Fall is often a time for great change.

At the time this blog post goes up, it will be the first day of fall, and I will hopefully be in Boston with Skip on our almost-annual BroSox Adventure. Should all go according to plan, this will mark our first fall game, which is reminiscent of the very first Red Sox game I ever attended with my family, way back in 1986. More on that later – for now, let’s focus on this particular first day of fall – it will come with enough memories.

There are numerous musical connotations that rekindle fall in my mind, bringing me back to various times, such as ‘Alegria’ which tracks the emotionally-perilous mid-90’s and my first tentative steps living in Boston. It should have been a lonelier time than it felt – so often was I alone and on my own – but I didn’t allow myself to be lonely. 

On this blog, since the first day of fall usually kicks off with a featured fall post, we are revisiting some first-days of the past, such as this one which went up in 2014: ‘Time In A Bottle’ is an apt musical motif, as fall makes the fluctuations of time somehow more keen. 

In 2015 fall was welcomed in this fine and simple fashion. 

For a website that’s been around for twenty years, I invariably fall into repetition and repeats, so 2016 found us back in familiar territory. 

I took the summer of 2017 off from daily blogging, so the return to fall was a return to writing. Following the same summer vacation schedule for 2018, the blog was back in this ‘Oh Fall’ post. 

The summer of 2019 feels like the last summer of carefree innocence, before the pandemic hit, before we knew how dark things could get. In some ways, fall followed suit, with this post that feels ages and eons away from where I am today. The blissful brink of the abyss… we had no idea what was in store for us. Back then, it was enough to create our own manufactured drama. Feels quaint and silly and indulgent and wonderful now, and I miss it. 

Cut drastically to the fall of 2020, after the world as we knew it began to fall apart. We needed fall songs then, such as this one by Taylor Swift. 

Sometimes fall begins with a silent dance, as in this scarf-laden post. By 2021, we were all a little weary but it wasn’t anything that a new Abba song couldn’t attempt to fix. So, here’s to life, and for not dying on this day as a man dressed as death once predicted.

Following the new lease on life, we burned everything down in the fall of last year. 2022 provided a reckoning and exorcism of sorts for past emotional garbage. Fire and feathers conspired to give the season a new glow, while these flames of September served as a healing antiseptic. Burying the fire in a litany of words was the best way I knew to move forward and leave the past in the past. 

On this first day of fall, I’ve found a song that brings me back twenty years – well, the song actually found me in the way that destiny sometimes intervenes – a gift of the last Super Blue Moon, and it’s coming up in a post later today. Let’s meet back here in a bit to reconvene and listen together – in the meantime, Happy Falling. 

My father’s death definitively demarcated this summer – August 1 was the line between happy and sad, good and bad, before and after Dad. In so many ways, this summer realized one of my greatest fears in life – losing a parent. I remember when Andy’s Mom died, one of the first things he said was that what he feared the most had just happened, and in some small consoling sense it offered the slightest relief. I finally understood what he meant. This summer will always and only be about saying goodbye to my father, and as sad and sorrowful as that was, it also managed to be exquisitely beautiful and peaceful. 

When the summer first began, we had no indication of how it would turn out. There was only the fresh hope and excitement of a new season at hand. Looking back over how it all began, it feels far away, like an entirely different world, but the start of summer has always felt markedly different from the end.  

A celebratory beginning to the season was launched a few days early, when Steve Barnes wrote this amazing profile on me for the Times Union. As is my wont, I flew into a typical churning of over-thinking and over-reacting before I could simply enjoy and take pride and pleasure in it. I mention the silliness now as juxtaposition to the very real concerns and worries that would later engulf us – how I would come to miss such silliness. 

This was supposed to be our Bohemian Summer, with friends arriving and lounging by the pool, a throwback to gathering with groups and giving in to the wild abandon that only summer can produce. We made our summer wishes, scattering the ashes to the warm breeze at hand. Walking in the garden, we began in our usual ambulatory bath of floral beauty. It all felt so full of possibility. 

Summer makes music matter more, and this old-school summer playlist recalled favorites from the past – most of which I still enjoy to this day, and all rekindle more carefree moments and years. Speaking of music, no one has made it better than Madonna, and in honoring the past twenty years of this blog, here are the top twenty Madonna Timeline entries. 

All too soon June came to a close, and July arrived, with a brand new (old) scent by Tom Ford. July meant more flowers, as seen in the last of these Japanese iris blooms, and more 

In a sign of troubling times, Madonna postponed the launch of her Celebration Tour, which meant the long string of canceled events that began with COVID continued in earnest, and more stormy days were to come. Before that, however, one final note of happiness was sounded as I returned to New York City for the first time since January 2019. Fittingly, it was with Suzie, and we met up with Chris (and Tommy and Janet) for a Broadway rendezvous. Such wonderful people, such good friends, and such a happy weekend. 

The rest of the month was spent focusing on Dad and the turn he took. Posts necessarily dwindled, but for special events such as my Godson’s first birthday and our real anniversary I tried to do them justice. And when this blog went completely dark for a while, this summer recollection post gave anyone who wanted to read more that opportunity. 

When August arrived, Dad departed this physical world. It was, for the most part, a peaceful and happy finale to a long and well-lived life of 92 years, and mostly I’m grateful for the time we had these last few months and years, and the way Mom was able to care for him in a way that allowed for the best possible transition. As we find our way in world without Dad’s physical presence, I’m trying to find him in other ways, and largely it’s been a comfort. 

As if August wasn’t lovely enough, Andy and I finally – after avoiding it all these years – caught COVID and it was as enjoyable as all reports have been. To this day, I am still coughing on occasion, and it continued a month of awfulness. 

We slowly made our way through August. I focused as much as I could on my meditations and mindfulness, not always successful at warding off the sorrow, but I did it every day, and that consistence was seeing me through. My birthday was a dismal echo of what it used to be, and maybe that shift was a long time coming and I’m only now awakening to what a birthday should be as an adult. 

A song for swimming, even if I haven’t been in the pool since July. A full blue moon – the second full moon of August – fell into place in the sky, marking a month I was happy to watch depart. 

Finally, September arrived. I’ve never wanted a fall to descend as much as I wanted this one – an end to this summer was not cause for upset. Dad was still very much with me, as he visited in this dream. It marked my first time back in Boston since he passed, and it was very much a family affair, as Noah and Emi joined me to make it all relatively fun. 

Returning to upstate New York, we celebrated Dad’s first heavenly birthday. It continues the start of a long year of firsts without him, and some will hurt more than others. All will remind that he is still part of us, still present in some way. And so this summer has passed on too, like the very best and most beloved things; it had to come to an end, and a continuation. The initial segue into fall is mostly a seamless one – demarcated by an hour or two, the subtle shift seen in the slant of the sun and moon, and otherwise undetectable from one day to another. Over time, the changes will reveal themselves in a more pronounced manner. For now, we continue, and we begin the first steps to the next summer. 

See you back here tomorrow, when it’s fall.

‘American Beauty’ was a movie released in September of 1999, one that I immediately loved, even if it hasn’t aged well thanks to the creepiness of Kevin Spacey. It takes its name from the ‘American Beauty’ rose – a rich, red variety that is a classic. It’s too classic for me – and roses have never grown well under my care. At the time the movie came out I was living in Chicago with my then-boyfriend. We’d only moved there about a month before that, and I was just beginning to find my way in that expansive city.

Chicago extended beyond what my Boston-accustomed perspective could comfortably imagine, sprawling out in neighborhood upon neighborhood.  Just getting into the downtown could take an hour, and our apartment was still considered Chicago proper. When I did venture such a distance, I spent the whole day there, sometimes taking in a movie by myself when my boyfriend was at work. Such was how I discovered ‘American Beauty, and its haunting atmospheric soundtrack, which is the main point of this post. 

The moody atmospheric music of the movie shaded that fall in Chicago, when I slowly realized our relationship was falling apart, that moving there had not been the right decision. It wasn’t a realization that came quickly or easily, and my heart fought against it even as my head finally came around. I held onto this section of the soundtrack for calm and stability, knowing I had nothing else on which to grab. 

Even in my sadness, I sought out beauty in that state, thinking and hoping it would be some sort of balm upon the pain, and maybe it did blunt what I was about to feel. I couldn’t see it then, not at the end of that Chicago summer, when I’d pinned all my hopes on the heart of another young man, back when we were both too young to know how to make it work. 

It’s late on a Sunday night as I write this – the very last Sunday in this summer of 2023 – and as much as I wished for this summer to be over, I’m pausing to honor the season of the sun, no matter how mixed of a bag it was. There was much rain this time, and many shadows, and loads of loss. And while I pause for this moment, I also welcome the arrival of fall, the advance of a difficult year, the promise of a winter slumber. On with the weekly recap…

This is often a quiet week, as the blog always goes dark on 9/11.

My father’s birthday also falls on 9/11 – and this was the first year we honored it without him here. 

Little-known-fact: my love of gardening stems directly from my Dad. 

Sweet secret of September: the Sweet Autumn Clematis.

Harvesting cucamelons.

Harvest moon love.

Jim Verraros takes a well-deserved bow.

Don’t forget me when I’m gone.

Wild & scrappy.

Exploring Gucci memories made through the nose.

A gratuitous Maluma-in-underwear post.

The lone Dazzler of the Day more than held his own: Steve Grand.