Out of the corner of my vision, from the vantage of the dining room window, a little cloud of blue caught my attention, and I knew immediately what had happened. This has been a summer where I was largely absent from the garden, and those times when I did make it our back, my mind wandered, unable to focus, unable to keep an internal journal of what was coming into bloom, what needed to be moved, what required watering, etc. Most summers, I’m out there multiple times a day; a gardener’s greatest weapon against trouble is a watchful eye. 

As soon as this little blue cloud appeared, however, I knew what it was. I planted several hydrangea shrubs over twenty years ago in the shaded backyard area where this bloom suddenly beckoned. “Don’t forget me!” it seemed to shout in a little voice. “I’m not done yet!” 

No, you beautiful thing, you are far from done. Part of me wanted to weep for having missed the journey to this point – so much fun is in the anticipation, the slow development of the mop-head as it first appears in compact and shriveled form, only to gain in size and shade. Right up until the end, we’re never quite sure what color these will take. Maybe there are still enough iron nails acidifying the soil at its base – whatever the case, this is a brilliant color – the very color that made me rush to get these shrubs into the ground during that first summer at our home. 

For years – almost decades actually – they didn’t flower much. The past few summers, however, have found them throwing out a decent number of these gorgeous flower-heads. Patience is a virtue that sometimes finds reward. 

It’s National Coming Out Day, and if you’re part of that you have my heartfelt admiration and applause. I’ve done it already (not that we don’t have to keep doing it), but it was so long ago that it doesn’t cross my mind the way it once did. Seems to be less of an issue in the happy circles in which I travel now, though I’m aware it’s worse in other places. (We see you, Florida, and we are still capital G-A-Y.) That said, I’m not feeling very much like fighting back today. Let the young people take the torch and fly, my pretties, fly. 

No, I’m feeling a little down thanks to a recent trip excavating photos from the past year for our year-end photo books. Collecting them in one place and seeing the past year unfold again, all that we knew was coming, and all that we didn’t know – it left me with the sadness and ache that losing a loved one leaves in their wake. 

And then there’s the news: our own political turmoil, and the burgeoning war in the Middle East. So much wickedness, so much madness, so much blame and death – and it makes our petty problems feel even more petty. It’s an icky place to be, an icky thing to feel. 

I move to my meditation space, lowering myself to the ground, feeling the floor beneath me, seeking something solid, something to hold onto or sink into, and there I begin the deep breathing. It takes me through the next twenty minutes, lightening the worry, expanding the plain of peace – that empty place where, if I concentrate and focus and inhabit only this moment of breathing, the emptiness becomes a relief. It helps. It helps a little. I will not ask for more.

Our side yard has become embarrassingly overgrown in the last two years. I meant to get a handle on it this summer, but other events prevented that. Now it is an eyesore and a problem, and I still can’t summon the ambition or drive to do much about it. Surveying it the other day, I noticed we had a stranglehold of bittersweet vine rambling up a pine, so robust that it had gone to seed. This invasive species is a nightmare, popping up anywhere and everywhere, soon entwining itself around whatever crosses its path. It comes with one saving grace: at this time of the year its yellow berries signal the time to cut them if you’d like a fall bouquet or decoration. The thing here is crucial – it must be cut before the berries open, or they will fall apart and to pieces inside. 

Once the branches are cut and brought indoors, provided the berries haven’t yet opened, they will open up and reveal this gorgeous orange fruit, which upon closer examination lends it the look of miniature pumpkins. Nature likes to echo her pretty creations, and despite the negative aspects of this vine, this fall I’m taking the pretty and worrying about the mess outside later.  

Not all of fall burns with the fiery bombast of 1000 suns – some days are muted and soft, with skies of gray and flowers of subdued form and shade. It’s the best way of transitioning into a winter that is usually bleak and barren – to go from super-saturated flowers and leaves to shades of gray is a cruel fate indeed. Let’s enjoy these days of transition, and look back with this weekly recap. 

A letter to my Godson, written for no apparent reason other than to say hello.

It was October 3rd.

Returning to insignificance.

Birds of prey on a magnificent morning.

Best believe I’m still bejeweled.

The absence of a father at his final resting place.

The presence of a father in every place. 

Forlorn but not forgotten.

Tom Ford animal underwear.

Back in the pool: the healing and feeling of water. 

Side-bar conversations.

Putting the pool to bed in one final skinny-dip.

Ho-ho hints.

Red – bright flaming red.

Dazzlers of the Day included John Mulaney and Nicole Scherzinger.

Perhaps I’ll regret wishing for cooler weather, but right now I could use with a bit of a cool down,  global warming be damned. It’s fall, and it should feel like it. While I don’t begrudge anyone their warmer weather preferences, this year I’m longing for the requisite colder weather that puts a sharper jaunt in one’s stroll, pricking the senses with a morning chill, and setting nights up for more comfortable slumber. 

This moon appeared the other night, portending the harvest that we’ve already had – I wish to reap no more – and it felt cooling, and calming. The moon doesn’t always do that, and usually the tumult it elicits is internal, which is always worse. This time around, I wrangled its energy, my focus like a lasso around its neck – wherever the moon’s neck might proverbially be – and I set the harness with a vice-like grip, riding this pony into the night, over the river and through the woods on the only path that’s ever taken us through fall. 

Despite what the stores would have us think, it is a bit too early to be doing any sort of serious holiday shit, but I previewed this candle in ‘Mulled Cider and Fir’ and it’s a keeper. Carrying just enough fruitiness to signify fall, and only the slightest hint of fir to signal the onslaught of Christmas, it’s a lovely scent to offer the most teasing glimpse of what shouldn’t begin until next month at the earliest. 

It set the attic scene for a rainy day of bleak dreariness, when a storm system set up residence for the entirety of a Saturday. A batch of cardamom and cinnamon rolls, from scratch no less, yeast-infections be damned, was in the oven, and the pictured candle was throwing light and pungent fragrance around the place. It made for a cozy picture on a day when coziness felt in short supply. 

This was good practice for the winter to come. 

Nightswimming…

…deserves a quiet night…

Somewhere a hidden moon lies in wait, promising to shield the entire sun come next spring. On this night, only a soft chorus of insects and amphibians offers the slightest accompaniment, while in my head this song sounds – piano notes falling like water, dripping with heartache and longing.

The best music makes you so happy that you cry, tears of joy that the body releases while wondering what it’s doing. It is that wonder that unlocks a little bit of the universe, a part that it keeps closed to all but the most sensitive – the small recompense for feeling things a little too keenly, because I’m not sure we’re meant to feel things like that. 

…I forgot my shirt at the water’s edge

The moon is low tonight…

Summer ended a while ago. Time moves differently now, time now is numbness. Time is staring blankly into space, unable to focus on anything, as much a deterioration of the eyes as a depletion of any drive or desire to see at all. Darkness and murkiness offer solace beneath the water, and I want so badly for it to be some sort of healing balm that I take their invitation to dive down deeper. Sadness and shadow imbuing everything now, and everything later. 

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night

I’m not sure all these people understand

It’s not like years ago

The fear of getting caught

The recklessness in water

They cannot see me naked

These things they go away 

We cannot go back, we cannot go back, we cannot go back. How terrifying that it must be so, to only move forward, how trapping and tricking and troubling it feels. A human like an animal, yet thinking we feel and know so much more than we ever do. A human trying to return to childhood – vain, impossible mission – stupid, wasteful hope. We cannot go back. We cannot go back. We cannot go back. 

Chanted like a mantra – cadence of sound, repetition of madness – set it to music, set it to fire, set it to rain and hell and the fuzzy mind of a person caught underwater, life snuffed out in quick mortal panic.  

Nightswimming…

…remembering that night…

One night in a summer almost forgotten a girl took my hand, led me into a bit of the woods, wanting me to touch her heart, wanting me to feel something I could never feel. We looked out at a dark river that barely distinguished itself from the night, danger and peril and the stirrings of love – all escaping my notice or care. Cold too, if we had been close enough to pull at its ripples, if we’d been that brave.

One night in a winter barely remembered a boy let my hand fall from his for the last time. Walking away from a life I thought we’d share, taking a different path from mine, the journey suddenly and irrevocably becoming the journeys – what once was one was now two, as it was in the beginning – and then the prayer I’d learned as a child – is now, and ever shall be the world without end. 

You I thought I knew you

You I cannot judge

You I thought you knew me

This one laughing quietly

Underneath my breath

Nightswimming…