Newly-obsessed with Stevie Nicks (thanks to attending my second show in under week) I’m combining our coquette summer theme (which fittingly features its own dose of lace) with her song ‘Leather and Lace‘. There’s a compelling story behind how that song came to be, but I won’t spoil it for anyone who might be going to see her live (and absolutely everyone should). I’ll simply post the song here as it’s currently my favorite of her many iconic musical moments, and for once I find the song, and its lyrics, to be more serious and thoughtful than any of my silly words or stories.

Is love so fragile and the heart so hollow?
Shatter with words, impossible to follow
You’re saying I’m fragile, I try not to be
I search only for something I can’t see
I have my own life
And I am stronger than you know

But I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you won’t be walking out the door
Still I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you won’t be walking out the door

Lovers forever, face to face
My city, your mountains
Stay with me, stay
I need you to love me, I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me my lace

You in the moonlight
With your sleepy eyes
Would you ever love a woman like me?
And you were right
When I walked into your house
I knew I’d never want to leave

Most of us are a little leather and little lace in one, and in our relationships with each other we might lean toward one side or the other, but every relationship I know and have been in has found one person assuming both roles at various points. That’s certainly true of my marriage – there are times when each of us has to be stronger because of what the other person might be going through, and such balance is a very good thing. 

Sometimes I’m a strong woman
Sometimes cold and scared and sometimes I cry
But that time I saw you
I knew with you to light my nights
Somehow I would get by

The first time I saw you
I knew with you to light my nights
Somehow I would get by

And so we have this sweet love song as we near the end of spring – not the sort of love song to accompany the start of something, but a more resonant and lasting notion of love to embody the potent glowing embers of a love that has survived the wear and tear of decades. Even leather breaks down after all that time, and lace is sometimes better at allowing poisonous winds to travel right through it instead of taking it all in. Which is stronger in the end? Both might be needed to make it through this life’s journey. 

Lovers forever, face to face
My city, your mountains
Stay with me, stay
I need you to love me, I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me my lace

Lovers forever, face to face
My city, your mountains
Stay with me, stay
Well, I need you to love me, I need you today
To give to me your leather
Take from me my lace

The world has gotten entirely too serious for our coquette leanings, and when it threatens to take us all down, I find it best to let loose and put on some ‘Strawberry Bounce’ from Janet Jackson’s under-appreciated ‘Damita Jo’ album. It also provides the opportunity to post a few mouth-watering pictures of the first batch of fresh strawberries that Andy found at Gade Farm. ‘Tis the damn season! And it’s Friday too!!

Let’s have our strawberry silliness.

I like to make it (bounce)
You know I’ll make it (bounce)
Now can you take it? (Bounce, bounce)
Lose control…

I liked strawberries more as a kid than I do now – not that I mind them in the least, I’m simply not quite as enamored. Back then, strawberry was my favorite flavor in the Chocolate/Vanilla/Strawberry trio of a Neapolitan ice cream carton. Whenever given the option of vanilla or chocolate, I would choose strawberry. Turns out I’ve been rejecting binary options my whole life long. 

Gyrate then spin it like a yo-yo
Slap the back and jiggle it like Jell-O
Honey, if you came for a show
I’mma make you lose control…

As for the ‘Strawberry Bounce’ of Damita Jo’s pumping ditty, indulge in these profound lyrics, give in to this sick beat, and hang on to spring like it’s gonna leave next week…

Ooh-wee, baby
My lips as sweet as honey
When I put it in your face
Gonna make you spend your money, uh-huh
Come on or you’re gonna miss it
Ding-dong, don’t you want to kiss it (lose control)

The first installment of our Coquette Summer Music Playlist included this beauty by Air, entitled ‘Alone in Kyoto’. It gives a lovely lilt to a late spring afternoon which has turned warmer than I dared to dream about. This song plays on a day that feels like summer. Without words, the delicate melody floats in the air, providing room for your own contemplative mental meanderings. That’s not always a great thing for people who dwell too much in their minds, ruminating and perseverating and reeling with overthinking. At those moments, and I have a few over the course of any given day, I will return to a singular focus on mindfulness.

Taking each moment and minute as it comes, redirecting my attention to my breathing, on the sole idea of the breath – the inhalation, the pause, the exhalation, the pause, and the inhalation again – one continuous river of survival, where peace can always be found if you know how to look for it. 

Our coquette summer hasn’t even officially begun, but the notion of melancholy masked in beauty is timeless and unbound by seasonal shifts or demarcations. 

Our coquette summer is off to an early start with a little reunion of the kids who attended my office’s ‘Take Your Children To Work Day’ extravaganza this year. Their group got along so well that I proposed a follow-up hang-out with a coquette theme, since the kids seemed to know more about coquette than I did, and the only way to stay young is to keep up on such themes. With that, this song from the Coquette Summer Playlist the 1st, perfect for a moon-filled night:

Moon, a hole of light
Through the big top tent up high
Here before and after me
Shinin’ down on me

Moon, tell me if I could
Send up my heart to you?
So, when I die, which I must do
Could it shine down here with you?

Emi selected this song, as she did most of the songs on the first summer playlist, and it has a lovely, laid-back vibe to it – the perfect backdrop to today’s gathering. If there is rain, that will only add to the underlying shadows of the coquette theme. it is worth remembering that behind the clouds, the moon is still there. 

‘Cause my love is mine, all mine
I love mine, mine, mine
Nothing in the world belongs to me
But my love mine, all mine, all mine
My baby, here on earth
Showed me what my heart was worth
So, when it comes to be my turn
Could you shine it down here for her?

‘Cause my love is mine, all mine
I love mine, mine, mine
Nothing in the world belongs to me
But my love mine, all mine
Nothing in the world is mine for free
But my love mine, all mine, all mine