Tea comes with all sorts of memories, more than I can recall in my ever-advancing age, and so I look to the search and recover process that involves me searching the archives for previous posts here. A number of tea memories come up when that journey begins – and it’s a trip to the past that I mostly don’t mind making, unlike many other looks-back.
A happy tea memory with my Dad.
A cup of coziness with a song to match.
The evocation of tea memories.
Please watch, please listen, please take this video to heart before you try to give any sort of equalizing balance to the two political parties vying to lead our great country in this year’s election. From my alma mater, Brandeis University, this is the speech that Ken Burns gave to this year’s graduating class – and it’s one that needs to be heard by everyone in America – at least anyone who wants America to remain the democracy we know and revere.
One of the tenets of Brandeis that spoke to me most when deciding which college to attend was their motto: Truth, even unto its innermost parts.
One of the final peonies to bloom is this exquisite almost-pure white variety which comes with the most intoxicating perfume of all the peonies we grow. It is always worth the wait, even if some years result in photographic peony fatigue. That wasn’t the case this year, as most of the bloom happened when we were away in Maine (the only drawback of a Memorial Day weekend vacation). And for the peony, I have always made room and time for moments of appreciation and gratitude.
As with many white flowers often ridiculously dismissed for their simple color, the fragrance is an additional note in their symphony of beauty. When seen with a few raindrops from an afternoon shower, the effect is even more enchanting. While we begin our documented trail of peony blooms with these lovely white blooms, they actually began with the more common hot pink variety, which is to come in all its glory. Stay tuned…
Like a cloud, this lead-in to summer is intended to be light and airy, the way we are shaping up this summer to be – at least the way I hope for it to be. Summer plans are best kept light and airy, especially in the world as it currently stands. And especially in my world after last summer.
A light and airy song to match this post – a tune to travel the skies, carried by the clouds themselves. Fittingly by the brilliance that is Air. Another peek at the summer theme to come…
Our clematis has already leaped its way up and over its accompanying lamp post. It’s the old-fashioned and rather common ‘Jackmanii’ variety, no less beautiful for its ubiquity, but when compare with the variety seen here, a bit lacking in pizzazz. (It makes up for that with the sheer volume of its blooms, so every clem has its lovable points.) This one is electric in the make-up of its individual blooms, but I left it at the nursery because we simply don’t have space for another clematis right now. (Our climbing hydrangea has finally taken over the arbor where once a sweet autumn clematis reigned supreme.)
These blooms though… they do call to the part of me that thrills at a good dazzler.
At the time of this writing, we’ve only been back a few hours from a gloriously-long weekend vacation in Maine – the Way Life Should Be – so this will be a placeholder for a much grander post somewhere down the line. I’m still in vacation mode, and after running an errand I came home to find my friend Chris making a surprise visit en route to Rochester, so we had dinner together, thus extending a happy vacation moment just when I thought it was over. Friends are the best balm for retiring to reality from an all-too-short vacation.
These flowers are a happy reminder of our recent time in Maine, personifying the giddy cheer that Ogunquit has always brought to us.
All things pink for those that have been following here – a hint at our summer theme, on this, the unofficial kick-off to the summer season. Rather than give anything more away, let’s step back in time with the weekly recap. Enjoy your day…
Garden perfume by way of Korea.
Social media apathy, because we simply do not care.
Dazzlers of the Day included Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard, Joven Calloway and Michelle Williams.
Named for the way the black, wiry stems look when they are matted down at the end of winter, the Maidenhair fern also has a more slightly-vulgar common name – the Five-Finger Fern. Why not just call it a Hand Fern and destroy its reputation completely? No matter – the beauty and delicate appearance of this fern makes it my all-time favorite – and such an elegant and dainty look is merely a mask, as this beast is as hardy as any other fern in the forest. I love when things are pretty and deceptively-strong.
This fern is a clump former – gradually spreading out into sizable masses that are happy to be divided and planted about the garden. Again, it’s hardier than you think, and its divided leaflets render even the strongest of wind gusts harmless. A pretty strong thing that is so gleefully dismissive of brute force is a thing of beauty indeed. Don’t fuck with this maiden.
I recall more commercial jingles from my childhood than actual songs. And yes, I find myself still singing them.
“Hey look, there’s a look that’s in style, live wires, live wires!”
Everyone loves an allium. Like magic wands shooting stars of purple pixie dust, they rise quietly from the earth, soaring with unobtrusive promise, before exploding into these gorgeous balls of bloom. The stunning Allium giganteum is one of the largest in this genus, rising upwards of five feet, and topped with hundreds of tiny flowers forming a transfixing orb of purple majesty.
I tend to admire them in the gardens of others, as once thy finish their bloom cycle the foliage does a slow die back, and it should not be removed until the bulb has rejuvenated itself for next year. An early stunner that then leaves a blank space in the garden for the rest of the summer, but what a show it provides. The garden posits such tradeoffs and the gardener must pick and choose which are worth the price.
Career goals: luxuriating in bed. Also, making up words that offer new ways to do nothing.
Looking for a gentler and softer palette of colors for our backyard, I found this cooling hue of catmint flowers a good way of calming the view. Aptly named, as the cats do seem to love it based on the occasional trampling they performed when I used to grow this, catmint makes for a fine perennial border plant. Its profuse clouds of light purple flowers held above silvery green foliage is an ideal antidote from the heat of summer to come.
I’m seeking out gentler and softer ways of going through this summer, and clouds of catmint may be one path to getting there.
The other day I got one of those supremely unhelpful and useless notifications from Facebook indicating that I posted 16% fewer posts over the last week and had 67% less engagement. If I were an LOL guy I’d have LOL’d all over my laptop. Instead, I probably gave the briefest of chuckles, then quickly moved on. The truth is that I simply don’t care about social media, and most of what I do now is just a simple post of the current blog link you see here. A quick hit-and-run, which is why my engagement and posts are fewer and farther between these days.
That’s been the slow trajectory of things over the past few years, and the same holds true for Twitter and Instagram and the latest Threads. I’m just not into them anymore, and it’s not a new thing. This website was around before all of them, and I enjoyed sharing with my friends and family and whatever limited audience was made aware of its existence (some of you may remember the great postcard blitz of 2003…) and it has always existed solely for my creative expression and enjoyment. That’s happening with or without social media, and given the awfulness of those platforms now, I find myself more and more content when I’m not on them.
So, yes, FaceBook – I’m aware that I post less and have little engagement – and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Also, I’m still here, so count ALANILAGAN.com among the ladies who are still lunching, still spilling the tea, still throwing this party…
When Jaxon Layne was born, it struck me quite profoundly that I was roughly the same age that my Dad was when I was born. It offered a greater glimpse of understanding into how my father operated when my brother and I were kids, and of course that perspective was missing as we were growing up – a rather unfair thing for all parties involved. What could he possibly have made of a new baby in his mid-to-late 40’s? He had already set his ways in strict and organized fashion as any proper Virgo would have done by that age. My arrival, and the strange child I would prove to be, no doubt disrupted the regimented existence he has crafted for himself. To his credit he never loved me any less for it.
I will keep that in mind as I step up my godfathering; I tend to hang out in the background for now, as I did with the twins when they were this young, watching him from a distance. It’s a wonder to witness as he navigates his way in the world, and it calls back to my childhood, returning me to days with my Dad and my Mom, in the same house, in the same rooms, with the same slant of afternoon light…
