As of Thursday, Pluto, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mercury all will be retrograde, a quintuple whammy that almost never takes place. I don’t hate retrogrades–they amplify the power of a planet until we submit to its lessons, basically–but business as usual is out the window. Expect deep, pattern-changing work in most areas of your life: Saturn is the harsh teacher; Pluto is the god of the unconscious; Mars is the god of war; fleet-footed Mercury governs communication and travel; and Jupiter rules, well, everything. Of course, of course: Back up your electronics, buy insurance, and serve plenty of cream with your coffee in even the simplest of exchanges. But more than that, serious paradigm-shifting is in order. As we’ve already seen (Prince, Beyoncé, the primary), it’s time to make the lemonade.
On Friday, my dear childhood friend Ana and I met up for the first time in years so we could mourn Prince together in person. Spike Lee held a massive Fort Greene block party in his honor. Questlove took over Brooklyn Bowl in a shower of purple love. Bruce Springsteen sang “Purple Rain” in Brooklyn. And at this morning’s Sunday Fairway ritual, my butcher and produce and cheese and deli pals and I talked only of the Purple One instead of our normal pets and peeves. It’s been nonstop communal grieving with everyone I love publicly and personally. Continue Reading →
Dishes are clean, laundry is done, floors are polished, surfaces are gleaming. Permakitten Grace and I are lounging by the open window, basking in the afternoon light, the sailing breeze. I’m reading a Betsy-Tacy book, my jag of revisiting favorite childhood books not remotely over. Grace is perched on the sill, studying the twentysomethings on the street with great interest. Ella’s “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart” comes on the stereo, and it feels just right. It’s quite something when you realize the most you can muster is a pleasurable sort of melancholy, an open-ended longing, but that’s 2016 in a nutshell so far.
As of Thursday, Pluto, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mercury all will be retrograde, a quintuple whammy that almost never takes place. I don’t hate retrogrades–they amplify the power of a planet until we submit to its lessons, basically–but business as usual is out the window. Expect deep, pattern-changing work in most areas of your life: Saturn is the harsh teacher; Pluto is the god of the unconscious; Mars is the god of war; fleet-footed Mercury governs communication and travel; and Jupiter rules, well, everything. Of course, of course: Back up your electronics, buy insurance, and serve plenty of cream with your coffee in even the simplest of exchanges. But more than that, serious paradigm-shifting is in order. As we’ve already seen (Prince, Beyoncé, the primary), it’s time to make the lemonade.
On Friday, my dear childhood friend Ana and I met up for the first time in years so we could mourn Prince together in person. Spike Lee held a massive Fort Greene block party in his honor. Questlove took over Brooklyn Bowl in a shower of purple love. Bruce Springsteen sang “Purple Rain” in Brooklyn. And at this morning’s Sunday Fairway ritual, my butcher and produce and cheese and deli pals and I talked only of the Purple One instead of our normal pets and peeves. It’s been nonstop communal grieving with everyone I love publicly and personally. Continue Reading →
Dishes are clean, laundry is done, floors are polished, surfaces are gleaming. Permakitten Grace and I are lounging by the open window, basking in the afternoon light, the sailing breeze. I’m reading a Betsy-Tacy book, my jag of revisiting favorite childhood books not remotely over. Grace is perched on the sill, studying the twentysomethings on the street with great interest. Ella’s “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart” comes on the stereo, and it feels just right. It’s quite something when you realize the most you can muster is a pleasurable sort of melancholy, an open-ended longing, but that’s 2016 in a nutshell so far.