Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Continuing our Summer of the Rainbow, this full beauty appeared while I was looking for post-its at Staples of all places. Such is the state of the office worker these days. How brick and mortar stores manage to stay afloat is beyond me, and given the conditions and supplies of the store at hand, it may not be long for this retail life. I digress, and from the main point of this post, which was this gorgeous and complete rainbow that spanned the entire sky before me. Parking lots always work best when trying to capture rainbows on camera, but even the best timing and opportunities seldom give the full picture as seen here. There are usually only bits and pieces of it – one of the ends or the middle – so this was a rare gift the universe bestows every few years. I’m taking it as a fond farewell to the wonderful summer we’ve had – one that will find a full recap in a pair of posts that go up tomorrow. Come back for that celebration.

The monarch butterly was recently added to the list of endangered species, thanks to so much of its native habitat being destroyed. Humans will never be as noble as this magnificent creature, and my heart hurts at the idea that their numbers are dwindling. I left a stalk of milkweed alone in the garden (where it really didn’t belong) in a sad attempt at making the area more hospitable to these regal beauties. Alas, it preferred the flashier butterfly bush, where it paused to pose for a few pictures. 

In keeping with the dire news of their declining numbers, this was the first monarch we’ve seen all summer. We used to have many fluttering about the lofty stalks of the cup plant and aforementioned butterfly bush – this year there was only this one. But one is better than none, and a single being is enough to give the smallest sliver of hope to see us through the winter. 

The big summer recap posts arrive later, on the last day of summer, but for now we do our Monday morning quarterbacking with this weekly recap. Our last full week of summer – how did we ever end up here? It went way too quickly, and now we are looking back, at all of it…

Finding joy in the arrival of autumn.

Summer flare through a deluge.

Bejeweled by rain.

The last swim of 2022? (It’s looking more and more like it.)

Who doesn’t love a late-summer surprise?

The inner dialogue running rampant.

Pausing on the day of rest.

A gratuitously-shirtless post on the Sabbath.

Dazzlers of the Day included Ron Zacchi, Rosie O’Donnell, Maya Penn, Matthew Rettenmund, Ronen Rubinstein and Theo Ford.

This is the week that summer ends and fall begins, and after completing the summer recap posts, and making inroads with the few new fall posts (including a revamped look for this space) I find myself thoroughly exhausted and spent. Do you know how many words I actually write every single week for this blog? Copy and paste them somewhere and let me know. I’m sure it’s a lot – and this isn’t even my day job. 

Luckily, it’s a labor of love, and as I’ve kept my writing largely to the realm of joy and self-expression, I don’t have to worry about deadlines or perfection or word-count limits. That goes for minimum counts as well, and so I shall end this brief Sunday morning post with the promise of some fiery new content coming within the next few days. ALANLAGAN.com is about to be LIT.

I’m not at all confident that this will be the last time I go for a swim this year, but it’s a definite possibility, and rather than look back a few weeks from now and wish I’d made more of it, I dove into the water determined to make a memory. The air above the water was chilly – the first notably cool day we’ve had in months – but the sun was out, still cutting through the wind that was suddenly picking up. 

On the water, little white blossoms from the seven sons flower tree floated across the surface, and occasionally the perfume from the flowers still dangling above the pool carried on the breeze. All these vestiges of summer should have been a comfort, a sign that bits of the sunny season were lingering until the very end, but mostly it just felt a little sadder being this near the close of the season. We are less than a week away from the arrival of fall. 

It will be sad to see this summer slip into the past, so sunny and warm and glorious was it, but most of me is ready. Too much of a good thing has rarely been a good thing. Nature knows how to pace herself, and I trust in the seasonal time-table she has put in place. I know a number of people who would love for it stay perpetually summer, the way the sun sticks around year-round in places like Southern California – and there are moments when I think that would be lovely, but those moments are almost always at the tail-end of winter, just as the wondrous cycle of spring is about to begin. 

Right now, the idea of nine more months of summer feels stale and stagnant, and I’m ok with turning to the next seasonal page. After this one last dip… 

Rejuvenating our hydrangeas (which had not been enjoying the heat and sun of this past summer) our recent run of rain has lended a fresh restart to the summer-beleaguered garden. The lawn is looking lush and tall, the fat leaves actually flopping over with their fullness, and the ferns have actually held their color. It’s as if summer is determined to shine beautifully until fall absolutely insists on her exit. 

Amid the madness of Mercury in retrograde, this pretty scene of post-storm beauty is a welcome reminder to pause and take in the moment. Under the rain, I’ve been hurrying by these plants without hesitating, and I’ve been missing this show. I need to remember that it’s ok to get a little wet. It’s just water, and there isn’t much left of summer.