Arriving at the midway point of January, we have made the first noticeable chunk of progress through winter. I spent this past weekend in Boston with the twins, and will get into our adventures later this week. For now, a look back at what came before (and a sneak peek of the twins at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)…

Shriveled balls, because it’s winter.

Minty-fresh balls.

A gratuitous foot fetish post.

Winter precious.

Vital floral respite.

C’est mon plaisir.

Greenery out, greenery in.

The lashes of Jaxon Layne.

Return to paradise.

A morning of intention.

I’ve been A.I. since I was born, and this AI Portrait filter is absolutely ludicrous.

Dazzlers of the Day included Cheryl L. Johnson, Nathan Lee Graham, and Jeremy Pope.

The ‘AI Portrait’ filter is all the rage on various social media sites, and while I typically abhor a filter, this one has proven especially ridiculous in all the ways it distorts and translates a photo into a completely different image. It sent me down a rabbit hole of possibilities – is this how the world views us? Is this more in line with how we appear to others than how we appear in the mirror? Is this how I should have been wearing my hair when it wasn’t so gray? Lots of questions, lots of musings… and speaking of musing, my new musical muse Mia just sent over a few songs of inspiration, including this one entitled ‘One More Hour’ which posits themes of time and love and all the good stuff that goes along with a properly-examined life. 

Just a moment, right before all the song and dance
Wasn’t brave enough to tell you
But there ain’t gonna be another chance
It’s not long until all that I have and everything’s still
The minutes are racin’

Whatever I’ve done, I did it for love
I did it for fun – couldn’t get enough
I did it for fame but never for money
Not for houses, Not for her
Not for my future children

The music is a challenge – as much as the images are – as much as any piece of art can be. The ideas of time and love, and hurt and pain, and how many times we get up and do it all over again – it all mashes together as the cacophony of this song winds its way along a wavy trajectory. 

How could I love again?
How could I ever ask for more?
And to the road ahead
Into a life I can’t ignore, how could I love again?
(Move on) how can I walk this path for sure?
(Lose her) with no more time to spend
(Move on) I know the answer more and more

As long as I can, Long as I can
Spend some time alone
As long as I can, Long as I can
Be the man I am

The funk of the past few months is something I have acknowledged. A little rut, a sunken stretch when the distance of friends suddenly aligned, as if someone simply switched off my light and no one saw me anymore. I didn’t fight it, didn’t rage against the quiet onslaught of being left to my own devices, with just Andy by my side. Part of me actively encouraged it, reveling in this alone time, daring to hint at the sort of friendship drama not seen since ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ (without all the bloody appendages). 

Oh, life is strange
For one more hour, I can rage
For one more hour

As long as I can (lose her)
As long as I can (move on)
Spend some time alone
As long as I can (lose her)
As long as I can (move on)
Remember who I am

As long as I can (lose her)
As long as I can (move on)
Spend some time alone
As long as I can
As long as I can (how could I love again?)
Be the man I am

At the end of the day, setting the alarm on my phone for three separate times, ten minutes apart, I curl up in bed, a pillow between my knees to bring sleep as soon as possible. My mother once told me that was a trick the hospitals used for overnight patients who couldn’t get to sleep. When the days are filled with quiet rumination, it sometimes makes for nights that begin in sleepless fashion. I stare at these silly AI creations and lose myself in characters I never was but perhaps wanted to be, in days that I thought I spent well, even if they were mostly filled with the wasteful abandon of youth. I listen to this song, suggested by the daughter of two good friends, and I think of how she is just beginning her journey,  on the verge of entering those years where we become who we are going to become. Those years, and that person I was, feel as intimate and foreign to me as these photos. It’s like seeing myself in a strange new light, as when someone captures an angle of you in a photo that you didn’t realize was being taken, and you see what others see for the first time, and it’s jarring and disturbing and wondrous – it shifts perspective, it alters the interior image. 

Just a minute, fella, right before you go out there
All your voices said you wouldn’t last a minute bare
One more hour and you’ll know your life is one to share
Just a minute, baby, right before we go from here
All those people said we wouldn’t last a minute near
I’m with you and I could roll into another year

These orchids seemed to wink at me as I made my weekly pilgrimage to the nearby greenhouse – a reminder of the sort of paradise that feels far away in mid-January. They provided a bit of escapism, like this Shirley Horn song that is so gorgeously transportive. Close your eyes, give it a listen, and let your own ideas of paradise parade before the mind’s eye. We can fly…

It’s not a bad song to see us through a Saturday in winter. 

Andy always waits at least until the Epiphany (or as he puts it ‘Little Christmas’) before taking our Christmas tree down, and it’s a tradition I’ve come to appreciate and embrace. As long as it’s out before all the needles drop, and as long as I don’t have to take part in its sad deconstruction, I’m fine with this timetable. It extends the light of the season, which this year I needed a bit as I was not feeling particularly Christmas-like until it was practically over. At that point I paused beneath the tree as I began my daily meditation, inhaling its delicious pine scent, and marveling at the way the lights and ornaments cast their enchanting spell. Anyone can get excited about the tree when it first goes up, when the season is fresh and new – it takes a different kind of person to embrace it during its last days. And it takes a very special kind of person to take it down with the honor and care that Andy uses every year. I sense that it’s a ritual for him.

He removes each fragile ornament, wrapping every single one with a single tissue, and carefully places them back in their container. Then he unwinds the lights from the branches, before adroitly rolling them back up so they can be unfurled with ease the next year. He goes about the process slowly, with purpose and deliberation, and I see how it is how own meditative practice – a way of putting another year to bed, a way to remember his own childhood and youth, a way to bring back memories of those he has loved and lost. 

For my part, I will miss the greenery, and the soft light that the tree provided to our living room. To make up for it, I will seek out greenery – such as this bouquet of eucalyptus branches, or a vase of silvery-green junipers from the yard – to take the place of the missing tree. It’s a little effort that makes a difference in these dim days of January, when so much of what the heart yearns for now – green, verdant warmth – is in such short supply. 

When the doldrums of January stretch out before us, when we are knee-deep in the weeds of winter, I find solace in any greenhouse within reach. That means weekly trips to Faddegon’s or some place similar where I can get lost in the lush, tropical environment of a greenhouse, surrounded by plants and flowers and beauty as a balm for the winter-ravaged heart. Last weekend I brought the twins here, and though they seemed quizzical as to what we were doing, they merrily went with the flow as if they had a choice. 

If I teach them anything, I hope it will be an appreciation and love for nature and plants, and the peace found from immersing yourself in their presence, even in the endless landscape of a winter that finds us all bundled up and itching to get out. 

When it doesn’t rock us too much, winter makes a good moment for reflection. Keeping that lesson in mind, I sit at the dining room table before the night of day arrive and type out these words. The light from the computer screen and a dim overhead lamp guide me, and I add the light of a candle for something soft and flickering. Before COVID alerted the world to the fact that most of us could successfully work at home, these early morning hours used to be the only time I was alone in the house. There was always a sort of solace I found in solitude, provided I could hear Andy’s occasional rustling in the bedroom. Present but distant, the way I’ve operated, the only way I knew. 

The click and gentle hum of the heater as it kicks on alerts me to the wakening of the world, and soon it will be time to shower and face the day. For now, however, there is only darkness, and the endless expansive possibilities of a winter’s day. 

My feet are in piss-poor shape. Rough and chapped, the heels cry out for moisture and care that I just don’t have to give. The toenails are even worse – ragged and shredded, because instead of properly clipping them I tend to just tear off the ends in idle moments of barefoot daydreaming. Even in the summer, when sandals and poolside lounging might put them on semi-public display, they don’t get much more pampering than that, and it shows. 

Last year, however, with the happy advent of my first manicure, I was also told to concentrate on my feet as well, and while I’m not quite ready for my first pedicure, it’s on the distant horizon, so I need to get my soles in order. To that end, I’m starting with the heels and moving outward, beginning with some basic moisturizing lotion before sliding into my socks. It’s a little moment of self-care and indulgence that I’m simply going to embrace in my middle-age. Life affords a few more comforts in consolation for growing older and dealing with other discomforts. 

As for the foot fetishists out there, I see you, I hear you, and I honor your prayer. Bottoms up for the unabashedly kinky: to thy own sole be true. (And if your hidden proclivity is getting off on feet, I’d say that’s one of the more harmless kinks in this day and age; I will not be volunteering more extreme examples..)

{This blog post has been brought to you by Shameless Clickbait, FeetFinder, and Thirst-Trap (Feet-Don’t-Fail-Me-Now remix).} Now everybody cut footloose!