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A Change’ll Do You Good

On December 31, 2022

On leaning into that whole “change is inevitable” bit…

Rarely have major life changes lined up so neatly with a calendar year. Not quite a year ago, I jumped in the car with a suitcase, kissed the kiddos and Kel goodbye (although they’d be coming behind me the next day), and drove up the mountain to Cullowhee. I checked into the Bird Alumni House, which became our home for the next three weeks, and reported to HFR for my first day of work at Western. Later that week, we enrolled the kiddos in their new school, and Kel officially began her full-time work for her own company.

By the time we closed on our house a few weeks later, it had already snowed–twice. And by the time our movers arrived with all our household possessions, it had threatened to snow a third time. (The closing was a round robin of delays, COVID, and weather; the first week in the house, the kids slept on air mattresses, and we ate off a card table.)

I traveled a fair amount this year–eight trips for work, several others for personal matters. In March, we lost our dear Aunt Jean, and the N.C. contingency of the Hogan family trekked through a winter storm to make the funeral. In April, I took Julia on her first “on a plane” trip to St. Petersburg for a weekend. We all made it to Cherry Grove for our family beach week in June, and this fall, I flew back up to NJ for a football weekend with family, including Jason and the Knights Brigade.

We made plenty of trips back to Statesville. So many I cannot count them all.

Reporting live from the edge of 2021

By James D. Hogan

On December 31, 2021

In diary

Shouldn’t it be enough that I bothered making a list of resolutions to begin with?

For the last several years, I’ve been taking stock of how well I kept my New Year’s Resolutions–a typewritten list stuck to the fridge with a magnet that in the last couple years haunts me more than anything.

2020’s list became laughably out of sorts as soon as we dove headfirst into the cesspool that became the pandemic. Lesson learned. I created 2021’s list with global disruption in mind–but I somehow failed to account for the personal disruptions that would come along this year.

Which is to say, another year gone, another list of resolutions left unresolved. At some point it might be worth pondering why I do this and whether I should keep doing it. And conveniently, I’ve already packed my typewriter. Makes it easier to avoid having a neat little list ready to go tomorrow morning.

Even so, there’s something worthy about having goals, even if you don’t meet them all. We all need something to aim for, and even if we don’t cross the threshold of accomplishment, we’ve at least moved forward.

I dialed back my typical list of 10 resolutions and came up with seven. Here’s my report from the last day of the year.

Waiting for Grief

By James D. Hogan

On December 13, 2021

In writing

I find myself staring at a bag of dog food.

We buy it in thirty pound sacks, this median-grade kibble, a nutritional blend made especially for senior pups. It’s cheaper to buy on Amazon, and following some unknown interval, the hockey puck wizard device in the kitchen will light up, and I will ask it what’s wrong, and it will reply nothing, nothing serious–just maybe it’s time that you bought another thirty-pound bag of dog food? Shouldn’t we do that?

And more often than not I agree, and soon the gray, boxy van stops in front of the house, and someone schleps a thirty-pound box to our front porch. I break down the boxes and slide them under the Wagoneer to catch little drips of oil.

The most recent bag sits in the basement about two-thirds full. Around the corner, draped across two memory foam dog beds, our oldest pooch, Taylor, quietly naps, her breath slow and measured, the kind that comes with precious, deep sleep. There are pregnant pauses between exhale and inhale.

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