage point, one can watch the world go by beyond a bay window. The patches of snow grow and ebb, expanding and contracting as the winter days march onward.

On this couch, I set up shop. A cup of turmeric ginger tea sits on a marble coaster. A cone of white sage incense sends up curls of calming smoke ribbons. A piece by Max Richter plays in the background – the music that will inform this entire weekend.

It is a time of contemplation. Of consideration. A time for healing too, if we can reach that far. I’m still not sure we are there yet. Yet I’ve learned to accept that too, to find a sense of peace in the not knowing. Of this moment alone I am sure, and then it passes, and then the next. This is the way we make our way through the winter.

There are dips and peaks in the daily trajectory of our lives, and before freaking out at either tip or trough, I’ve learned to step back and pause to better gauge a more comprehensive collection of days and weeks. Unfortunately, what gets the most attention, and the posts that I tend to write, are those which touch on deeper and darker issues. “What’s the point of sitting down and notating your happiness?” Madonna once asked during her ‘Like A Prayer’ era. I tend to agree with her on that. However, it gives a false image of unhappiness and dissatisfaction here, as much as I try to temper things with eye/guy candy and hunks of the day and frivolous fashion and witty/shitty banter. Hopefully you are understanding that, but in the event that we are all getting bogged down in the tragic, let this be a moment where we recognize that the overall trajectory of the past few months has been one moving toward happiness, and a healthier way of living. That can upset people who don’t deal well with change, or who want the casual friends they have to stay quietly in whatever box they’ve allotted or created in their mind. My good friends, and the family members who know me well, understand such nuances, and are happy to see anyone work toward improving their lifestyle. “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind” and all that other Dr. Seuss wisdom and shit.

The past few weeks – months, actually – have been spent in improving things from the inside out. I’ve improved my diet and exercise regime (still trying to make that trajectory trend upward), I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, and I’ve been seeing a therapist. That’s a lot of changes in a relatively short time, and even though they’ve all been long overdue, such a dramatic shift on multiple fronts has resulted in a couple of panic attacks and a withdrawal from social events. That was actually a good thing, especially during the holidays, when a reduction in socializing made for a more-bearable season. I will take some of that to heart next year when the holidays roll around again. It worked out well in reducing stress and all that stuff that builds up to make it difficult to focus on getting close to the people that matter.

As for how it’s been going in the post-holiday weeks, I’d say it’s getting much better. There’s still a long way to go, and one of the main things I’ve come to appreciate is a change in how I view the process of improvement. Rather than setting a big huge life-changing goal and detailed plan for the next year (something of which I was once guilty – I’m a Virgo after all, a man with a need for a plan) I’m learning to set up smaller goals for a day. It makes for a lot of little accomplishments. Lots of happy successes. And I feel happier because of them.

Standing in the parking lot of the supermarket and talking with an old friend (because that’s what adults do I guess) we lamented the fact that we hadn’t seen each other at a party in a very long time. In that very moment, I posited the idea that no one throws parties anymore is because we are all in touch via social media, and there’s less of a need to get together. There was something sad in the realization and admission.

For many years, there was a series of parties that constituted our holiday social season. It began with a pre-Thanksgiving get-together at Bob’s in the heart of Albany. We would cram ourselves into his apartment overlooking Washington Park and kick off the holidays at a Friendsgiving gathering of sorts, before we all headed off to our respective family fiascos. Then Rob M. and we would coordinate weekends for our respective holiday parties, and finally Rob C. would close out the year and the season with his New Year’s Eve bash.

This past Christmas there were no parties. Yet we’ve all been in touch via FaceBook or Twitter or Instagram so it doesn’t feel like we’ve missed anything. In fact, it feels like I know more about my friends’ comings and goings than I did when we would regularly go out and see people. There is a continuous social gathering online whenever we decide to plug in, a perpetual party that takes place in all corners of the world and at all hours of the day or night. It offers instant if tenuous connection, a joining of the masses, and a communal get-together that gives us all a false sense of social camaraderie. For the introverted among us, it is in many ways a relief – a way to be social without actually being social.

Yet part of me misses those parties, and it’s why we haven’t entirely given up on them just yet. There’s something about seeing friends in person that will never be as nourishing or enriching as connecting via text or FaceTime. There is an intimacy and immediacy, and the shared moment that brings two people together in a way that no computer or phone screen could ever replicate. The richness of a three-dimensional being, the scent of someone’s sillage, the way that eyes look back at you – these things can’t be conveyed no matter how many online lookers gaze your way. 

So here’s to the people who still party, the people who still bring other people together, and the personal connection that reminds us we are not alone in the dark, staring at a phone or a computer, lost in the land of virtual mediocrity. Go on now, get out of here. Close this page and whatever device you’re reading it on and look around you. Stand up and stretch, breathe deeply in of the world around you. That is what’s real. That is what matters.

If I wanted to convey my general attitude and life-view in a GIF or two, look no further than the ones presented here. Of course they are from Madonna, who manages to channel ennui, glamour, haughtiness, dismissal, vanity, snark, impatience, humor, and defiance in a couple of glorious eye-rolls at society. The first is from the Blonde Ambition era, and the second is from her pre-MDNA tea-sipping ‘W.E.’ period. Both touch my heart and tickle my funny bone.

“The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics. ” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A January thaw wreaked havoc with the gardens and emotions, accompanied as it was with strong winds and much-higher-than-usual temperatures, yet I managed to weather it without the traditional emotional mayhem. Maybe I’m getting better at this. Previous January thaws have thrown me for loops and whirligigs and dizzying spirals. I tended to grab onto the moods and shifts of those around me rather than holding true to myself. Despite appearances to the contrary, I can be pretty stalwart when it matters.

The earth teaches these lessons in its own way. It sometimes takes a few turns around the sun for me to get it – I take my time in learning certain things, and that’s all right. The longer it takes to learn a lesson, the longer I find it stays with me.

“Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.” –Paul Theroux

One of those life lessons is that of forgiveness. I’ve had trouble with this one for decades, and it still doesn’t come naturally or easily to me. Because forgiveness, in most cases, means that someone has done you wrong. After a while, one gets tired of having to forgive. Repeated incidents that require forgiveness tend to reveal underlying attacks which, in their repetition, lend the rational person to determine it may not all be entirely unintended. But I’m getting ahead of myself, talking in vague ambiguities, when winter should be hard and steadfast and crystalline. January thaws muck that up, but I wouldn’t give up a 60 degree day with sun for anything right now. We will live with the emotional mayhem. Winter weather will return soon enough.

“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” –Edith Sitwell

One of the things that I’ve admired about Justin Trudeau is that he is human. He’s made mistakes, apologized for them, and admits he is not perfect. We all will have our issues with politicians, no matter how seemingly good they occasionally appear. This post, however, is not to delve into anything as serious and deep as all that. This is all about Justin Trudeau’s beard. Where do you stand on it?

Personally, I dig it. I dig the gray (ahem). I dig the gravity it lends, and the casual flair that is somehow peppered with distinction. It’s how a beard should work. It’s almost enough to grant him a second Hunk of the Day crowning. Almost.

When you get temperatures in the 60’s in January, it tends to make people a little giddy and crazy and out of sorts, and when that coincides with the full moon, well, it’s a wonder we’re all still here. Somehow, though, we made it through the wilderness. One week done, another one begun. This is how we find our way through the winter. That and buying flowers for the husband. Hence these roses, given as a thank you for the rather impressive feat of Andy fixing the snowblower on his own, thanks to nothing more than a YouTube tutorial. On with this rollercoaster of a recap…

There were moments of silliness.

There were no photos please.

There was a retro radio show. 

There was the promise of a new project.

There was this fragrance.

There was a crazy good dinner I made myself. 

There was a room for two.

There was Luke Evans in a skimpy Speedo.

There was a sprinkling of sparkle.

There was a message of body positivity.

There was a Sweet Sixteen birthday for this very website. 

There was a moment of contemplation.

This month marks the start of the 16^thyear of existence for ALANILAGAN.com, which makes me feel like a grumpy old Dad spewing grumpy old Dad jokes as his kid peels out of the driveway while texting. Thankfully, this website behaves much better than any teenager ever could. It does exactly as I say, adhering to precisely what I program, and doesn’t give me any lip or sass aside from the occasional error that is more the provider’s fault than anyone else’s. Quite the opposite of any unruly offspring, this website has provided a steady anchor no matter what crazy fucking shit is going on in my personal/family life, offering a single sanctuary on which I can perpetually rely, unlike just about everything and everyone else. There’s something special in that, and I don’t take it lightly. Not after sixteen years. We’ve been through too much together.

Is it strange to anthropomorphize a website? Of course it is. Yet strange is what we do best here. There aren’t many personal blogs that have lasted this long, so I can basically do what I want. Though to be honest that freedom has been in place from the very beginning of our journey back in 2003. The world was very different then, but what has remained the same is the desire to express myself as creatively and crazily as I feel fit, without censorship or limits. That may result in a voice that will never be palatable for mainstream/mass consumption, but my words are basically harmless, and the nudity is never full-frontal. Anyone who claims this place is pornographic must cringe at all the porn on the average sitcom. They have no place here anyway, as we have an acceptance policy of all people, and they would not be comfortable with such a stance. They are always welcome to join us, I just doubt it would be their cup of tea. We get many passing visitors like that, and I’m always glad for the brief time they spend here. I’m more grateful for those who deign to return, no matter how few and far between they may be. This is my sweet thank you to those folks, the ones who come back on the regular, who put up with my trying posts some days, my nonsensical posts other days, and the general ridiculousness that populates all the rest of the remaining days.

Anyway, please come back to see how this sweet sixteen year unfurls. If it’s anything like a real-life sixteen-year-old, get ready for the drama. You know I will do my best to bring it.