writing Archives – Page 8 of 31

40(ish) people who mean the world to me

On August 20, 2021

I am turning forty this month and along with all the humorous trappings of reaching a milestone birthday, I’ve recently been thinking a lot about people in my life who give me incredible inspiration. How lucky am I to know so many amazing, wonderful folks! How lucky they put up with me!

This summer I started reading Sean Dietrich’s blog, “Sean of the South.” He’s a witty storyteller with a rich, southern voice. Sometimes he shares letters people write to him, and in one post, he shares a letter that began, “I sincerely love you.” And I thought, that’s something I ought to say more to people in my life.

So: I decided to start a list. Forty people (or groups of people) who mean the world to me. People I sincerely love. This list isn’t conclusive. Some are people I don’t know well. Some I’ve only recently met. Some I haven’t talked to in ages. For reasons that probably make sense, I specifically omitted family members near and distant.

Here we go.

The More Things Change

By James D. Hogan

On June 24, 2021

In writing

If you look at something five ways, how can it seem different on the sixth?

We return to the sea again and again. This, the sixth year of spending a week in Cherry Grove, this the first year of the new normal, the post-pandemic stranglehold more or less released. Things appear different.

First, our vista: our friends’ condo at the beach’s point changed hands, and after five summers we had to search for a new place. Serendipity being the kind saint that she is, I discovered a colleague owned a place just half a mile away. We are here, oceanside.

Things are physically different. The pier on the north end of the beach is missing a ninety-foot portion of its middle. The end of the pier (or most of it) still stands, stranded in the water, planks reaching out shore-side, waving for help. This damage is almost a year old; last August, Hurricane Isaias swept across this sandy string and took the pier’s belly with it. The dunes on that side of the beach have been clawed away by angry seawater. The beach moved.

Beachhead

By James D. Hogan

On June 11, 2021

In writing

A short quote from an article I read:

“It’s a miracle when one man, standing in his place, is able while remaining there to put himself in another man’s place, to send his imagination forth to establish a beachhead in another man’s spirit, and from that vantage point so to blend with the other’s landscape that what he sees and feels is authentic. … To experience this is to be rocked to one’s foundations.”
Rev. Howard Thurman

Category: writing Page 8 of 31

40(ish) people who mean the world to me

The More Things Change

If you look at something five ways, how can it seem different on the sixth?

Beachhead