Matthew Gallaway

DeathCulture@Sea (Here in the Sun, Late in the Day)

Heading into the last three months of 2022, I feel anxious about many things. (I'll spare you a detailed list, as I suspect you have your own.) This song is about finding a little bit of space outside of that anxiety. Or maybe inside. Let's just say 'temporarily apart from.' It's also about super-high exposures and yellow filters and how I should probably pay for a film editor that would allow me to create grainy footage, which is what I really want. But for now, let's get lost in the trees :) 

Link. 

The full DeathCulture@Sea playlist. 

The Bronx 10 (Road Racing)

I felt a little nervous about signing up for the Bronx 10. I hadn't raced at all since 2018 and I barely ran in 2021 due to a series of injuries culminating in a torn meniscus. But after some physical therapy this spring, I put together some good weeks of training over the summer and decided that ten miles was feasible. I was still nervous about it, thought. 

In a way, it was nice to be nervous about something trivial, like a race, instead of fixating on death and the collapse of society. The worst thing that could happen in the Bronx 10 was that I would drop out and walk home. The start and finish line were at Yankee Stadium, which is only about a mile from my house. I told myself that I was nervous 'in a good way.' 

In addition to feeling nervous in a good way, I spent time in the garden, which has been unusually lush and colorful this year, thanks to our decision to mix in some calladium with the hellebores. Calladium isn't hardy, which is unfortunate, but it performs well in extreme shade and adds some relatively (by annual standards) un-garish highlights of pale green and pink at a time of year when we are thirsty for color. 

Here's another angle. 

We also have more hardy begonias in the garden this year, which flower in late August in white and pink. 

The flowers last a long time and the seed pods look very futuristic. Sometimes it's hard to believe that humans evolved from hardy begonias. 

Anyway, time passed in the garden and the day of the Bronx 10 approached. 

I talked over racing strategy with my coaches. 

'Go out fast and hang on' has always been my racing style, for better or -- often -- for worse. 

On Sunday morning, I jogged over to Yankee Stadium (not pictured, because I didn't bring my phone) and joined the throngs at the starting line. There were almost 12,000 runners, but the event was very well organized, and runners tend to be very polite. We started a little after eight, and I found myself in the middle of huge pack, everyone going about as fast as I was, which felt fairly but not excruciatingly fast. I remembered to pace myself. It felt good to be in the middle of a horde of runners. I imagined that we were being chased by zombies.  

A man on my right said to me: 'Isn't it strange how everyone's footsteps seem to sync up?' And I said, 'Yes, I was just thinking the same thing,' which was true, although it was also true that I wasn't in the mood to be having a conversation. Sometimes in races you end up feeling trapped running next to or behind someone who either talks too much or breathes very heavily or whose form is very distracting on account of heavily stomping feet or their wide, unmoving shoulders and huge head of curly hair compressed under a hat. 'Is that person running as fast as I am?' is a question you might ask yourself despite knowing that the answer is yes. I'll never forget running a marathon a few years ago when I was passed -- late in the race! -- by someone in a Gumby suit, and then by someone else dressed like a waiter carrying a tray and wine glasses, and of course by someone juggling :( 

Approaching the second mile, while cresting a hill, I passed a huge set of speakers that in the tradition of all races was pumping out 'Welcome to the Jungle' and the loud music reverberating through my body as I raced north on the Grand Concourse in a pack of runners on a mostly cloudless (but humid) morning in the Bronx made me feel more attuned to the stresses of my life. But I also felt oddly calm, like I was in the eye of a hurricane. 

I thought about my recent trip to Pittsburgh, where we had moved my father into the dementia unit of the facility where he and my mother live. 

Before and after moving my father, I had taken approximately ten thousand photographs of a patch of brown-eyed Susans in the garden outside of my parents' apartment. 

The flowers seemed to come alive at sunset. 

I remembered how I had also distracted myself with early-morning runs to prepare for the race I was now running. 

The forest had been an eerie but comforting place at this hour. 

There were landmarks, but I had still found myself getting lost and confused.  

But running through the Bronx, I was not confused or distracted. I felt immersed in the good and bad of life. I was running as fast as I could and getting passed by an enormous man with terrible form and frizzy hair. There was also sadness, almost as palpable as the music, but it was intensely peaceful to know that I was in the world even or despite all my problems with it. For now, my anxiety was gone, and I was still alive, which was already a kind of small miracle. This feeling didn't last for more than a few hundred yards before I remembered that I was running uncomfortably fast and I still had seven miles to go, which didn't seem like too much, but on this morning, in my condition, was more than enough.  

When I finished, I was relieved not to be running a marathon, although a few days later I thought, 'hmmm, maybe I should run another marathon.' 

Stephen, who was at the finish, managed to catch me right as I crossed the line.

Late Summer

After getting back from Pittsburgh in early September, I was disappointed to find that the summer humidity showed no sign of waning.  

Soon, I thought, as I ran through the park. 

Except I wasn't sure that I wanted summer to end. It was difficult to see the autumn memes circulating online -- sweaters, pumpkin lattes, Halloween decorations -- without feeling doubt and possibly even regret. It seemed like everyone who wrote for prestigious publications like ____ and ____ had enjoyed a picture-perfect summer marked by trips to the beach, fresh tomatoes, and backyard barbecues at their homes in Brooklyn. I didn't feel jealous, exactly -- I understand that this kind of cheer is an annoying construct -- but I did wonder what I had done this summer.   

I remembered that I had done ordinary things, like sitting in the garden with the cats. Stephen and I had planted some new things in the garden, which had been exciting, and we had watched a few things wither away, which was less exciting. I reminded myself that I liked the summer. It was nice to spend time in the garden, to run in only one layer of clothing, to sleep with the windows open, and to wake up early and see the light. I reminded myself that with so much sickness in the world, it was also nice to have survived. 

Just a few months ago I could go out just after five in the morning and see. Now it stays dark until after six, which is a source of a little bit of dread as I think about running in the winter. But those will be the runs -- with the wind bitter cold on the river -- that will make me crave the spring. What will it be like in 2023? 

One morning a few days ago, the humidity disappeared. Summer was over. I missed it and I didn't miss it. It felt good to run in the cooler air. I remembered what it was like to be fast. But I also knew that I wasn't nearly as fast as I once was. 

Every season has its sadness, which makes you look forward to the next one. 

DeathCulture@Sea (Burned and Beautiful)

Last night I wasn't sure if the cool breezes I felt when I was sleeping were part of a dream, but this morning it seems real :)

Link. 

DeathCulture@Sea 

Burned and Beautiful

I went back to the park one morning at the end of August. As usual at this hour, it was empty, except for the plants (and the skunks lol). The tapestry of color was intense but I felt unsettled as I looked a little closer and saw that many of the plants were parched and burned. I'm not sure why I was surprised. 

I know that last winter I was looking forward to summer, but why? It's too hot. Everyone I know (in the plant world, by which I mean the actual plants) is testy and irritated (or dead). I keep thinking about China, where -- at least from what I gather on Twitter -- they're enduring the worst heat wave ever recorded. Another tweet I think about is how this will be the coolest year of the rest of our lives. 

Even though I take millions of pictures of this flower every year, I had forgotten about the Japanese anemone. Hello, old friend -- you look good -- have you been working out :)

Yes, I know -- the edges of my petals are a little fried, too :(

I also keep thinking about another Tweet I saw about China (and it's not the one where they've used as much concrete in the last three years as the United Stated did in the entire 20th century, although I think about that, too). Apparently, they now have a high speed rail between Beijing and Shanghai (approximately the same distance as between New York City and Chicago) that leaves every twenty minutes and takes a little over four hours. Imagine calling your friend in Chicago and saying, 'Hey -- do you have lunch plans? I can catch the ten o'clock train and we can have a late lunch and walk through the gardens before I take the six-o'clock home. Oh really? I hate when that happens. What about tomorrow, then? Okay, great. We're on.' Actually, I don't have to imagine it because this is what it's like liking uptown and making plans with friends who live in Brooklyn (except for the switching-to-tomorrow part). 

It was a good summer, until we were incinerated. 

 

The Morning Light, after the Heat Broke

In an attempt to be more optimistic, I've returned to early-morning running, when the bridge is most beautiful. 

And the city is most magical. 

And the staircases are most haunting :)

But I can't pretend to be thrilled with the 'We Love You' messaging on the pedestrian overpass at 181st Street. Two years ago, it said 'Black Lives Matter.' [Insert ten paragraphs of complaints about our country and its trajectory.] 

I love this part of the run, which is at the top of a long hill that goes through the park. In 2020, it was closed to cars but in the same spirit of denial that has swept the rest of the country it was opened up again in 2021. But there are almost never any cars at 5:30 in the morning. And this morning, it was cool and dry for the first time in recent memory, and my knee and back felt pretty good. As I accelerated down the hill, I could imagine the years falling away. 

After leaving the road, I took the path to an overlook where I could see the sunlight rising over the Hudson. (I couldn't see the actual sun because I was facing northwest.) 

As usual, the oak-leaf hydrangeas have been perfect this summer. 

I was about to say that the park is always empty at this hour, but I just noticed someone on the path in this picture. I'm pretty sure they weren't there when I took it. #spooky 

Plants always look a bit more surreal in the early morning light. 

We're also in cone flower season, which is another good thing to remember when August is bringing you down. 

Lately, when I see this path, I always think about the thousands of car-oriented streets we have in the city, and how much nicer it would be if literally two percent of them were converted back to something like this path. There's a new twitter account that uses AI to transform images of streets in this fashion, and it's both inspiring and depressing to consider what's possible. When I'm in park at this hour, anything seems possible. 

A stream of allium. 

An explosion of echinacea. 

A field of heather. 

Existential Heat Waves

As usual, July unfolded slowly and not without some fear. It began with the dentist, which wasn't too dreadful, before I moved into jury duty -- always a source of obsessive dread -- before landing in the present heat wave from hell. I tried to distract myself with small pleasures and observations to support the idea that despite the staggering denial in which we collectively exist, the end of world was not imminent; for example, I spent time watching the local spiders and admiring their intricate, gossamer webs.  

When we first moved here, the backyard was filled with flies, but as the trees and flowers took hold, the spiders somehow learned about it and moved in. They've been doing good work ever since. Was it too late for me to start a new career as a spider? 

Clio, who supervises the spiders, likes to patrol the garden two and ideally three times each day. She begins with an aerial view from the deck before she heads into the vegetation, looking for traces of her enemies: namely, rats (thankfully only in theory these days) and stray cats, who sometimes spend the night under the hellebores and ferns. 

Each morning before jury duty, I biked downtown on an electric Citi Bike or ebike, which was a good opportunity to think about how ebikes are easily the fastest way to get anywhere in Manhattan and to question why they are not subsidized when we (as a society) should be ramping up bike infrastructure and ridership, and doing everything possible to discourage driving (cars and especially SUVs). Also, the bike lanes -- even the protected ones -- in Manhattan are treacherous and basically wtf is wrong with our stupid city? In Paris, the Rue de Rivoli has been converted into two gigantic bikes lanes and New York City allocates about 18 inches of space for thousands of bikes. In short, biking around the city continues to be a source of exhilaration and bitterness. My one hope for Mayor Eric Adams when he entered office was that he might do something to improve the city's random, hazardous bike infrastructure -- he at least knows how to ride a bike, unlike de Blasio -- but Eric Adams has one item on his agenda, which is giving money to the police. (Actually two items if you count pretending that Covid doesn't exist.) (Actually three if you count partying.) 

I was surprised and not surprised to find the area around City Hall and the courthouses depopulated and militarized. Many commercial spaces were vacant. There were a lot of cops, SUVs, and metal barriers preventing pedestrians from walking across formerly public plazas. This is the future of the United States, I thought, and then corrected myself: No, this is the present. Small remnants of urban anarchy and chaos could be found, thanks to the neighborhood's proximity to Chinatown. As I waited in the security line, I longed to be doing high kicks and light calisthenics with these older women (i.e., my age) instead of participating in the prison-industrial complex. I would have taken more pictures of jury duty but my phone was confiscated even though the website said that 'jurors are permitted to bring one (1) cell phone to the courthouse.' When I queried this misinformation, I was told that they wanted jurors to bring the cell phones to the courthouse so that we could answer the Covid questions, but we were not allowed to have them in the courthouse. 'Why can't you explain that on the website?' I asked the jury clerk, who shrugged. I would have complained more, but I was worried that the clerk might take revenge and keep me for two weeks in a large room with 150-200 people. 

I went through voir dire (the questioning of potential jurors) twice and did not make the cut. When the judge asked if any of us had moral objections to serving, I thought, how could you not? I didn't actually say that, but other features of my background made me an unlikely selection for the jury. I felt sad watching the other jurors get questioned about their hobbies: so many of them answered 'shopping on Amazon.' One guy answered 'getting ordered around by my wife,' and everyone laughed like we were in a sit-com, even though an actual defendant was in the room awaiting trial for crimes that could land him in prison for many years. In contrast, I was released from jury duty after three days. 

Later that week, I went to Sandy Hook, which is a beach/state park in northern New Jersey (that looks like a hook). I had heard a lot of good things about it over the years, and a friend invited me to go for the day. Waiting for the ferry, I worried that we might end up in Ikea. But I remained full of complaints about our neoliberal infrastructure: seriously, why is the ferry to Ikea 'FREE' while the ferry to Sandy Hook is $47.00 USD? I dreamed of living in a different dimension where the government invested in public transit and made it accessible to all. (And where the planet wasn't overheating.)  

Sandy Hook used to be a military base, which meant there were a lot of decrepit houses to admire. It was also a pretty day, with bright skies and just enough cloud coverage to keep the sun from feeling oppressive (in contrast to now, for example). 

The beach grass was lovely. This is what the earth will look like in 10,000 years when the remains of our present civilization have been mostly buried by nature. 

A school bus ferried us across an enormous parking lot for private automobiles and dropped us at the path to the beach. Being gay, we selected the gay beach, which was also clothing optional. I had never been to a clothing-optional beach. I imagined something remote and windswept, dotted with naked beachgoers who would drift in and out of the waves like water naiads before disappearing back into the dunes.  

In fact, it looked like this. 

I wasn't deterred. I ate lunch and napped and swam for a few hours until it was time to go back to the bus: in short, I did everything I expected to do at the beach. It was relaxing and made me wish it were easier (and less expensive) to get to the beach from Washington Heights. Spending a day at a nude beach made me think that probably all beaches should be clothing optional, because nudity stops being titillating when it's everywhere. I mean, sure it's (sometimes) fun to look, but it's kind of like, okay, this person has a body, they are using it to move through time and space, welcome to the club.  

But somehow I don't think our country is ready to be more relaxed about nudity, given how unrelaxed we are about everything else that strays beyond the narrowest confines of proper sexual conduct and appearance as defined by the Christian right. Could our country be any worse right now? Sadly, I think we all know that the answer is yes. 

Back home, I spent time with Zephyr, who is turning sixteen in August. I hate to admit it, but he's getting old. 

He was not the only one, I realized, as I checked the forecast.  

 

DeathCulture@Sea (Night Fires)

Here's a new DeathCulture@Sea song to get you through the rest of July: 

Link. 

DeathCulture@Sea PLAYLIST!!!

Stay cool, everyone :)

March of the Torch Lilies

As I read a tweet this week expressing jealousy from the writer about their dog's unawareness of the Supreme Court, I realized that I could never write the same thing about Clio, who is not only extremely aware of the Supreme Court and many other failing institutions in our country, but is also unhappy about it. 

Each morning we discuss the latest developments and try to assess the trajectory of our lives in this political climate.  

There are reasons to be hopeful, but almost none of them have anything to do with politics. 

There is the late-afternoon summer light in the garden. 

And a blue jay that recently moved in. 

A few days ago I woke up and saw a rainbow across the street. 

And there's the park, which is more beautiful than ever. 

The sprinklers were on when I walked through the gardens, and a few drops of water landed on the camera lens. 

At first I thought 'oh great,' but I decided not to worry about it. And when I got home and looked at the pictures, I wasn't disappointed. The water made everything look a bit gauzy, but in a nice way. It reminds of something Andy Warhol once wrote about how the world used to be more interesting before people started wearing eyeglasses, because everyone saw things very differently. (I might be imagining or fabricating this quote, but I think it's somewhere in 'The Philosophy of...' because I remember laughing about it with my friends in college when we were doing a project on Andy.) When I teach my photography class, my first lesson will be: place a few drops of water on the lens. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results! 

The heather gardens are lush and green. 

The cone flowers are starting to bloom. 

I'm pretty sure this is foxglove, still wet from the sprinkler. 

And a blurry (water drop effect) picture of the elm trees and astilbe (I think). 

I have no idea what this is, but it looks like an angry orchid. The park is always beautiful, I thought, but it's not always serene. 

And wtf is this?* Even the park, it seems, is preparing for a fight. 

*A torch lily :)

Death Culture at Sea (June)

Hi everyone -- strange times. 

Link.