Matthew Gallaway

Late Afternoon Light and New Leaves (Spring Break 2022)

It's only been raining for one day and I feel like I've been sentenced to solitary confinement. Maybe the lockdown is finally catching up with me, or maybe it's because the weather earlier this week was so beautiful that it feels almost cruel for it to have ended. 

On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the park, where the late afternoon sun was shining through the new leaves and flower petals. 

The Mayapples were on the march. 

It's really been one of the best springs I can remember, at least in terms of the weather. 

We had a few cold days at the end of March, but none of the crippling heat I remember from recent years. 

 The conifers are happy. 

There's so much information in the world. 

Here I couldn't remember any of it. 

March of the Camellia

I knew that spring had finally arrived when the camellia started to flower. All winter I had been watching the buds, which slowly swelled until one morning when I discovered that a few of them had opened. It happened overnight. I felt like I could breathe again. 

This year, for the first time, we had three plants blooming at the same time: red, white, and pink.  

The pink camellia is the first one we planted, and it has the most flowers. They float around the statue like perfect little clouds. Sometimes, I thought, it's possible to plan something for years that, when it finally happens, doesn't disappoint.  

I did feel sad thinking about Elektra, who loved the garden. 

 It's easy to ignore the outside world when the camellias are flowering.  

But camellia season is now coming to an end. Most of the flower petals have fallen off and now litter the ground; only a few remain attached to the branch. The outside world beckons and threatens. 

It's hard to see the flowers go, but I'm already looking forward to next year. 

DeathCulture@Sea 'Freeway to Hell'

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates chocolate and candy. Here's a new Death Culture at Sea song we can add to the long tradition of songs about heading into (or out of) hell :) 

Link. 

Trees with Flowers

This was the week when everything changed, very quickly.

I’m talking about the trees and not the governmental response to the existential threat of global warming, of course.

The bike (and running and walking) path next to the Hudson is the busiest in the country, but is marked by buckling cement and potholes. It’s also very narrow in many places. I’m surprised that people aren’t crashing into each other all the time. (Or maybe they are.)

I’m hoping that for Earth Day this year, the mayor/governor/president/Mayor Pete will announce a new initiative to expand and widen bike paths everywhere (and reduce car lanes), starting with the west side of Manhattan.

We could plant a lot more trees, too.

It’s easy to dream when the sun is out, the wind is blowing, and the trees are in bloom. 

Green Haze

When I arrived in Western Pennsylvania, I was initially disappointed by the lack of color. In New York City, spring was up and running; here, the woods reminded me of The Blair Witch Project. 

I went running through the naked trees and felt old as I negotiated muddy hairpin turns that I wouldn't have thought twice about a few years ago. 

As I ran, I discovered here and there patches of green carpet. 

And vibrant displays of moss on the rocks and tree stumps. 

Spring was not as invisible as I had feared. 

The stream was rushing fast from all the rain. 

Notwithstanding the state of the world, I felt optimistic. 

Looking closer still, I found the wildflowers were blooming. 

Suffering and Not Suffering in Riverside Park

Yesterday I met some friends at 74th Street on Broadway. We went into Fairway*, bought some drinks and snacks, and walked over the the park, where we found an empty table and two benches to sit. 

*The uptown Fairway at 125 has closed, but the flagship store at Broadway doesn't appear to have changed in the wake of a bankruptcy -- it's still packed with food and customers jockeying for position -- although the novelty of a gourmet supermarket has perhaps worn off a bit since I first discovered it twenty-five years ago. I was a little dismayed to find that self-service checkout has replaced many of the staffed registers, but given the long lines filled with what I found to be a surprising number of mask-free UWSers (probably Biden supporters), I nevertheless tried to use one. I required assistance from the supervisor for approximately eight out the ten items I scanned and the register froze when I tied to pay, so everything had to be transferred to a new (staffed) machine. As I often do, I fantasized about living in different system that incentivized companies to hire real workers instead of replacing them with inefficient machines. 

Even though it was only fifty degrees out, we didn't get cold because our table was directly in the path of the afternoon sun. After enduring a week of freezing temperatures, the trees and flowers were coming to life. 

I'm familiar with this section of the park, but only by way of having run through it many times in the course of completing a run of at least ten miles. (This section of the park is five miles from my house.) I hadn't done such a long run in long time, however, since late 2020. Maybe soon, I thought, if my knee continues to get better. 

Or maybe not. It was nice to spend some time here without feeling like I was about to suffer. 

 

 

Late March

Along with the forsythia (see below), spring iris is another early bloomer in the park. 

Along with the spring crocus, they dot the landscape in clumps of blue and purple. 

I was worried that I had missed the cherry blossoms, but it turned out that they were just beginning to bloom on Saturday, which was sunny and warm. 

My mother and I were talking about how much we love the green haze of spring, which tells us that warm weather is coming, even when it's snowing, like it was today, and will be tomorrow. It seems that dread is an important part of spring, too. 

The forsythias were reaching peak yellow on Saturday. 

There's a person or possibly a ghost (or a #god) standing in the forsythias that I didn't see when I was taking the photograph. 

Daffodils are never frightening or frightened. 

The heather gardens were muted by comparison but still magnificent, a tapestry of subtle colors that contrasted against the ominous gray clouds. 

Two thoughts ran through my head: how could the park still be so beautiful, and how could the outside world still be falling apart. 

Forsythia Season

One of the things I look forward to every year is forsythia season at the park. I missed it two years ago during the most intense phase of the lockdown, and it's an ongoing source of grief. 

This year I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it because I was injured most of the fall, but I'm now running long-enough distances to get to the park and back. (Thank you physical therapy and Susan B, who turned me on to Solomon's Seal.) 

Most of the year the forsythias are unremarkable -- just the green understory -- but for these few weeks, they're like a fog bank of yellow flowers, hovering above the ground, spilling over the cliffs.

I'm already looking forward to next year. 

DeathCulture@Sea 'It Brings You Up (And Then It Brings You Down)'

To honor the arrival of Spring 2022 (TM), I'm 'dropping' a new DC@S song, inspired by some of my favorite 1980s sludge/drone/melodic/drug bands (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Spaceman Three) and others not from the 1980s. 

LINK. 

YOU GUYS. DC@S is on a serious tear. Check out the full playlist here. ROCK ON. 

March Fog

Given that we live in a metaphorical fog that never seems to lift, the arrival of the real thing delivered a sense of validation. 'You see?' I said to the cats. 'I wasn't kidding about the fog.'

I walked to the High Bridge and admired Sauron's Tower, which is not far from Mount Doom. 

I thought about Andy Warhol. There's a new documentary on Netflix about him that corresponds to the period of his diaries, so roughly from around the time he was shot until his death. 

I've always loved Andy Warhol and thought I knew a lot about him, but there was a lot of new information in the documentary. I didn't know that 1) Andy did a guest spot on 'The Love Boat,' 2) he had a successful modeling career in the 80s, and 3) he interviewed Nancy Reagan at the White House (and hated her). There are six or seven episodes, and the first one is a bit rocky; at first I was dismayed to see soft-focus reenactments of his life (with Bill Irwin playing Andy), but gradually they became a bit less stilted and provided good breaks to check Twitter or -- my latest obsession -- the Sudoku puzzle (NYT medium-level difficulty) on my phone. Much of the show is narrated by a computer-generated AI voice reading Andy's diary entries, which again is a bit jarring at first, but is something that I suspect Andy would have loved. For that matter, he probably would have loved the soft-focus reenactments starring Bill Irwin. 

If there's a theme to the show, it's probably the idea that Andy, despite his incredible artistic output and fame, was often lonely, insecure, and lovelorn. It was a little painful watching Andy chase after Jon Gould. The series went to great lengths to portray this relationship as serious and important to both men, but I never quite believed that Jon Gould took Andy that seriously. But it was still interesting to watch.  

Another (related) theme of the show is that much of Andy's work can and should be understood through a gay lens, in terms of gay desire and also in terms of hiding gay desire. His deadpan, unemotional public demeanor, for example, and much of his dry wit only make sense with the understanding that he's gay, not to mention his understanding and manipulation of fame. 

It was nice to watch a documentary about someone I already loved and after it was done to feel like I loved him even more. I remembered visiting his tombstone, which is not far from where I grew up in Pittsburgh. I'm pretty sure I posted photographs to this blog, but I can't find them. 

Another reminder that while the fog descends and the fog lifts, it's always there.