This may be a controversial choice, given the power of the Swifties (don’t come for me please! I’m a Swiftie myself!) but Jake Gyllenhaal also has a powerful body of work that merits this crowning as Dazzler of the Day. He recently appeared in the remake of ‘Road House’, and he also appeared with recent AI wunderkind Tom Holland as a villain in one of the Spiderman movies. In my age bracket, Jake will always be remembered for his career-defining performance in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ with Heath Ledger. That movie alone cements his status as today’s Dazzler.
In the sounds of rushing water there is life, and the odd brush with the sublime rekindles memories from half a world away. Whenever I pass a stream, and whenever I have the time, I’ll pull over and pause beside the running water. It only takes a few minutes, and all I do is stand there and listen, but it makes a difference – it allows for a moment of meditation, even when it doesn’t have the customary trappings of what most might consider meditation. Being mindful and appreciating the beauty in a moment is its own form of meditation. Occasionally, deeper pondering will cross my brain at such times, and I acknowledge those thoughts, then let them go, envisioning them drifting along with the current of the water.
Mostly though, I simply stand beside the water and watch, seeing how the sunlight might play on its little waves, listening to the way it tinkles or roars, feeling the calm it instills on its own unbothered journey. I wonder at its power and pull, lulled by its siren-like call, and somehow I feel a little better about the world.
Further evidence of how far we have fallen since COVID: this was a recent cleaning outfit when I was in Boston preparing for a visit from Kira. A pair of ridiculously-red underwear and the top of a velour track-suit, because I was too lazy to be bothered pulling up the matching pants. Picture this going up and down a ladder taking down holiday curtains last month, and you have the illustrative embodiment of a tortured winter.
The nonsensical match-up looked questionably striking against the bedding that’s currently in the bedroom, so I paused to capture the scene. Winter is so drab one wants for a pop of color, and if that comes from the underwear drawer then so shall it be.
These photos are mostly for my amusement, and a bit of a tentative step back into my comfort zone (which has traditionally been walking around in my underwear). Lately I’ve felt a bit of the old creative process stirring again, that sublime time when the world whispers of a new project on the distant horizon, and hints of themes and ideas are found at every turn. The haze of this winter has been dissipating somewhat of late, perhaps a little on the early side, but it keeps me going. For the most part, I’ve been quietly embracing these winter days, taking them slowly, one by one, and suddenly we are in mid-February – half-way through the shortest month of the year (plus a leap-year day).
Such winds carry the first inkling of spring with them, and the merest whiff of that fine season is enough to thrill and set the heart to hurried motion. And so I forego the black and gray wardrobe I’d adopted these past few months, and try on something colorful, something silly, something to elicit joy even if I’m the only one who ever sees it.
Am I the only person who enjoyed Valentine’s Day more as a kid than as an adult? Don’t get me wrong, my husband is always lovely enough to gift me with some exquisite item I’ve oh-so-subtly-hinted-at, and I always take him out for a V-Day dinner (never on this date, but a day or two afterward, because who in their right mind messes around with reservations and questionable service/value on February 14?) But for the rest of it – the candy and flowers and in-store hype – I always think back to when it all meant a little more.
Strangely enough, Valentine’s Day was never about romantic love for me – it was about love in general. For a child growing up, that’s the only sort of love I understood or felt. Rather than pining for a love interest, I poured my heart into crafting Valentine cards for my friends and family. The thrill of the day was in watching my classmates open up their bags of cards, and opening the ones they had given to me. While we all exchanged cards (even if we hated the person they went to) there were some that were more dear to me, especially when someone I liked, or tolerated, turned out to write something touching in a few short words. It was always more moving when it came from someone I would never suspect of such kindness; we expect worship and adoration from our dearest friends – it’s the unexpected show of love that pulls most insistently at the heart.
As for romance – or Romance with the capital ‘R’ because we add such unearned Reverence to the concept – I couldn’t quite grasp it when I was a kid. On an episode of ‘Family Ties’ they put this heartsick ballad on, and I felt the first hints of the longing and heartache that love could elicit. This song tore up the radio shortly thereafter, and I’d listen to it late at night, wondering at what it all meant.
One year I begged my Mom to let me get some fabric and decorations to make a stuffed heart. Using a silky chiffon in the brightest red, I sewed it all up by hand – a typical red heart, which I then bordered with a thin ribbon of purple velvet ribbon – all softness and sensory delight – before gluing on a pink felt heart at its center, and a healthy sprinkling of sequins and glitter in an act that would become a trademark – much to the chagrin of all my friends who never wanted glitter on their faces for the rest of their lives.
‘Tis the damn season, so go have your Valentine’s Day and celebrate in whatever fashion you deem delightful. I’ll be home with Andy, watching the new season of ‘Feud’ with Truman Capote and his Swans. A night in with a television show is a rare indulgence for me, and I couldn’t ask for a better Valentine.
Why are Tuesdays the longest days of the week? This morning I looked up from what felt like an entire work day gone by and it was only 9 AM. As much as I hate Monday, that day somehow flies by, while Tuesday just slows to a crawl and stays at that pace the whole damn day. One of the work-week’s little fuck-overs.
Sooner or later, although most signs point to sooner, we won’t be able to tell what’s real.
In this instance, we come upon Tom Holland assuming the stance and position for Henry Cavill. A pose of possibility, perhaps. A pose of something more in the minds of the great gutter-dwellers.
Targeted marketing on social media often works quite well on me – all those glamorous duds from Saks and Nordstrom, caftans with sumptuous cuffs of ostrich feathers, sequined jumpsuits, and bejeweled purses in the shapes of swans and stars and shells. They don’t always get it right though, as seen in this ad for a vibrator sold through Anthropologie.
My most recent purchase from Anthropologie was a pair of sheer sequined pants, and perhaps that gave them the wrong idea in this case. As amusing as this is, I’m more in shock that this particular company carries vibrators. I fear the next stage of growing old is being shocked at such a thing, and that is the stage I’m at: shock and awe, only I’m usually on the other side of both.
It’s time to get back in the game, and back to my usual side.
Winter is scheduled to return this week after a bit of an unofficial and greatly-appreciated hiatus – we’ll see how much she decided to dump on us tomorrow. In the meantime, the weekly recap slides us into Monday whether we are ready or not…
The trailer for the movie adaptation of ‘Wicked’ dropped during the first moments of the Super Bowl (this is why we watch, people!) and it is more than I was hoping, and certainly more than I was expecting. Obviously, a trailer does not a movie make, but a trailer has been known to break a few, and this one magnificently shows just enough to set the stage for a year of anticipation until the first installment arrives. Feast your eyes and ears upon it below, and prepare to fly…
“Style is something that you cannot learn. It’s something that has to come from within you and bit by bit be arrived at. And it’s simply there like the color of your eyes.” – Truman Capote
It took some time to arrive, and it shall continue to evolve, but my style has always been a component of who I am. For many years I played it up while simultaneously dismissing it, donning costumes and items of artifice that conveyed a chameleonic shifting of character. It was a form of dress-up that we adopt as children, and which some of us never quite quit. It was as much revelation as it was masquerade.
Were mistakes made? Numerous times. Big, bombastic, egregious mistakes. And when I knew better, I tried to be better. I’ve always been one to appreciate the arc of a learning journey, the ways we improve and what we do after we make our mistakes. Too many people want to focus on the mistakes themselves and the immediate aftermath and repercussions; I prefer to focus on the growth and evolution and eventual revealing of who we truly are that comes about from those mistakes. These days I’m also discovering how to accept and be at peace with the perfection of imperfection. Perhaps I should have written that when I knew better, I tried to do things differently, rather than doing them better. Sometimes we don’t need to improve; sometimes we just need to do things in a different way.
As for what constitutes my style these days, I’m deep into comfort. Sweat pants and loose, oversized long-sleeve t-shirts. It’s winter. It’s a new age in a new world. And I’m cocooning. The unseen transformation is always the most powerful. In other to listen well, one must be completely quiet, and I hear the subtle whispers of inspiration when the wind is low. Acknowledging the past is also a component of good listening; it allows for the advice of the future to be fully heard. In stillness and silence there may be understanding.
One of the greatest thrills of life is discovering a word you never knew, especially when it so aptly describes something that you have always loved. In this case, it’s the word ‘apricity’ – which means the warmth of the sun in winter. Tell me that’s not an exquisite word, with an exquisite meaning. It contains a gorgeous bit of tension in its juxtaposing elements, eliciting a silver thread of hope from the barren doldrums of the slumbering season.
When posed with the question of why I have written posts for this website for over twenty years, my first, and perhaps over-simplified response is that I love to write. Inherent in that is a love for words – how they’re used, how they might be transformed and rearranged into something new and spectacular, how they might be both masks and revelations in the exact same time and place. On some level, writing is the ultimate act of manipulation – using phrases and sentences and structure to convey whatever you want to convey, and in that sense it’s a concrete version of what we do as humans. Mastering manipulation may not sound like a noble quest in being human, and maybe it’s not – that doesn’t make it any less true.
Rather than dive into that icky contemplation on humanity, let’s instead focus on apricity, something auto-correct is repeatedly insisting on switching to ‘apricot’ – a lovely word in its own right, but not the one I want to celebrate today. Apricity – the warmth of the sun in winter – must be a phenomenon that most skiers who have ever gotten sunburn around their ski goggles know and understand quite well. As a well-proven non-skier, my understanding is limited to the instinctual way my head will sometimes turn to face the sun on those colder days. Merrily squinting and smiling into its brightness, I close my eyes and let it fall on my cheeks and forehead, imagining through the icy chill and wind that it’s summer somewhere, knowing that it will come again if we’re all still here in a few months.
Recently I read that the daylight grows longer at its quickest pace during this time of the year. When the workday is done, that’s usually the time and space where I make my meditation. It’s the moment when the sky just starts turning dark, and in the living room the sun determines how the remaining light looks – the sun, the sky, the clouds, the atmosphere – they all conspire to bring about something gray and dull and somber, or something filled with rich hues and deep color.
I don’t usually think of winter in such colorful ways. In my mind, I’ve relegated it to the stuff of dreams, and most of my dreams are in black and white. Yes, my dreams are drained of color – a rather unfair predicament for someone so enamored of bold splashes of fuchsia, gorgeous gushes of chartreuse in early spring, or the fiery red of this candle.
Even on the gray days, the light outside the window will often turn blue when seen in pictures. In person, it’s never quite as striking. Another instance of disappointment, of something that feels unfair, when really it’s just another lesson of winter, another way to shift one’s views. Finding beauty in more subtle nuances is a way to finding happiness, but it takes practice and focus and a willingness to live in the quiet, without the relentless distractions and bells and whistles of cel phones and lap tops and surround sound and screens that get bigger and bigger. I’m running on now like my sentences, running through winter and keeping a steady pace to get through, to keep going.
