life with kiddos Archives – Page 13 of 13

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 this brilliant moment

By James D. Hogan

On December 11, 2012

In writing

Go back to the beginning. Start over.

I am thinking of the beautiful seconds in life, the kind where a passing glance is an open window, is a brief respite, a new beginning, a slow warming inside.

I think of an Indiana sunset, of being struck by the empty expanse of earth around me, the perfect altitude of clouds, the urge to pull over, stop the car on the side of the interstate, and gaze for a few moments.

This morning on the way to daycare, my daughter, in the backseat, looking out of the window at the world passing, watching like I’ve never seen her watch before, paying attention in new ways. She turns, catches me watching her, and smiles. I reach back and pat her knee, and she reaches out and pats my hand in turn.

I needed to get away from my email this morning, so I walked downtown for coffee. I see the fellow who runs the local inn, who pedals his guests in a pedicab in the mornings. They have stopped to admire the old buildings on campus.

Into the Heart of the Matter

By James D. Hogan

On August 12, 2012

In writing

LIFE WITH KIDDOS

Beginning, and ending.

I walked outside this morning and felt it immediately–the cool calm that let me know that there, lurking on the outer fringes of August, was the end of summer, its dry air and cool mornings lying in wait, sure to rush in soon to fill the void of something not quite laziness, something that best describes what the people here do when the atmosphere is thick and wet, when breathing or walking require commitment, when activity is measured by this fact, and in general we tend to do less. Summer is ending.

I had a sense it was about to happen. This weekend we hosted a handful of friends here in town for supper, coolers full of beer and food mounded in foil pans. By the end, when it was too late to play cornhole anymore and the group was small enough to sit around the table on the deck, we talked into the night, each of us present in the moment that is friendship. Somewhere the Avett Brothers drifted down from a pair of outdoor speakers, and it occurred to me that I’ve heard a million Avett Brothers songs, but I don’t think I’ve heard any of them twice, and nearly all of them have been performed live. I wondered how they remembered all the lyrics. We talked of the rain that was supposed to show up and ruin our cookout and of how lucky we’d been.

And then yesterday, Saturday, we didn’t do much but we did everything together, Kelly and Julia and me. We played together in the floor, Kelly sitting at the desk looking over something on the computer, me cross-legged in the floor, Julia wandering back and forth from the den and back into the office, a toy in her growing hands, her bare feet tracing some invisible circuit out to the couch and around.

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