Setting the Olympic Opening Ceremony aflame is Aya Nakamura, who earns her first Dazzler of the Day honor thanks to her pulsating pizzazz and a career of musical brilliance. The French-Malian singer-songwriter is one of the superstars of France, which makes her a fitting musical ambassador to these Olympic Games.
I was a brat before Charli XCX was even born.
Jack Laugher helmed a previous double-bang Speedo post a few years ago, and he’s back in the Paris Olympic Games, this time with a new partner – Anthony Harding. Bonus post here.
Today the Summer Olympics kick off in Paris, France, and I am always all about the Opening Ceremony. I haven’t been following much of the try-outs and qualifying events (it’s not like there’s figure skating in the summer) but I’ll perk up now that the actual moment has arrived. In a fractured and tumultuous world, the Olympics still serve as a reminder that there are people out there simply striving to be the best they can be, challenging each other in a competitive yet friendly way, bringing countries together and building bridges that unite all of us in a shared experience.
Plus there are Speedos. Lots of Speedos, donned by athletes in their prime. And sans shirts.
One of the shining stars from the last Olympic Games was Tom Daley, who’s made quite a few splashes on this site, as every instance that finds him decked out in his work attire is one worth posting about. Here we find him shaving his body for work.
Diving will be where much of our posting action originates – though I’m keenly interested in the gymnastics as well. Simone Biles is slated to astound the world with her unprecedented skills. There is the warm glow of Track & Field too, which always brightened up our family room when watching with my parents, and all the lights brought summer into our childhood nights.
We’ll be doing some Olympic Spotlights, since there are always more impressive athletes to showcase than our Dazzler of the Day will allow. Stay tuned…
{See also: Frederick Richard, Sunisa Lee, Noah Williams, Shilese Jones, Ryan Murphy and Timo Cavelius.}
Kristin Chenoweth has been an icon in these parts since I first watched her devour the scenery in the original Kander & Ebb musical ‘Steel Pier‘. Following that, Andy and I were lucky enough to see her perform with Idina Menzel as part of the original Broadway cast of ‘Wicked‘. Now, I’m taking Andy to see Ms. Chenoweth in her current headlining run in ‘The Queen of Versailles’ at the Emerson Colonial Theatre. It was a surprise anniversary gift for him that will kick off my birthday weekend next month.
‘The Queen of Versailles’ has an intriguingly-unexpected subject at its heart – about the woman who endeavored to build the largest home in America. While I was a little disappointed to discover it wasn’t a straight-up Marie Antoinette musical by the guy who musicalized ‘Wicked’, I’m holding any judgment in reserve until I hear how it plays out. In the hands of an experienced star like Chenoweth, and the pedigreed musical history of Stephen Schwartz, this may be the next must-see musical.
Our last Boston-opening before it went to Broadway experience was when we took in ‘Moulin Rouge’ – and if this follows that bombastic trajectory, it may be bound to even bigger houses. I can’t wait to see Ms. Chenoweth’s sparkling embodiment of the American dream.
Our Rosa rugosa shrub was planted when we had to miss out on going to Ogunquit one year. I’d been missing the ocean air, the salty way Maine seduced you brusquely and beautifully, and so I found a plant that would bloom wit the scented memory of all those walks along the Marginal Way. It didn’t bloom profusely that first year – or most years for that matter – but just one bloom was enough for me to smell, and then quell the restless heart.
That clump of Rosa rugosa has lasted for over a decade, though it still only yields a few flushes of blooms each year. This one is currently beginning. and every time I see a bloom open, I stop to rush over and inhale its perfume. It takes me back to the Maine of my earliest days with Andy, and further back to my first trip to Provincetown with Suzie, and then even further back with memories of Cape Cod with my Mom and Dad and brother. All happy memories, all got me dizzy on the intoxicating scent…
First it was my neck, then it was my back – both victims of trying to pull up tree roots that had taken ten years to take hold. My body was no match for such stalwart and stubborn strength. A household with two bad backs falls quickly to mess and disrepair – it’s only a matter of time before we round the turn to the fast-track to ‘Grey Gardens‘. With only one month to go before I hit the age of 49, I’m feeling all the years.
After visiting with friends I’ve had since childhood, I had a Big Chill moment, thinking back on where we are now compared with where we were then. Comparison is still the thief of joy but I couldn’t stop myself. And it didn’t steal all the joy, just a bit of it, because the passing of time does take things, no matter how careful we try to be. It also reveals what didn’t come to pass, turning our dreams against us, or endlessly and elusively taunting us with their ongoing existence.
The back cries out, the neck stiffens, and the walk becomes stilted.
Time, you win. Time, you always win. Time, go easy on us…
Slipping into the pool for some relief (gravity does bad things to backs when they’re at their worst) I let the spine elongate and relax, decompressing those discs or whatever might be going on to cause the pain. The relief is cruelly temporary. Outside in the air, in a strange breeze of early evening, the chill caused my back to hunch up again. The spell has dissipated. The dull ache returns. Middle age haunts us in different ways. I’m trying to make that ghost into a friend.
I miss the days when we’d have to actually call someone a fucking dickwad to their face to get a point across, instead of just leaving them on ‘delivered’ or ‘read’.
Communication is key.
Siting in the attic, I hold a letter that my friend Ann left for me. She and Missy joined us for an all-too quick weekend visit, part of our coquette summer and a vital recharge of the soul and heart. Whenever such time together comes to an end, I find a bit of sadness and mourning in the hours after – the way my heart would sink a little after every tour visit or on the ride home from one of those Saturday night card games. Re-reading her card, I feel the gratitude for the time we had together – not only this weekend, but the decades that came before when somehow we followed and held fast to the delicate threads of friendship. So many friendships are finite and fleeting – the three of us have managed to maintain our connections no matter the time or distance apart. For that reason, we know things about each other than none of our partners or spouses know – and that sort of connection seems to be more and more rare. Even my niece and nephew – just fourteen – have gone through more friendship circles than I did in twenty years. I hold Ann and Missy a little closer for that elusive bond. As this song plays in the empty room that Ann left as the sun was still pouring into the window to start the day, I go back to the Friday afternoon that she arrived…
It had been a work-week from hell – early signs of the full Buck Moon had already been felt in a tumultuous Friday, and by the time I got home, my nerves were frazzled, compounded by the general madness of the world right now and the approach of my Dad’s anniversary. Part of me wondered if I had it in me to make it through the weekend – then I remembered it was just Ann and Missy. And by ‘just’, I mean my dearest and nearest friends – the ones who have become family over all our years together. We didn’t need to maintain our friendship or closeness – people change, people move onto different lives, people simply fall out of touch – only a few remain the same, retaining the close comfort and safety when all guards can be down, when you can speak freely, laugh loudly, cry quietly, and simply spend a summer weekend in a happy state of calm – but somehow we did it. I’d almost forgotten how important it was to reconnect like that, to recharge the soul and shut out the sorrow in this particular moment of the world. Ann and Missy would remind me immediately of that.
Ann and I settled in for a couple of good talks – out by the pool, in the dining room, and ultimately on the conversation couch, where we stayed up later than either of us usually does – the way old friends pick up where they last left off, but with all the happy memories lapping upon them to add layers of reassurance and safety. It dawned on me, all these years later, how much we had seen each other through, especially in those shaky high school years. I would not be here today if it weren’t for Ann. It sounds like such a simple proclamation – but oh how much heartache and love is in everything that that encapsulates. Only she and I will ever know. What a treasure to have someone with which to share it, and to realize, perhaps a little too late, that as alone as we both felt at various times, we never quite were. I think we kept that in our minds more then than we do now – and this weekend was a reassurance that it still holds true.
The next morning we slept in more than we typically do. The cozy non-rushed company of an old friend lends an ease to a sunny summer Saturday that I will bring to mind on the colder, darker days of the year that will undoubtedly come, and I was glad to make a memory to save for then. We slowly entered the day, then got into our coquette outfits – pink, pink, and more pink. Ann is always game for a theme, and it was she who brought in the featured sign for our coquette era. Missy arrived – shockingly and beautifully in pink (because pink is not a color that Missy has ever worn) but for this special weekend she made the effort, resplendent in bows and pearls and a dusty rose dress. Her son Cameron had actually helped pick out the coquette theme for the summer, advising on what was and wasn’t coquette, and Missy delivered the look and the missive. She brought a bouquet of pink roses, and the three of us immediately returned to the gossipy fun of our youth as if the past twenty years hadn’t happened. (At my best calculation, the last time the three of us were in a room together was our 10th reunion back in 2003.)
While it may have felt like no time had passed in the way we instantly fell into our laughter and memory-laden merry-making, much had in fact happened in those two decades. It came up in references to those we had lost, in the way our stories sometimes led to moments of melancholy, in quick recaps that spelled out some of what had happened in matter-of-fact language that merely hinted at the sorrow and heartache behind it. Old friends have a shorthand way of taking that all in – of being aware of the things that informed each others lives, nodding to signal an empathetic bit of telepathy, and helping to heal in the next sentence when it was already ok to laugh again.
Following the same loose trajectory of the day before, we moved from poolside to dining room to conversation couch. I felt us relax and lean into the safe harbor of friendships that extended well back into our childhoods, and in one of those lovely moments when memories past, memories-in-the-making and a realization of the moment at hand all cross like arms in a hug at the end of the day. As we laughed uproariously at things that were just being said, I thought back to our first tentative days as friends, back when we were only kids. Finding someone who got you and your humor, who didn’t judge the differences but rather found comfort in your similarities, made for a sense of security that I’m not sure we even felt all the time from our own families. Our bond was forged then, even if we didn’t fully grasp it. Maybe on some level we understood that one day we would eventually lose those loved ones, that we would need this chosen family when things got dim and dark. Maybe we held onto it for all these years because in addition to losing loved ones we might also have lost a bit of our own way. Maybe this is the start of reconnecting more regularly and relying on each other again – so much easier to do in a world of texting and social media, when we can harness the technology for something sacred and good.
The next morning, they had to get going early, and Andy and I had Jaxon’s birthday to attend early that afternoon. Life wouldn’t wait, but I paused in the attic, opened up the letter from Ann, and held onto the moment until it was seared into my heart.
And so we move boldly, bravely, and still trepidatiously ahead.
The survival of America – of democracy itself – is, finally, up to the American people.
I hope we have it in us to do the right thing.
#VoteBlue
This swallowtail butterfly paid us a visit a few days ago, right after a hummingbird had been flitting around the cup plant blooms. While this plant can get unruly and push its volunteers out of all sorts of bounds, the charming visitors it brings, and its own whiny and charm, more than merits such a cost. With carefulness, it can all be kept under control.
The same cannot be said of the magnificent swallowtail butterfly, or any butterly for that matter. We can provide a safe haven, plant its favorite flowers, and make for a welcoming environment where it won’t be bothered, but the rest is entirely out of our hands. That the butterflies and hummingbirds and bees still visit is a happy turn of fortune.
Andy and I met 24 years ago tonight, and we’ve used this as our real anniversary because for many years it wasn’t even legal for us to get married. (And it may not be again if we have a Republican President, so vote accordingly.) At the 24-year mark, we pause in quiet honor and gratitude for making it all this way – we’ll go all-out for #25 next July. For now, it’s a typical summer day – perhaps it will rain, as it did on the day we met. The rain that day proved quite fortuitous, which is something I keep in mind whenever I get down about a rainy day.
We’ll go out for a quiet dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, and I have a special gift that will come to fruition next month, but otherwise it will be just another lovely day with Andy – the sort of happy life that whispered to me all those years ago, and that we have both worked to build for ourselves and our little family of two.
Happy Anniversary Drew – I love you.
“Positive people are not positive because they’ve skated through life. They’re positive because they’ve been through hell and decided they don’t want to live there anymore.” – Mona Lisa Nyman
My friend Ann loves Mondays. She was explaining this to me in earnest and genuine enthusiasm, exclaiming that it offers a new chance to start fresh at the beginning of every week, and once you’re have the outlook the Sunday scaries dissipate. I’m not quite there yet, but I kept that in mind as I started the workday, and staying in that mindset throughout the day proved surprisingly helpful. Ann has been through more than just about anyone I know, losing her parents and two siblings, and still moving forward with a positive attitude. The opening quote personifies who she is. If she can be positive and upbeat in the face of so much tragedy, all of us can be. It’s a choice, and I’m reframing the dour way we end the weekend and welcome the new week with a different slant. So much of life is a matter of personal perspective and how we look at and view and take in the world – over that we have an element of control, and any chance you have to make your own destiny is one you must take.
And so, as we end this summer Monday, I take some inspiration from Ann, who reminded me of many good things this weekend…
Jaxon Layne turns two today, and we celebrated with the family on a mostly beautiful day in which he was mostly awake. Not even an afternoon rainstorm could dampen my godson’s enjoyment, and seeing him run and frolic in the summer rain was a healing moment, illuminating all that is good and hopeful in the world. He seemed to have a fine time, and any happy reason to bring the family together is a good thing these days.
While he has only just turned two years old, he occasionally exhibits some hilarious old-man poses and traits, such as in the post-birthday-cupcake stance – which he adopted for just as long as the phone could capture this shot. Glimpses of an old-soul prove there is more at work in the world than we can ever know. It’s a comfort to think about that, to see the next generation just beginning their journeys.
Happy birthday, my precious godson – you are loved and cherished, and I look forward to seeing where you head into these not-so-terribles twos.
Twodles!
