Just in case you haven’t seen enough of me in my underwear, a brief post culled from shots rediscovered while on the hunt for something else. A happy accident, as I was lacking for a post tonight. These also feature my supposed “favorite” Madonna t-shirt.
Every spring
among
the ambiguities
of childhood
the hillsides grew white
with the wild trilliums.
I believed in the world.
Oh, I wanted
to be easy
in the peopled kingdoms,
to take my place there,
but there was none
that I could find
shaped like me.
So I entered
through the tender buds,
I crossed the cold creek,
my backbone
and my thin white shoulders
unfolding and stretching.
From the time of snow-melt,
when the creek roared
and the mud slid
and the seeds cracked,
I listened to the earth-talk,
the root-wrangle,
the arguments of energy,
the dreams lying
just under the surface,
then rising,
becoming
at the last moment
flaring and luminous –
the patient parable
of every spring and hillside
year after difficult year.
This is a filler post. I haven’t made one of these in a while, trying valiantly to give more content to this blog, but I may go back to filling in the blanks with photos. Spring is a busy time…
It’s not something I usually do. Only on certain nights, when I need an extra boost, or have had a tough day, do I indulge in such fragrant indulgence. My gateway into this world of naughty nose-tickling was a bottle of Hermes, used on an evening following a steamy but rainy summer day. It was so exquisite, I sprayed a little on before going to bed one night. It wasn’t to entice or impress, it wasn’t to turn on or turn out – it was a simple act of solitary enjoyment, a self-celebratory act of pampering that, contrary to wide-held belief, I don’t often allow myself. (This blog is a repository of all the times that I do, so it may seem that way.)
The other night, after a weekend of Easter activities and family gatherings, I wanted to mark the occasion and extend the moment a bit, so I looked through my collection of Tom Ford Private Blend samples and dabbed a little ‘Black Violet’ on my wrists. It’s a fragrance I wouldn’t purchase or request in a full bottle – far too sweet for everyday use, and not really my style  – but perfect for a special spring night. Remembering the joy Andy and I found in our family was a special-enough moment to merit Mr. Ford’s handiwork, and the vision of great swaths of sweet violets in sun-dappled light sent me off to a dreamy slumber.
As with most of the Private Blends, the floral aspect is imbued with a darker edge, something a little sexier and more mysterious than the delicate violet would deign to reveal on her own. Such shyness, when removed, is an integral part of its eventual enjoyment. The most flagrant exhibitionists are only successful when aware of the anti-thesis of their showmanship.
A few days ago Andy posted a photo of Ogunquit, taken on the Marginal Way, that immediately set my heart to missing that gorgeous seaside town. We’ll be there in a few weeks, and I cannot wait. Nowhere else is there such a sense of peace and calm such as we have found in Ogunquit. Our May stay also marks the start to our summer season, and there are traditionally lilacs in bloom (or slightly before or after that glorious spell). In all respects, even in years when it’s done nothing but rain, Ogunquit has offered us respite and relaxation, as well as some badly-needed, and increasingly rare, time together, as husband and husband. In fact, it’s a toss-up as to what I love best about it – the sea, the seafood, or the time with Andy.
Their color spoke to me first – the scarlets and salmons, the serpent-like tongues of yellow lapping toward the edges – and then the softest gentlest green of the silver-tinged leaves. They were the ultimate antidote to the longest winter. They pushed all thoughts of that season far away, clearing the way for summer. It was the only outcome. How happy that the tulip heralded such a direction.
Second was their fragrance. Nothing overpowering, nothing too cloying or sweet. In fact, nothing to write much about at all, but it was the scent of spring, the scent of pure joy. It was not something that Tom Ford would try to bottle, it was not going to multiply by waves of bath gel or body lotion, it was a subtle smell, with just the slightest bit of spice to work its trance-like effect.
Finally, there was their history. I love a flower with a tale to tell. Especially one as twisted and tumultuous as the tulip’s. People paid fortunes for a single tulip bulb. A bit of feverish supply-and-demand madness, a crippling inflation, and a blight or two along the way – and all in the name of a single beautiful bloom. The power of the flower.
Some beautiful things defy logic and reason. Some things cannot be priced or valued in any such hum-drum manner. How to monetize the sublime? And why would you bother?
The moment you sully something so pure is the moment it starts to deteriorate.
Such prettiness demands a lighter touch, an effortless brushing by the merest of breaths. It is meant to be inhaled, like the purest of perfume, in ethereal fashion, unfettered by clumsy hands or the clutch of a greedy child.
I didn’t always understand this. My hands picked them from the garden – to covet, to cherish, to hold close. They fought back with their pollen, committing suicide with their fallen petals, or simply expiring in a wilted, lamentable heap of decomposing tissue. I too fell prey to the tulip craze – and I’d do it all over again to come so close to beauty.
These are Tom Ford‘s Chesterfield Floral Embroidered Silk Tassel Jacquard Evening Slippers. They merit such a lengthy moniker because they are priced at $4120. [Gulp.] That’s a bit much for evening slippers, even if you are Tom Ford. But if I had that kind of money, I’d totally get them because they are, quite simply, perfection.
And even if I didn’t have the money, I would toy with the idea of finding a way to get them (selling an organ?) because they are so pretty it would be like investing in a work of art.
PS – They also come in blue, for a fraction of the price of the pink ($3770.) But I do prefer pink…
Having finished off the final days of Lent with a Good Friday flourish and an Easter Bunny Sunday, the week in which I started a new job came to a rather quiet close. We finally had a spell of sunny, decent weather, whereby I could finally begin work on the winter clean-up. Thus far I’ve loaded 25 lawn bags of debris and leaves from the backyard, and I’m only about halfway there. My back will verify, but it will be worth it. Onto the week behind…
Shifting gears from the sexy to the sweet, a pair of posts featuring the Ilagan twins set the cute dial to high, with this tease, and this delivery. The kiddie hi-jinks continued here and here, because with twins it’s always double the fun.
Music, man flesh, and memories, accompanied by the magnificent Ella Fitzgerald and Norah Jones. Oversexed again…
An incredibly shirtless set of Zac Efron GIFs that set fantasies on fire.
Dreaming Until…
Giving rise to things other than Jesus, the Hunks of the Day included Nick Kenkel, Gerrad Bohl, Matt Cardle, Noah Wright and CJ Richards.
Every gardener goes about their winter clean-up a little differently. Some start at one end of the yard and work neatly and methodically across the expanse until it’s all done. Some dabble a little here, and a little there, picking and choosing tasks as they present themselves. I’m somewhere in-between. I like to alternate tasks so as not to set winter-weary muscles into shock or spasm – a little raking, then a little bagging – a bit of pruning, then some soil amending. Then I’ll do a methodical sweep from one end of the yard to another to finish it all off.
This year we’re a bit behind, and usually by this time I’d have had a number of workable days in which the clean-up would already have been accomplished. When I walked out into the backyard and surveyed the sad state of affairs, I had a strange moment of wanting to give up. I contemplated not doing a damn thing, and letting the gardens and yard go all ‘Grey Gardens’ this year. With a new job and other responsibilities coming up, I felt a little overwhelmed. But I put on the gloves, unfolded the first paper lawn bag, and began as I always begin – pruning the sweet Autumn clematis to within a foot of the ground and removing last year’s twining stems from the arbor. You never when a spring or summer might be the last.
Another spring clean-up has begun, and the long, happy road to another warm season stretches far into the distance. Embrace it ~ summers are not endless, and spring is even less so.
You monsters love to see me in tears, so here’s the annual Easter Bunny shot, trotted out again to bring you your yearly dose of pleasure in my discomfort. It remains Suzie’s most favorite picture of me, and for years it stood framed in her house. (How and why anyone would send it to other people is beyond me. It’s a veritable photographic record of how to torture a child.)
At the mall the other night, I looked over to see a line snaking its way toward an explosion of fake flowers and plastic grass, and in the center of it all a sign that read simply, ‘THE BUNNY.” Those poor kids, I thought, with a rare moment of compassion for the little people. All they want is the chocolate non-animated version of that thing. I will say that the Easter Bunny has come a long, friendlier way from the horrifying form he or she used to take when I was peeing in my pants having my picture taken with the beast.
I’ve also come a long way in reconciling my initial traumatic experience, going so far as to approach an Easter Bunny at a Boston brunch last year and conquering the fear. Still, part of me will always recoil at this holiday, and I’m glad you get such joy out of it. Now hop along, there’s nothing more for you to see here.
“Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’s doing – that isn’t important? If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself ‘My flower’s up there somewhere…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
There was a river rushing by, and on the other side of it a city rose in the twilight. On our shore a wedding party assembled, all in happy, colorful costumes, all joy and unabashed love. There would be dancing and embracing and kissing, and the moving silence of a bell that could never be rung. Here a magical horse and accompanying chariot awaited to whisk us away to an evening of enchantment, where beneath a blanket we could hold hands and sigh. There was no way to stop the rush of a river in spring, nor a reason to try.
She sings songs of love, songs of heartbreak, and songs of longing. She will sing your song, if you ask nicely, if she knows it, and she will smile and nod when it’s over. You will thank her with folded green paper tossed into a glass goblet, with your smile and your hands brought together, and waves of love and appreciation – because that sort of thing matters, that sort of thing gets through. She will sing a song that accompanies you as you cross the river, and return to your world, and then she will sing you to sleep.
When the song ends, and you’re alone in the quiet, you may find reason and want to cry. It’s all right if you do, though better if there’s someone to hold you. Well, not better, for there’s an unfair stigma attached to solitude, but different. It is possible to dance alone, but it’s so much friendlier with two.
When the dance is done, and the world has stilled, and all seems ready for slumber, you will slip into the sheets of a perfectly-made bed. Maybe someone will tuck you in, whisper sweet nothings, and hold you until the morning. Or maybe you will just dream until…
Terrain that from above, aboard the hurled
steel spore, appears suffused with vivid
ravelings, the highways’ mimic of veinings
underground, the fossil murk we’re all
propelled by, for whatever term: as with
magenta freshets of Texas redbud, curled
among dun oaks fed on by yellowing nuggets
of old mistletoe, the sometime passport
to sulphurous Avernus (the golden leafage
rustling in light wind), though here we hugely
deafen to the hiss of Nemesis: so turns
Those who seem to be the most popular are usually the ones who are the most lonely. It’s the reason they’re popular – they’ve made themselves so in an effort to never be alone. I’m too honest to be very popular, and up until now I’ve never been lonely, but I think I may be starting to feel it a bit. The truth is, I’m more often alone these days than with people. Usually by design, but sometimes against my subtle wishes.
And so I wait. For the feeling to pass, for the loneliness to subside, for what I once knew to return to me – because once upon a time I was all right, and it was okay to be waiting. There wasn’t restlessness, there wasn’t discontent, there was me – alone and waiting.
Sometimes we have to be a home to ourselves. Sometimes we have to stoke our own fire, tend to our own hearth, and be satisfied, happy even, with the wait. Sometimes the wait is all there is.
Once in a while, though, maybe once in a lifetime, someone comes along and ends the waiting. And they are home.
You can
die for it –
an idea,
or the world. People
have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound
to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But
this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought
of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises
under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it
whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.
As the high holidays kick into gear, I’m going easy on posts for the moment, as I’m starting a new job and want to focus on that, as well as getting ready for spring and trying to be healthier and happier – both of which require effort and work and living in a world off of the computer. That doesn’t mean I won’t be checking in regularly.
The easiest way to keep abreast is by that social media triumvirate of FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram – each of which I try to update throughout the day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. That holy trio often gives you a better pay by play of what’s going on with me than the lengthy diatribes and hot hunks you may find here. So friend me or follow me and we’ll have a splendid time.
