James D. Hogan

FAMILY

It turns out my own impulse as a writer might have been genetic.

We spent the Fourth of July on our bikes. 38 miles total trip, including a morning ride out to the museum with our friend Heather and then a finishing leg out to my parents’ house for an afternoon bar-be-cue. Good food and good times were had by all.

Which brings me to the sixth, Monday, when I flew up to New Jersey for a short trip to visit the family. Nana’s sister Meda was in town from Missouri, as were cousins Tracy and Shannon and Shannon’s boy Jackson. It was one of the best trips I have had in memory.

Nana is doing well. Her age is becoming more and more apparent (although she’s not ancient by any stretch of the imagination–just 83). Sometimes she acts younger, sometimes she acts older. It’s baffling to tell which age she prefers feeling. I suspect dementia is settling in further and further. She’s able to function very normally, although she’s far quieter than she once was in social situations. Her hearing aids have helped a lot, but still, Nana was once the center of many conversations and now she sits on the sidelines. Sometimes she moves very slowly, and sometimes she seems rather helpless, but just a month or so ago, while on a trip to Atlantic City, she negotiated down 21 flights of stairs at a hotel when she’d left her pocketbook in the casino. (Nana is very claustrophobic and hates riding elevators alone.)

It begins with an early wake-up call, a bowl of cereal, and the morning light in my kitchen washing softly across the pages of the book I’m reading.

It’s quiet and cool in the house, cool outside, the chairs on the deck wet with dew. The feel of a simple pair of GM keys in my hands. Driving the older car, the one I’ve tried to convince Kel to replace, the one with stickers on the back. Nothing high technology. Insert key. Turn. Hear the engine crank to life. Windows down to feel the cool air better. The takeoff down the highway; no body’s out yet but the yardsalers. It’s early. The transmission holds onto each gear forever before slipping into the next, the motor stretching a little bit as it awakens.

The rain has been good this year. The corn stands are tall and thick and green. You could hide an entire school of boys in one field and never even know they were there. The sun is pouring across the ridge now, spilling all over a barn. There’s an old farm truck in front of me, its motor burning rich. I can smell the gasoline through my open window, mixing with the dense air. They turned off the analog yesterday, but everything about this morning is frozen in time.

This is the kind of car that’s old enough, and this is the kind of place that’s small enough that I can leave the car with the keys in the ignition. Simple.

James D. Hogan

Love and Nana

FAMILY

It turns out my own impulse as a writer might have been genetic.

June Meditation

CACKALACK

It begins with an early wake-up call, a bowl of cereal, and the morning light in my kitchen washing softly across the pages of the book I’m reading.