I don’t know what the fuck these people witnessed Jehovah do, but they have not been right since. I was working from home when the doorbell rang, and since I was in the line of sight I couldn’t pretend no one was home like I normally would. Two strangers stood at the front door looking in, and I walked tentatively toward them while Andy slept in the bedroom. The woman in front wore a mask, and as I opened the door a crack, she pushed her hand inside to hand me the pamphlet pictured here.
The women looked confused, and looked to her back-up, who proceeded to tell me they believed what Jehovah believed, that marriage should be between one man and one woman. She said it sweetly and kindly, like that would negate what she was really imparting.
“That is what the Bible teaches, and that is what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, and personally I do not believe in same-sex marriage, but I do not judge others and no one would treat you badly if you were to attend…”
“No thanks,” I said, cutting her off. The morning was cold and I was letting heat out of the house and I just didn’t have the strength or desire to have a discussion with two strangers who approached our home and came onto our property to spew sweetly-worded hate.
She thanked me for my time, perhaps relieved that I didn’t say more.
These kalanchoe blooms are little when taken on their own, but pack a wallop in their shade and number – a lesson in how to make an impression by coming together. This was one of the first plants I ever grew as a child, a story more fully expounded upon in this post. I remember that winter in the guest room where my grandma would stay when she visited. It had the sunniest window, with a southwestern exposure, and it provided the strong light the succulent leaves of kalanchoe loved. They like to be kept on the dry side, and so are pretty easy-upkeep, even after they finish flowering (in-flower is the only state in which I’ve ever seen them sold).
Taking a few tentative steps into spring with these blooms feels good. There is still snow on the ground, and a few more snowstorms likely to come, but it’s okay to give in to this beauty. It’s healing after a winter of cold bruises.
Everyone thinks the winter wind is the one that cuts the deepest, but it’s the wind of early spring, when things are heaving and breaking and melting, that carries the biggest risk of pushing you off the edge of a building. As I walked toward the moon, I felt the wind at my back, and the ledge of the observatory roof was a dim line straight ahead. Carrying a heavy heart, one that had already been broken before I could leave my teenage-years, and mostly by my own machinations, left my walk slow but deliberate. Resigned and intent. The seductive spell of a spring night had been whispered to me from the wind, and I moved away from my classmates, nearer the edge, nearer the forbidden space the professor had warned us against.
I see you falling How long to go before you hit the ground You keep on screaming Don’t you see me here Am I a ghost to you?
Ahh, spring. Your treacherous offering of hope when what you really have to give is heartache. But you do it wrapped in a cherry blossom, nodding in the cheery self-obsession of a glade of narcissus, teasing from the tip of a tulip petal. Spring and all your madness, stripped in a storm, rendering all of us naked and tender and ill-equipped for the cold that’s still deep in the night, and still waiting for us in the morning.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your luck will change tomorrow Tomorrow…
Back then, whether admitted or not (and for the most part I never admitted it to anyone) my only goal in life was to find a partner ~ a companion. I just didn’t want to go through it all alone. I was tired of being alone.
I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud.
Not that I wasn’t good at being alone. Not that it had ever been a choice. I was simply ready to find someone with whom I might share a life – with whom I might make a life. And while I never put that into words then, as even I understood that wasn’t first date banter, my actions and desire spoke more than I ever could, frightening would-be suitors and maybe-friends away. Maybe, too, I knew that I wasn’t ready for it, and sabotaged myself before letting anything happen, before getting too carried away. But oh, what spring could seduce from the merest hints of connection, and oh how badly I wanted to be with someone.
This song arrived just as I found myself without a girlfriend or boyfriend, and I sought out solace in my platonic friends, calling them late at night, wondering if they could sense my desperation, the terrifying need to not be alone at those dangerous hours. Anything but lonely…
Why are you phoning? What am I to do when you’re miles away? You’re always calling from the darkest moods and we’re both scared…
Life then existed in letters and late night phone calls, hushed conversations held in indulgent secrecy, hidden from flatmates and strangers alike – that was how we kept in touch, how we made connections. There wasn’t texting or FaceBook or seeing someone’s whole life history. We only knew what we were told, and what we could read in between the laughter and sighs, much of it was made-up – and all of it better than the false-transparency of what we put out on social media today.
Back then you had to trust your friends to stick with you despite distance and time, and it didn’t always work. Even the closest among us found ourselves growing apart – it couldn’t be helped – but I railed against that, struggling to stay in touch, wrangling us together for parties and gatherings, even when no one knew what to say. Because it mattered, didn’t it? That we had been through it together. That we had been through that formative part of life, that we knew each other before we knew ourselves. It had to matter. As soon as the thought formed, I knew that time in our lives had passed. I knew also that I would not let it go so easily, finding the nets and guns and forces to keep us intact and together. That was my purpose.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change
Every spring, I listened to this song, and every spring seemed to get a little less lonely. It revealed different meanings as the years passed, changing from a lesson in how to get through a lonely night to a lesson in learning how not to force things, especially love. That was a lesson I needed more than most. My friends could always keep their heads when it came to crushes and obsessions – I lost mine, and willingly gave away my heart in the process. I listened to ‘Tomorrow’, as I listened for tomorrow, and slowly I began to understood the mantra:
Now your grip’s too strong Can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow
It was on a summer evening – and even though I certainly didn’t feel like I had any semblance of shit together, looking back, that was the beginning of when I started to pull it together. Or at least put forth the appearance of keeping things together. Getting by, and getting on with it. The first steps in being ok with being alone. I knelt down to tie my sneakers, then grinned at the light still pouring into the bedroom window. Summer in Boston beckoned, and I ran into the South End as neighbors took their dinner plates onto their front steps.
Running every night was my little way of getting out in the world. Too socially-anxious to prowl the bars or clubs on a regular basis (and certainly never on my own when everyone else had departed the city for the summer) I connected to people from the distance of speed and flight, as I raced the streets of Boston, running away as much as I was running toward something. I spent most nights spent and heated, a late-night shower to cool off, and then a spell of reading in the bedroom. Slowly, I was learning to love being by myself. Something told me I needed to do that – genuinely and authentically – if I was ever going to learn to love someone, and let them love me in return.
I’m just out of your range Tomorrow All your suffering’s in vain Tomorrow
“This song was written as an attempt to stop a close friend jumping off the roof.” ~ James
I didn’t know that this was the origin of this song. It never meant that to me, but it makes sense about why it spoke to me on so many levels, and so deeply. This has always been one of my favorite songs, one that has withstood time and place. And James has always been my favorite band. (Relax, Madonna is not a band.) I loved them since they wore dresses and ate bananas for the cover of their absolute best album ‘Laid’. That song cycle informed my life at its most crucial and influential moments – when the soul was solidifying into what it will always be.
Now your grip’s too strong You can’t catch love with a net or a gun Gotta keep faith that your path will change Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow
This song reminds me that it’s ok to sink low sometimes, to walk toward the ledge and wonder about jumping off. No sane person would witness what we do to each other and not wonder at the futility of this world. How could we not want to off ourselves now and then? We weren’t designed to withstand such cruelty, but here we are, doing our best, doing it together whether we realize it or not. It’s there in a late-night phone call from a friend, an unexpected letter in the mail, a FaceBook message from a stranger just checking in – all these little ways we show that we care, that people are worth a little suffering and pain, that we are alive in this exquisitely imperfect and fucked-up world, and for the most part we are each doing our best to be better for each other.
I got out of your range Tomorrow All your suffering seems vain Change tomorrow Some forgiveness now Tomorrow Love’s no sacred cow
This is a little Gerbera daisy for anyone who needs a break or a vacation, including myself, because without one soon I’m not going to make my retirement requirement. Such a sentiment crops up every few months, when things get rough and rowdy, and life throws wrenches and hammers and blunt objects, and we’re all just trying to duck and dodge and not get hit in the head. There’s enough trauma in the world – no need to add to it.
And so I try to lose myself in shades of salmon, in the radial wonder and over-hybridized excess of a flower-head that can’t always support itself. There are days when I understand exactly how such a flower feels. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
With indelible performance in projects as varied as ‘Everything, Everywhere, All At Once’, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘, ‘SpongeBob: The Musical’ and ‘Be More Chill’, Stephanie Hsu has conquered film, television, and stage, turning each role into a firestorm of pathos, rage, humor, tenderness, and heartache – sometimes within the span of a half-hour. That kind of talent has been earning all kinds of awards and accolades of late, including this Dazzler of the Day.
While I make it a point to meditate for 20 minutes every day, I won’t pretend I’m always loving it and looking forward to it. After a day in the office and running around on whatever errands need to be done, then cleaning or cooking for the evening, the thought of meditation is just one more task added to an exhausting list. Those are, in the way the universe so cleverly (and annoyingly) works, the times when I need meditation the most, so of course I want it the least.
Far more enjoyable are the meditations that come on a Saturday or Sunday or day off. I thought about that this weekend, when a rough week of work was willfully forgotten by Saturday, and I went into my daily meditation with vigor, embracing every minute and soaking in the momentary stillness and calm. As I sat there, I slipped much more quickly and easily into a state of calm and stillness, the beautiful and desired space of blankness. More importantly, I moved into a deeper state of meditation and mindfulness, pushing further into the practice, finding another level of peace that quelled all the worries of the week. That was notable, and something new.
When I looked back at it wondering why it was easier to meditate on a Saturday, it dawned on me that I was entering that particular meditation from a place of calm. I’d already inadvertently created a space of stillness, because I’d already relaxed my mind and let go of my worries. In other words, my meditation had a head-start, allowing me to move more quickly into that state of calm which usually only arrives after a number of moments of deep breathing and focus. By the time I’m typically at such a state, I’m already fifteen minutes into things, with only five minutes of deeper meditation to go.
There are ways around this – longer meditation is the easiest route, but comes with a greater time investment. During more difficult periods, I find half an hour is a good amount of time to gain a full and deep experience. Another idea I may implement is simply preparing myself and relaxing beforehand, so when I actually sit down to do the thing I’ll be ready to quickly and easily enter into the space. Whatever the case, I’m always happy to discover a place of deeper connection to a sense of calm, and to try to return there in the future.
If this were a trailer, here would be the music for our upcoming spring season – full of dramatic import and a few key scenes of emotional outbursts ripe for their close-ups. Picture our cast of characters in all sorts of pretty peril and tantalizing trauma, begging the viewer to see what twists and turns may come in the next few months. After twenty years of this website, we have reached the point where any season could be the last, and since I’ve not signed any contracts, any day might be the end too.
When I bother to pause and look back at the overarching trajectory of life as contained in these electronic pages, the same recurring themes of family and friends come to mind – and for someone who was raised on soap operas, the way our lives intertwine and intersect will be forever fascinating. The highlights of this website have traditionally been of trips and adventures with loved ones – all the fun things Andy and I have done over the decades, all the parties and gatherings we’ve hosted and attended, all the moments we’ve celebrated and commemorated – they all fall under the umbrella of shared experiences, and they wouldn’t be half as fun if I’d done them alone. As much as I genuinely enjoy and cherish solitude and alone time, it’s still so much friendlier with two.
And so, as we kick off the 20th spring of this website,we put winter to bed for another year. We are reminded that we must lean on each other if we’re going to make it through another season, even one as typically happy and hopeful as spring. We will be back at winter in due time – for now we have rested enough. It’s time to dig in again – to the ground, to the work, to the garden, to the struggle – time to re-enter the world of the living, to re-immerse in the hustle and bustle. Our hibernation is coming to a close, and while I’ve learned to embrace winter and its subtle enchantments, it’s time for spring to have her turn, along with all the wonder and mess and tumult that she brings.
Known best for her riveting performances in ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Black Panther and ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’, Danai Gurira is also a prolific playwright who wrote several award-winning plays, including ‘Eclipsed’ and ‘Familiar’. She earns this Dazzler of the Day thanks to such multi-faceted talent and on-screen charisma.
Most of the time, the first day of spring holds more hope and promise than the last day of spring. By that point, spring has largely been spent, and with it the happy notion of anything that might lie ahead. Today, it’s all possibility, even if the weather still reeks of winter. I’m someone who thrills in the promise and anticipation, enjoying these moments of what might come rather than the actual days when they do come. This is not a very mindful practice, nor is it helpful in inhabiting the moment, so it’s all a work in progress. For now, let me enjoy this day of possibility, while we look back at the last week of winter.
A double-decade of indelible performances has made Taraji Penda Henson into Hollywood royalty, and her upcoming turn as Shug Avery in the upcoming movie version of ‘The Color Purple’ musical (a movie that became a musical that is now becoming a movie again) will surely be one of the more dazzling star-turns of the year. She’s been nominated for just about every acting award that exists, and for such a rich body of work she earns this Dazzler of the Day.
The last official day of winter is here at last, which is cause enough for celebration. It’s also a good pause to look back over some of the more notable posts that went up over this past season, and as this marked the 20th anniversary of this website, there were quite a few.
And so we end the winter season 22/23. We made it through the wilderness… somehow we made it through… up next is spring, and I’m going to enter it with gratitude and mindfulness, and maybe just a little sparkle.
Time for a celebratory moment in honor of an amazing organization. In Our Own Voices, Inc. is commemorating 25 years of providing programs and services to LGBTQAI+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Color! That’s 25 years of building our own tables, strengthening our own voices, and empowering our communities to live authentically.
This is a monumental milestone and we hope to see you at the celebration! Join us at 8pm on Saturday, March 25, 2023, the official anniversary of our founding, for a cocktail party at The State Room in Downtown Albany.
Featuring:
DJ RVMBA on the ones and two
An extra special drag performance by Mor’Glamazon and Philly Pina
And cocktails, of course!
Friends and family, we’ll bring the hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and DJs, all that’s missing is YOU.
While gleefully perusing the FaceBook photos of Lynn Beaumont, it suddenly struck me how difficult it was to find one of her solo, where she was not pictured with another friend or family member – a telling testimony to her popularity and well-deserved belovedness. With her equally-beloved partner Bam Lynch, she has turned Cheesecake Machismo into a national treasure; people come from miles around to try out the magical selection of traditional and wildly non-traditional varieties on hand each day (get there early as they often sell out for the day). Having opened the very first Bomber’s Burritos with Matt Baumgartner, she’s been a jewel of the Albany scene for decades, and can often be found around some of my most favorite local luminaries (see Kevin Bruce and Tess Collins). Today it tickles me to offer what little honor I can with this Dazzler of the Day crowning (and it’s my way of paying her back for driving me to a party after a First Friday gallery night many years ago, something she probably doesn’t even remember because she does such kind things all the time).
“I’m made of cruel passions, my Lord… and when the time is right we’ll so act on them as to astonish the world…” ~ ‘Elizabeth I’ as portrayed by Helen Mirren
This sounds like something Winter would be saying right about now, before she relinquishes her temporal hold on the northern hemisphere. Unwilling to let it go until the last possible moment (and, let’s just acknowledge it, likely beyond that) the weather will be wild in the weeks to come, no matter what our feeble calendar demarcations may indicate. Mother Nature is never held to human bounds – that’s why I love her so.
