A new season doesn’t always begin with a bang, just as most New Year Days are quiet and simple mornings of reflection and contemplation. This fall feels small in that way, in a very good way, because after a year and a half of this madness a quiet little entry into a new season is the most comforting way to approach change. We’ve all been through a lot, and the world has collectively been traumatized. That’s something we have only begun to realize, and I’m concerned that the effects will linger far longer than most of us realize.
That said, this site has never been one to sound the doomsday clock, or to watch it tick down to danger without offering some fantastic alternative of escapist frivolity and nonsense with which to divert our harried minds. To that end, let’s enter this fall season with a little intrigue and mystery, a colorful reigniting of passions after a summer, drained and devoid of many pleasures, fades into shades of gray.
A scarf dances in the wind, alighting on a dogwood heavy with its own fruit, which is still no match to the super-saturated brightness of this pseudo-silk accessory. How a scarf came to be in the branches of a dogwood is a story likely not worth a telling, much less a re-telling at some later date, and so the mystery shall remain. Fall carries mystery with it, with its expanding darkness, the coolness on the wind, the way it teases you into its early pleasures right before striking it all down in a hard frost. Such a cruel sleight of hand, such a lovely way to burn.
Dancing over to a hydrangea in its own salmon-hued bloom, the scarf winds its way through the garden like a snake, hiding among the branches and blooms that tickle its passing fancy. Fall is tricky like that too, cajoling and nudging us along in sun and splendor until we’ve passed a point of safe return, and then it clamps down its frost-laden nights, freezing the ground and heaving the fields.
The afternoon sunlight on certain September days no longer belongs to summer, and the change is distinct to those who have seen it before. It’s both sharper and gentler, crisp yet supple. Summer gets all the glory, but the real secret is that fall color resonates more deeply. The sky is the bluest it will ever be. The blooms, if there are any repeat bloomers, are smaller but richer in tone and shade. And soon, very soon, the foliage will ignite and burn itself up in autumnal splendor.
For now, though, there is this scarf, and a necklace of fuchsia beads that may or may not come into some greater play sooner or later or never – the fluctuating whims of fall forever prey to fickle behavior and luckless decisions.
I have quite purposely and intentionally left out a fall entry song for the first post of the season – it will arrive later today – so as to allow the thoughts to expand without noise or music or harmony. The sounds of summer – those relentless cicadas, that crackle of fireworks, the giddy shouts of neighborhood children, that goddamn ice cream truck jingle – fade from hearing now. The sun shines quietly, and the only noise comes from the whoosh and whirl of a scarf, carried on the wind, and sounding like a librarian’s wearily repeated ‘shh, shh, shh’ shushing a group of kids who haven’t excised all memory of summer freedom just yet.
Summer’s second act couldn’t help but be better than its first, and so we continue on with our recap of the sunny season, which finally deigned to give some merit to its name. When it all began, I found inspiration in the Doris Day version of ‘Where the Boys Are’ – which, while filled with longing and a certain undertow of melancholy, carried Day’s hopeful earnestness into something lighter and more joyful. This summer proved that even amid the season of the sun, there could be rain and wind and darkness. As we grappled with all of that, this version of ‘Where the Boys Are’ seems a more fitting encapsulation of how we spent our summer. Visions of gatherings by the pool and a return to normal now feel worlds away, and maybe this is just the way us humans have got to cope from here on out. That didn’t mean we couldn’t find happiness and light of our own, and family and close friends saved this season more than any other.
Where the boys are, someone waits for me
A smiling face, a warm embrace, two arms to hold me tenderly
Where the boys are, my true love will be
He’s walking down some street in town and I know he’s looking there for me…
When August arrived, the sun remembered it was supposed to be shining, and the weather warmed up for a few stretches of high heat and humidity. Where I’d typically be complaining of the excess of such uncomfortable temps, by this point I all but got down on my knees and praised Jesus. Summer, though late and weary, showed at last, and I began daily dips in the pool to maximize the moments. Who knew how long it would last?
Let’s dwell, just for this opening/closing moment, on the positive and the upbeat, and begin this summer recap with a song by the Jonas Brothers, designed for the Summer Olympics, capturing the very best of what this summer should have, and could have, been: ebullient, celebratory, and glorious. Summer should catch the sun, throw it back to us, and engage in a volley that lasts until we are spent in happy exhaustion. It should splash about in the pool, squinting from too much sunlight and too much chlorine, leaving a memory that’s as hazy as it is wonderful, searing itself into the heart of every pleasure center. It should explode into bloom like some hybrid tea rose, spreading its perfume and shifting between shades of scarlet and fuchsia and pink as it ripens into something akin to the sunset.
USED TO PRAY FOR A MOMENT JUST LIKE THIS
THERE’S A FIRE IN YOUR EYES I CAN’T RESIST
BABY, WE’RE GONNA WANNA REMEMBER THIS
BABY, WE’RE GONNA WANNA REMEMBER THIS
Thats how summer should usually go. Not this year. Instead of that, we were largely still stuck inside, with COVID cases on the rise, and the Delta variant wreaking further destruction, all because a minority of selfish fucks refused to get vaccinated, wear masks, and rise to the most basic level of human fucking decency. Compounding that fuckery was the weather, which decided to absolutely shit on us now that our pool is fully functional and we might actually have something to do on a sunny day. All in all, the nastiness that was 2020 simply carried over into 2021, with the additional factor of sheer exhaustion from the awfulness of it all making it that much worse. Summer was supposed to be better than this. And so I’m hearing this song with a bit of ironic bitterness, and only a bit, because the things I’m about to describe were some of the happier moments of the season. While I’ve never been one to sit down and take note of happiness, this seems the best time to do so. We need some of it before the season officially retires. On with the summer show!
We got a jumpstart on the summer, knowing it would end all too quickly, and christened it with ‘Where the Boys Are’ – even if the only boys who would use our pool would be me and Andy and our nephew Noah.
Despite the wet weather, family formed the warm and glowing aspect if the sun failed to do so, and it was a season of re-connecting with those who matter the most. Here we celebrated Father’s Day, grateful for our Dad as his continued in his 90th year.
The Ilagan twins proved summer saviors, as spending time with them as they grew into their 11th year would be one of the highlights of the season, as previewed by this Saratoga movie trip.
WE AIN’T GETTING ANY YOUNGER, TO BE HONEST I DON’T CARE
I’M NOT TRYING TO LIVE FOREVER, I’M JUST TRYING TO BE RIGHT HERE
THIS I KNOW, ONLY NOW IT’S ALL WE GOT… THIS I KNOW…
ALL THE NIGHTS OF STRIKING MATCHES, JUST TRYING TO FIND A SPARK
COUNTING DOWN TO RAISING GLASSES, COUNTING UP TO BROKEN HEARTS
THIS I KNOW, YEAH THE COUNTING NEVER STOPS… THIS I KNOW
Summer comes to a close here tomorrow, with a pair of ambivalent summer recap posts that take us back through the summer that wasn’t. I hung onto it as best as I could, but at this point I’m ready to send it packing, and to begin fall with a clean slate of hope and promise and possibility.
Fall has also been the time to return to structure and organization – whether at school or work or simply in the first few cold snaps of morning frost, when we’re reminded that we need to be vigilant and on guard in a world that has gotten this mad.
Come back tomorrow for the summer recaps – it wasn’t all bad, but some saltiness seeped into my retelling of it, and since most people love when I let loose and get saucy, this is your chance to see such villainy on full display, even if I do my damnedest to bring you to a happy ending.
The final full week of summer is now behind us, and this week brings the arrival of fall. That means the time is ripe for drama, and with the VMAs and the Met Gala providing fodder and intrigue to finish off the summer, we certainly had some drama. As long as it remains of the fashion kind, I’m cool with it. When the warmth and the color drains from summer, and the world begins its turn to the brittle beauty of fall, we start all over again. But first, the last complete week of the supposed season of the sun.
These anemone blooms are a pale shade of pink, but I thought they worked better when drained of that subtle color to better appreciate the architecture of their branching and flower structure. It also signifies the way that summer’s color is gradually draining from the garden, in the way the fiery oranges and reds of its flaring height have settled into the softer shades of the sedum and anemones. There will be a few flames yet to be kindled, in the mum-fest and the warm shades of all the pumpkins and gourds to come, but the garden is largely quieting down.
Our patch of ostrich ferns, once vibrant and chartreuse and full, have shriveled to brown and spindly ghosts of their previous glory. The large stands of cup plants stand shorn of their bright yellow petals, with only the mostly-empty radials of the buds that once held all their seeds, long since picked off by our army of finches. The hydrangeas, while still throwing out a fresh flower head here and there, have also faded – the bright pink and purple mop heads slowly turning to mauve and gray and brown – still attractive, in a different, more subtle way.
This is the turn of the season, perfect for some Sunday morning musing when it’s time to face the incontrovertible end to summer this week. Fortunately, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to make the fall just as colorful as our summers tend to be…
The fig trees sent out their fruit early this summer, and then simply stalled while the hot weather they favor stalled and then utterly failed to arrive. That didn’t stop them entirely – only delayed their magnificence until this moment, when they suddenly started ripening all at once. I’ve been picking them off as I pass by, popping them into my mouth and enjoying their sweet goodness, as I’ve done with our cherry tomatoes.
They’ve been abundant enough to provide for an appetizer for our last family gathering – served with a drizzle of honey and some goat cheese, they made for a perfect starter, and I could point out to everyone exactly where they came from. We overwinter these in the garage – they’re hardy to one 5 but such fine specimens the produce so well don’t deserve the risk of overwintering them outside. Besides, it’s always a thrill to see them start putting forth early green growth in March when it’s still snowy and blowy outside. That sort of magic wouldn’t happen if they were left to fend for themselves against the ravages of a upstate New York winter.
Without meaning to rush summer out the door, it’s also a nice time to tentatively plan out some contingency plans for when the rotten weather returns, and for me that means weekly trips to the local greenhouse. There, orchids bloom all the year round. There, the temperature is warm and the air is comfortably humid. There, beauty is in abundance, no matter how the wind or rain rages outside.
Little bright suns in the form of this Helianthus hover at eye level, bringing some of the celestial down into our land-bound existence. These beauties are backed right up against a cup plant which towers above them, so they lean forward, straining for their own space in the sun, their own spot in the world. They are carrying the garden this week, as the sedum and anemone put on a quieter show in muted shades of pink and salmon. Soon, all this color will drain as well, as much from the sky as from the garden. I’ve been avoiding that, pretending it’s not happening in a vain effort to keep this summer going, but nature needs her rest. When these go to seed, the finches will have one last chance to fatten up and sustain themselves through the winter. We will get through it together.
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is a mainstay in many gardens, thanks to its late blooming time and handsome form and structure year round – and I do mean year. Come fall and winter, its dried flowerheads form one of the few lovely spots that carry the garden through to spring. They look especially striking when topped with the first few inches of snow.
Maintaining fall and winter interest is not especially of note among most gardeners, but we do a disservice to ourselves when we think that just because the growing season is in suspension we don’t still look out at the yard. Plants like this Sedum keep the garden alive until we get back out there in the spring.
On Friday afternoons, there used to be a farmer’s market at Copley Square, where rows of vegetables and flowers, baked goods and jams and jellies, cheese and butters and the like would line the sidewalks before Trinity Church. I think they still do it (I’ll find out today when I head back into Boston for the weekend) and it was always a pleasant way to enter the fall season, so I’m hopeful it’s still happening. This goes to show how out-of-the-loop I am when it comes to Boston goings-on these days. Something to rectify in the coming weeks…
My love and adoration for ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘ was emboldened by LeRoy McClain and his star-turn as the charismatic Shy Baldwin. For that alone, he easily earns this Dazzler of the Day honor, but that’s far from his only accomplishment. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, McClain has appeared in ‘The Adjustment Bureau’, ‘The Happy Sad’, and ‘Respect’ – while also treading the boards across the world. He will be part of the upcoming ‘Sex and City’ re-boot as well, sure to cement his star status on a whole other level.
Learning to savor and appreciate every moment of enjoyment is an integral component for finding happiness in one’s life, and so it has been that philosophy which has guided me into the pool for daily swims over the past few weeks, when the weather has been clear. We’ve kept the pool heated to make up for the early run of rainy days and weeks and, well, months, so this final stretch has been important to make the most of this otherwise-dismal summer.
Still, it found a way to shine, such as in these daisies which have prolifically flowered beside the pool, surviving regular snacking by the chipmunks and consistent assaults by rain and wind. Like many of us, they took a beating amid this summer’s fickle sunshine, and bloomed in the face of all that awfulness. Were they a bit bedraggled by the end of it? Of course. I was too. But they’ll have a nice winter slumber and store up their energy for next spring for another chance to start over again…
Back when we first met, Andy told me about a method of meditation that used a candle. You would sit in a quiet room before a candle, then focus on the candlelight for a moment before closing your eyes and envisioning the candle in your mind. It was a manner of focusing on one item and thus clearing out the rest of your mind to allow the space and silence for meditation to unfurl. We shared the method with my Mom, who seemed to have a better handle on meditating when using something concrete like that.
Meditation is different for everyone, and I believe can be beneficial for everyone as well. There is no right or wrong to do it – and sometimes simply making the effort, and making the place for it in your consciousness, is enough.
