James D. Hogan

The Opening

On May 27, 2013

AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN

Memorial Day weekend is the opening to summer that Labor Day closes.

Years ago, I wrote a meditation on the fall that contained some version of the line, “If Fall had an archway, this would be it.” And a similar line would work here, that Summer officially started this past weekend.

All around us, the community sprung into motion, as if the spring season had pent up some untapped reserve of kinetic force. My friends filled their Facebook and Instagram and Twitter feeds with reports and pictures of movement, point A to point B, fun all along the way, pictures of barbecues and lake outings and beaches and camping and Nascar races and parties. The pumps are running at all of the swimming pools, and thousands (or millions!) of us braved the temperatures, this spring more fitting in October than May, and splashed around in glory.

As for me, I left work Friday around lunch and picked up my golf clubs, inspired by a friend who was doing the same thing, and drove straight to the little county course near our house. I bought a pair of hot dogs, and a cold beer, and a bottle of water, and a bucket of range balls, and a round of nine holes. It had been about two years since I’d been out on a golf course. Better to ease into it.

In Memoriam: Nana

By James D. Hogan

On April 13, 2013

In diary

IN MEMORIAM

Nana and Julia Elizabeth in 2011.

The narrative of this wonderful life was like fabric for my grandmother.

It’s been too many days since I’ve come here to write, and my dear friends, I hope you’ll forgive me. Last week we lost our dear Nana, my paternal darling grandmother. I’ve written about her before, including last September, when it seemed that death was reaching out for her.

But this is–or was–Nana, after all, the woman whose strength and perseverance were never easily measured in days.

My family has asked me to write her obituary, and truth be told, I’m a little overwhelmed at the task, not because I’m no good with words or I worry mine won’t be good enough. Rather, Nana is (was, I must keep reminding myself) a figure whose personality far exceeded the diminutive frame she eased into in her older age. Though she was tender and warm as my grandmother, there was an undeniable fire within her.

The stories I can tell….

Sundays | For the birds. And titmice.

By James D. Hogan

On March 3, 2013

In writing

A Tufted Titmouse. Via allaboutbirds.org

Learning to love the least of these, my brethren.

One of my favorite things about our new house is that it has several big windows, which look out onto a wooded yard. Given how the house sits on a sloped lot, and the land falls away in the back, it can feel at times as if you’re on the side of a mountain. I love it.

We have a lovely window over the sink in the kitchen that looks toward the neighbor’s house, and right outside is a mature dogwood tree. It’s bare now, of course, but I cannot wait for spring to creep forward a little further, so I can watch it bloom.

My mother-in-law gave us a bird feeder for Christmas, and when we opened it up, I knew exactly that we ought to hang it outside the kitchen window from one of the dangling branches of the dogwood. So we did. I went to the store and bought ten pounds of seed. I filled it up and fashioned a hook from which to hang it. And then we waited.

It didn’t take long for a flock of birds to arrive. They were gorgeous. I’m no Audubon, so I cannot deliver a rundown in Latin, but there were blue birds and finches, cardinals and red-bellied woodpeckers, jays and warblers and whippoorwills.

And then there was the Tufted Titmouse.