Matthew Gallaway

Journey through the Past (Saturnine)

Last month, I received an email from If It Be Your Will, a podcast that features interviews with indie-rock musicians. At first, I thought it might be a marketing scam, and even after I realized it wasn't, I needed to overcome my own skepticism about my past and especially my closeted past, as if every part of it was tainted by deception. 

But the interview ended up being an amazing experience. Chris Colley (the podcaster and interviewer) was not only a long-time fan of the Saturnine, but was also part of the indie-rock scene in Montreal, where we played many times. As we reflected back on Saturnine, the distinction between artist and audience blurred, and it felt like we were talking about something we had gone through together. 

I emerged from the experience feeling less critical of my past, which was a very unexpected but meaningful gift, and one that I am trying to bring to other facets of my life. The past is immutable, but my understanding of it can change. 

Has anyone else recently had revelations about your past? If so, feel free to drop a note in the comments :) 

Here is the podcast: 

https://www.ifitbeyourwill.ca/2025/07/ifitbeyourwill-s05e27-matt-gallaway.html

Independence Day (2025)

Now that I'm running again, I've started going to the park at sunrise. 

I had forgotten how beautiful it is. 

The outside world doesn't exist. 

And the park is an underwater dream world. 

How is this even possible? 

Like our democracy, the sick elm tree is barely hanging on. 

It seems like we are on a path. 

But we are also at crossroads in this path. 

I worry that we are making the wrong choice. 

March of the Hydrangeas

In the park yesterday, I was astounded by the many varieties of hydrangea, all in bloom. There were blue ones (not my favorite, tbh). 

There were white ones (on the oak-leaf hydrangea). And so many more, which I'll be displaying below. 

But outside of the park, the news was predictably more grim, especially from the Supreme Court of the United States. 

But first let's admire some more varieties of hydrangea! 

They are all different and lovely in their own way. 

Which is not something that the Supreme Court recognizes about people. 

Gays are not important enough to be viewed as having contributed equally to our country, so if your 'religion' has a problem with us, then your children don't have to read about us in school. Our existence is too dangerous for young minds! Can you imagine making that argument to the Supreme Court of the United States ... and winning????

Even a first grader can understand why the right to religious freedom should not be weaponized to discriminate against others. But as Zohran Mamdani demonstrated this week, these same others are getting tired of being abused by a government and courts that have been propping up an archaic class whose power derives from subjugation. 

I never thought I'd see the day, but the hydrangeas have had enough. 

 

Huis Clos

On Juneteenth, Stephen and I took the train upstate to Beacon, New York, where a friend had invited us for lunch.

I was surprised by how crowded the train was.

We passed Cold Spring, which was one stop from Beacon.

When we exited the station, we were among throngs of people. Where was everyone going? I was worried that we were going to be swept away to a rock festival.

Our friend picked us up at the station, however, and soon we were drinking sangria and enjoying quiet views of the Hudson from her deck. For a few hours, it seemed like New York City was far away.

On the trip home, I remembered to sit next to the window facing the river.

We sped by the beautiful forest. Or limped by, given that the trains in this country don't seem to go very fast anymore.

As someone who grew up in Pennsylvania during the Three Mile Island incident, I felt uneasy as we passed Indian Point, even though it's been closed down.

It was nice to get back to Manhattan.

We passed under the High Bridge, where I regularly go running, and I succumbed to a specific kind of melancholy that arises when you're in a train and you pass by the place where you want to be (home) on your way to a stop (at 125th Street) that is much farther away.

Sartre wrote a book called Huis Clos about this feeling.

A Trip To St. Petersburg (Travel Diaries)

Somehow, I ended up in St. Petersburg. 

I was immediately struck by the strange vegetation. 

I ran to the harbor, which was downtown. 

I found a small swimming beach. 

The water was disturbingly warm, but I went in anyway. 

I relaxed for a while and wondered where everyone else was. 

On the way back to my Airbnb, I stopped to take more pictures of a trumpet tree (I think), whose flowers according to the internet are considered 'perfect,' having both male and female parts. (They are not permitted to compete in track meets, of course.) 

After changing, I walked through the 'East Village' of St. Petersburg. 

The next morning, on the way to a museum, I decided to stop in at the local branch of the Social Security Administration, but everyone had been fired. 

On my last morning in St. Petersburg, I went back to the harbor. 

The sky was beautiful. 

I ran through the the Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) trees. 

It was another world. 

And then I flew back home. 

 

Notes on Chicago (2025)

I arrived in Chicago for a work-related conference and quickly realized that this trip was not going to be an 'escape from reality.'

The weather on the first day was chilly and overcast, but the lake was beautiful. 

I found my way to a beach. 

The lifeguards had been deported. 

I followed a grassy trail to the shoreline. 

Someday, I thought, our country will be broken pieces of asphalt and concrete littering the shore of a new world. 

The next morning, I went running on the river, which is lined with skyscrapers and touristy boat tours and restaurants. 

The 'River Walk' is like a combination of South Street Seaport and the High Line. Every time I'm in Chicago, I wish that New York City could make our waterfront more accessible, especially in Manhattan, which is ringed with highways. 

It seems that anywhere in the city that's inaccessible to cars is going to be relatively interesting. 

All cities look great at night. 

On Saturday morning, the skies were clear. I ran back to the beach and jumped into the lake for two seconds. The water was very cold, but I made myself do it and felt better after I was out, my skin tingling as I dried off in the sun.  

Where was this boat coming from, I wondered, and where could it take me? 

March of the Rhododendrons (May)

A friend of mine who I ran with in high school wrote to me recently and we were talking about getting old. The miles, we agreed, feel a lot longer than they used to. 

But after the past few years, I felt grateful to be running at all, especially in the park, where the irises were in bloom. 

I'm also happy in a different way not to be biking so much, which is what I've done when I've been injured. I hate to say it, but when I contemplate biking in the city, I feel some dread. The cars are immense and the drivers are more aggressive than they used to be because the police don't ticket them. I also worry about getting a criminal summons, which the police starting issuing to bikers who run red lights and commit other minor infractions that for drivers would result in a regular ticket. There's no data to support this policy change -- bikers cause a tiny percentage (like less than one) of the injuries that drivers do -- but the police are doing it anyway, with the mayor's support. To bike in this city, in other words, requires engaging with a Trumpian world -- no facts and the demonization of a minority -- that's exhausting. 

The poppies were also in bloom. 

The rhododendron made me think about the Tiergarten in Berlin, which I visited twenty years ago this month to attend a conference for work. I don't remember anything about the conference, but I remember walking along what seemed like an endless network of paths, all lined with flowering rhododendron. It was a dream world. 

I also remember thinking to myself while I was in Berlin that I could live there. The parks, the trees, the birds -- it was unexpectedly magical. 

But New York City, I reminded myself, has its own pleasures and its own magic. 

Which is why people who voted for Trump tend to hate it. 

 

Life in Fog and Flowers (March of the Azaleas)

During a break in the rain today, I went for a run. I was happy to see the fog settling down over the bridge. The hidden landscape was green and lush. 

At the park, I found the azaleas in peak bloom. 

Seeing them, I 'shrieked with delight.' Actually, I didn't, but I've been thinking about what might make me shriek with delight since I read about someone doing it after they learned that an American had been selected as the new pope. Someone else talked about how 'thrilled' her children were going to be. It was hard to fathom living in world in which fervor for nationalism and organized religion -- two strains of the same cancer -- was still so unrestrained. 

I was comforted by the knowledge that at least some of my cynicism was generational, which I learned while reading another article (paywalled, in the Economist if you want to find it) about how Generation X has 'suffered' more than other generations, both in terms of the attention we receive (measured by Google searches), and a number of economic indicators (wages, home ownership, etc.) I felt a small thrill of validation when I read that my generation was 'cursed.' 

For years, I've suspected that my siblings -- all of whom are technically boomers, thanks to a large age gap between me and my next oldest brother -- didn't understand me because I'm gay, but it now occurred to me that our generational divide was at least as important. I had grown up listening to their music and watching their television shows and movies, but they knew nothing about the music and movies I loved. I remember once asking my oldest brother if he had ever heard a song by the Smiths, and he said that he had not. (Lol.) There's a language that people from the same generational cohort often share -- and part of this language comprises cultural references that inform a kind of perspective or 'outlook' -- and while I, despite being a foreigner, was relatively fluent in the language of their generation, they not only didn't know how to talk to me in the language of Generation X, they didn't even know it existed. No wonder I was 'half a person' to them. 

I've learned that being 'Gen X' is often accompanied by a sense of isolation -- sometimes harrowing, sometimes comforting -- that's hard for boomers (and millennials, by virtue of their numbers, and even Gen Z, who are still very earnest) to understand. A few months ago, I was reading an op-ed in the NYT about a 56-year-old woman whose father had dementia, and I said to myself, 'there aren't that many 56-year olds in this country -- I probably know her,' and when I looked at the byline, I was amused but not exactly surprised to see that she had been in my freshman-year literature class in college. We had been friends and spent a semester abroad in France on the same program. Being a part of Generation X, though, I didn't try to contact her. I'm sure she would understand; if anything, she would probably be annoyed to hear from me. 

Although it can be legally and economically fraught to belong to a cursed generation, it's sometimes nice to be ignored. I had a similar feeling recently while watching a French thriller set on the shores of lake known as a gay cruising spot. 'This movie never could have been made in the United States,' I said to Stephen, who agreed. It captured an aspect of gay culture that most straight people in my experience have no idea exists, or if they do know, it's not something they ever talk about. 

In the same way that most boomers have no curiosity about Gen X, most straight people have no curiosity about gay life. 

But to live in the fog, where life is hidden -- even neglected -- and (sometimes) all the more beautiful as a result, is maybe not so cursed after all. 

Let the Trees Grow (Early May)

In an era of political turmoil marked by the active dismantling of the government, I allowed myself a few minutes of unbridled joy and redemption as I watched a crew install sidewalk trees on our block. Admittedly, there were some 'issues': they only installed trees on one side of the block (and were vague about plans to return for the other side) and I'm worried that one of the trees they planted is already dead :( Still, it was very nice to be reminded that the government is capable of using public money to help beautify the landscape (even though our horrible mayor has consistently underfunded the parks department, which administers the sidewalk-tree program).  

In private garden news, we've had a good camellia season. 

We pruned our birch tree over the winter, which means more sunlight reaches the ground.

Our dicentra -- aka 'bleeding hearts' -- has also done well this year. 

As have the epimedium, whose flowers look like flocks of birds. 

Our wild geranium are flowering for the first time. 

Along with our crested iris, another plant that (in theory) does well in the shade. Ours could be doing better -- we have some very shady spots in our garden that are notoriously difficult for even shade-loving plants -- but we'll see what happens. 

We planted a columnar gingko, which in ten years (if the world is still here) will be fifteen feet tall and provide a nice screen from the neighboring buildings. We placed the gingko next to our dawn redwood with the hope that the trees would become friends, given that both species are hundreds of millions of years old. 

The flowers of the camellia are cheerful and a little hallucinogenic. 

'What are these strange, pink clouds doing everywhere?' -- Clio

I'm a bit sad that camellia season is already over. 

It's nice to spend a few seconds with the flowers, which are oblivious to what's happening in the world. 

Gardens and parks bring a lot of happiness to the world, but we only spend a fraction of a percent of our public money on parks (compared to thirteen percent for 'defense' and six percent for roads and highways). In New York City, each year police officers get paid almost three times more in overtime alone than the budget for the entire parks department.  

Camellias for mayor, 2025. 

April Showers (Time Passes)

I ran to the park this morning in a light rain that was perfect for April. 

The new growth on the plants vibrated with color and life under the gray skies. 

Not everyone made it through the winter, sadly, including this clump of heather. 

I was a little bit hungover from a pre-reunion party I went to at my friend Jessica's house in Park Slope. It's been thirty years since we graduated from law school. 

We talked about professors we liked and didn't like, as well as fellow classmates. Some of them are powerful Republicans now. I wondered if they were all convening at a different house in a different neighborhood. Maybe they were gloating about Trump. 

Jessica and I talked about how relatively clueless we were in law school at NYU, specifically with regard to a kind of 'elite track' for certain students who are either very good at taking law-school exams or very good at networking with the right people to line them up for prestigious legal careers. We speculated that some of this knowledge comes from families. I described a law professor I know who told me that as a child, her parents -- both professors -- used to sit around the dinner table gossiping about who was going to get a job at which university. Neither Jessica nor I grew up in what would be considered an 'intellectual environment,' which we understood put us at a bit of a disadvantage with those who did. It's almost like growing up in a family that speaks a second language; you are going to be more fluent in that language than most other speakers. 

Being closeted in my twenties added to my overall naivete about many things in the world. 

It was good to see people from thirty years ago and to realize how much in some ways that I've changed. (And how much in other ways that I've not changed.) 

Standing in the park and mulling over the passage of time, I realized, is a great pleasure of being old enough to stand in the park and mull over the passage of time.