Matthew Gallaway

Walking in the Rain with Clio

I was going to do a longer post today about some of the highlights and outtakes from the end of summer, including a day trip to Wave Hill and Stephen's (very successful) attempt to make grilled cauliflower steaks, but it's been raining all weekend, which makes it hard to think about much besides the rain. 

After some hesitation as she confronted a light drizzle at the door, Clio went for her morning walk in the garden. After some hesitation as I confronted the prospect of following her into the rain, I went along. 

It hasn't been cold enough for any of the leaves to turn, but the garden is beginning to transition to a new season. There wasn't anything specific I could point to, but somehow, I could just tell. Soon, I'll be mulching leaves and covering the fountain. I reminded myself to keep a close eye on the dawn redwood (not pictured), which last year shed many needles into our neighbor's gutter and led him to threaten me (or the tree, some of whose branches admittedly overhang his yard), with a chainsaw. I begged him to relent by promising to cut back some of the branches with a non-chainsaw (which I did) and to keep an eye on his gutter, a promise that will soon come due. In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to plant a forest of gigantic trees in a small urban garden, but we were going for a woodlands vibe. 

Next year, I thought, barring any surprises or tragedies, the garden will look pretty much the same, but also slightly different. We're planning to add some ferns around the base of the statue and to plant some different colors of caladium. (The red is a bit much?) Hopefully the climbing hydrangea won't get scale (but we've said that before!) and the trunks and branches of the trees will be slightly thicker and imperceptibly more elegant (or at least that's the hope). 

DeathCulture@Sea (Wasted in the Meadow)

Before I leave for Pittsburgh, I wanted to post a new song that I've been working on, inspired by _____ and ______. I think it falls pretty squarely into my favorite genre -- psychedelic dream rock -- but let me know what you think in the comments (that's me blogging like it's 2008). 

LINK

DeathCulture@Sea Playlist

The Pleasure of Going Nowhere (Labor Day)

After twisting my ankle on a run a few weeks ago, I resigned myself to spending more time in the garden, where strange, exotic creatures were afoot. 

It was frustrating not to be able to run, but I allowed myself to be hypnotized by the light and shadows. 

After taking last year off, the foxglove started blooming. 

The outside world and its many, many problems felt far away. 

We have three varieties of hardy begonia -- pink, sort-of-pink, and white -- which has become a foundational plant in our increasingly shady garden. 

The bees love the hardy begonias. It's very satisfying to watch them flit from bloom to bloom. 

The toad lilies also started blooming, but they've gotten too tall for the trough. This fall, we're going to move them to another part of the garden so that we can make room for more hardy begonias. 

For a few years, we had cold-hardy jasmine growing up the back wall, but it become infested with scale and we had to rip it out. (RIP, cold-hardy jasmine.) We've now returned to clematis, a strategy that appears to be working. Next year will be Year Three for many of these plants, which is when fingers crossed they will be established and vigorous. We're expecting a galaxy of blooms. 

Like so many places in the New York City these days, our garden has lantern flies, but fortunately not too many. 

Since it's September, I took back-to-school pictures of the cats. Clio went first. 

And here's Zephyr, who recently turned seventeen. 

 

Every Flavor of Summer

In the global warming era, it seems that July has taken February's spot as the worst-weather month, at least in New York City. Clio started coughing, which the vet said was likely caused not by asthma, a problem that afflicted Dante for most of his life, but by the poor air quality. After reckoning with the likelihood that wildfire smoke is here for the foreseeable future (and because there's no limit to what we will spend on the cats) we decided to invest in air purifiers. Some of my friends were dubious. What if the governments of the world, they asked, start regulating the use of fossil fuels and reduce carbon (and other greenhouse gas) emissions to a level where millions of acres of forest are not on fire every summer? We bought the purifiers with two-day shipping.  

'You do you.' -- neoliberals :(  

But all joking aside, the garden has been beautiful, especially after a rainstorm. 

The raindrops look very pretty as they collect at the tips of the dawn redwood branches.  

'The fate of humanity is represented by a trembling drop of water clinging to a deciduous needle.' -- Zephyr

I love standing next to the birch tree and pretending that I'm in the middle of a forest somewhere (two hundred years ago). 

As I get older, I find that I'm able to sit entranced by nothing but a shaft of light making its way across the garden. Is this what cats do when they sit for hours in the same place?

This summer, we've finally embraced the reality that having tall trees in the garden means that the ground level is effectively a shade garden. This is not a grieving process, however. The hardy begonias we planted have been spreading. We also planted more ferns, which is always a cause for celebration. 

The troughs of annuals that Stephen installed on the deck add a bit of color. 

I was pleased to find a ladybug, the first I've seen that wasn't released out of a bag purchased at an online nursery. [Insert commentary here about factory farming.]

I feel like this is the first summer that people of a certain class have been mildly inconvenienced by climate change. In the New York Times, a columnist complained that his children's summer camp had been decimated by the floods in upstate New York, a development that he had been 'dreading.' Another columnist spoke to experts who said it would be so hot in thirty years that professional football teams in the NYC region might have to adjust their summer training schedules. I wondered if that's what he dreads most about the summer of 2053. 

I am admittedly pessimistic, but I feel like there are bigger problems at hand. 

 

On Beauty and Denial (Beach Vacations)

'Oh, and one more thing,' said my brother on the phone the night before I left for the beach. He was already there, with my mother and a few other members of my family in advance of a bigger reunion that was planned for the weekend. 'Please stop into North Face and pick up some parkas for us.' I laughed, having suspected as much, given that it was cool and breezy in the city, which often translates into cold and windy at the beach. When I arrived on Wednesday afternoon, we went anyway and suffered through a few minutes of biting sand to get into the water for a few brutal but exhilarating seconds. The water was cold, but not frigid the way it used to be in June. I thought about the articles I had recently read about the ocean being warming than it's ever been. Was it dying? It was hard to believe, given how beautiful it was, the way the ocean almost always is.  

The wind died down the next day, leaving behind a luminous fog that made the beach seem otherworldly. 

It was very wide, too, on account of the (literally) billions of dollars the government has spent dredging sand from the bottom of the ocean and adding it back to the beach. 'Haven't they heard about global warming?' I asked my brother, who shrugged. I spent a few minutes ranting about the way the government will spend unfathomable amounts of money to protect the beach houses of a tiny percentage of (mostly very) wealthy people who own at the shore instead of spending it on, say, improving public transportation for the millions of (mostly working-class) people who depend on it to get to work.  

Or say, redesigning roads like this one that allow cars to roar up and down this very narrow barrier island. Most people, it seems, haven't made the connection between their desire to drive anywhere at any time and the disappearing coastline (among other problems). 

I understood the appeal of denial, especially here. In addition to being beautiful, the beach offers a kind of nostalgic bubble, a place of respite for those lucky enough to have access. Having gone to this beach as a (very privileged) kid, I still recognized many of the landmarks -- the miniature golf courses, the ice cream shops, and so on. Being here felt comfortable and familiar. 

Many of the houses have gotten much bigger and gaudier -- especially the ones that were built in the wake of Hurricane Sandy -- but if you didn't know any better, you might be inclined to say that very little had changed in the last fifty years, which makes it easy to think that very little is going to change in the next fifty. 

Watch this space in 2073 for an update on how things are going. 

DeathCulture@Sea (Night and Day)

Here's a new song to mark the beginning of summer :)

Link

DCAS Playlist

DCAS on INSTAGRAM :(

The June Garden

The worst thing about San Juan was getting food poisoning on the night before my flight back to New York. I was very sick in all the usual ways for the better part of three days. After a week, I felt mostly better, but I've continued to feel a little 'off' at times in ways that make me suspect that I'm not quite 100 percent. I also made the mistake of looking up on the internet how long the symptoms of food poisoning can last and learned that 'for some people, these health problems can last for weeks or months after recovering from the foodborne illness. For others, they never go away' :( :( :(

I distracted myself by enjoying the last days of the hellebore blooms. 

And the last of the campanula blooms. 

We've worked hard to inject some color into the garden this year. This is a Lychnis senno — ‘an amazing garden specimen virtually unknown in Western gardens’ -- that we planted a few years ago. 

Here's a cluster of potted annuals. 

Over the winter, Stephen ordered a shelf of window boxes, which he filled with annuals and herbs. 

In the late afternoon, the dappled light moves through the shadows and gives the impression of being underwater. 

Except for the smoke, it's been a beautiful spring -- cool and breezy -- let's hope the rest of the summer is not too hot! 

DeathCulture@Sea (Into the Flat Sky)

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. For your listening pleasure, here's a new song that was inspired by the dissonance of acknowledging beauty (perfect weather, spring flowers, moments of happiness) while grappling (or pretending to grapple) with political turmoil and existential uncertainty a flock of birds. 

Link. 

DeathCulture@Sea on YouTube. 

Follow DC@S on Instagram for exclusive, behind-the-scenes content (mostly cats and flowers, tbh).  

May Flowers

For the past two weeks, the weather has been mostly sunny, dry, and cool. The park is spotted with clumps of flowers, such as this dianthus. 

The azaleas are finally starting to retire after an amazing season. 

I know I took this picture, but I have no idea where it is. I only know that I want to go back. 

As the azaleas recede, the rhododendrons take the stage. 

Joined by the roses. 

And the bearded irises. 

And the poppies. 

And the yellow yarrow. 

Into the Trees (More Notes on Dementia)

This week, I went to Western Pennsylvania to visit my parents. As I like to do when I'm there, I went for a run through the forest every morning. The May green was exuberant, and I acknowledged the pull of non-urban life. In the city, I have to negotiate so many cars before I reach a path or a trail. The city is a dangerous obstacle course. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a place where I could run through the forest all the time, I think, until I remember the other problems I associate with the suburbs, with the need to drive everywhere at the top of the list. But the forest was beautiful. My only regret was to have missed the trillium, which I believe will be in bloom in a few weeks. 

I also spent time with my father, who has moved into the dementia unit of the senior facility where he lives with my mother.  

It turns out that dementia, at least in my father's case, is very different than what I expected. In some ways, it's clear he has dementia. He still recognizes me, but his short-term memory is almost completely gone. On the second day I saw him, he didn't realize I had arrived a day earlier and again asked about my flight. Physically, he's very frail and tentative. He tends to view the world around him -- and the problems he has with it (such as bad food from the dining hall) -- with a conspiratorial lens. (Is that a symptom of dementia or from years of watching Fox News? I'm not sure.) But he has an awareness of his condition that I found surprising and at times heartbreaking. He understands that he's losing his mind -- he will refer to it in those terms -- and he approaches his living situation with a kind of stoic resignation that's very much in keeping with his character. Other patients in his facility, by contrast, display very different symptoms: some are angry and easily agitated, some like to play with dolls, some spend their time staring into space. Some are not capable of speaking in logical sentences. My father, by contrast, is still able to hold a conversation, and he even played cards. He still likes to tell jokes, although there's often a child-like quality to his humor, like he's making fun of the adults in the room. 

There's a part of me that hopes that his body gives out before his mind. It would be hard to see him without any capacity to talk or wise-crack the way he's always done.   

The only certainty is that we're all on a path that leads us into the trees.