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Fourth Sunday in Advent
I was thinking today about the year when we didn’t think we’d have a Christmas. We saw my daddy between two and four times a year. One of those visits was always between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He would show up and slam his truck door loud enough for us to hear it, and my sister and I would run outside to greet him. He would stand there, fists on hips, that devious, smiling, lean, dishonest devil of a father, laughing that completely delighted laugh of his, his weather-bronzed face split by an enigmatic smile, and scoop us up in his arms and swing us around as he loped to the…
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The Chokin’ Kind
When I was a small boy, the only stereo with which I had contact was my aunt’s big monster console record player/AM/FM radio, about the size of a deep freezer, with a deep, rich bass. You could load six (I think) lps on it and it would play one, drop the next one onto the turntable, play the next one, and so on until the last was played. The arm would swing back over to its rest and the thing would shut off. This was scary-good high tech in those days. The stereo had a small red light, about the size of one of those red dots that we’re not…
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All Hallow’s Eve Eve
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. ~ Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Since childhood, I have enjoyed Mr. Poe’s stories and poems, and that opening line from Usher is so evocative of a certain type of day in the fall, and today, here in these mountains, we have just such a…
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Month Half Done
Yesterday was as fine as a day could be, and today was its equal. Saturday a shining, sunny snapshot of purest gold, with wind and leaves, the symbols of death and change in the living air. Sunday a cloudy, rainy room of adoration and reflection. We are aware of how rare such days are, and this awareness made them all the more precious to us as we passed through our weekend, holding hands, joking, laughing, choking up in emotional pauses, quiet conversations, silent hours of reading next to each other with snoring dogs all around us, barbecuing chicken, baking pecan pies, rehashing last night’s dreams, taking our naps, cleaning out…
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Because It’s Sunday
That Sunday gloom has settled in on me, which is a common lifelong thing. I’ve learned to accept it as part of my genetic makeup, and I’ve learned to ride it out rather than seek solutions. Today’s somberness was probably brought on by an extended period of thought about my mother, that unknown and unknowable woman who shaped me and with whom I fought and argued all the days we had together. I was looking out at the leaves dropping from the branches and listening to Jinx snore softly at my feet, and I could see her so clearly, with her sad expression, and I wondered again at how she…
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The Cold Rolling Towards Me
I began this post in longhand, sitting at my desk this morning, allegedly working, watching tufts of cool mist hanging in the air outside the glass door. This is the time of year when the nearest neighbor is separating his cows from the calves, in preparation for market. The worried mamas have been bawling all day, as they have been for the two days before. The air over the farm is anxious, fretful, which is a shame, because we’ve just gotten our first dose of fall-like weather, about 50F at night and in the mid-70s today, air as clear as an infant’s eyes, same deep blue, same lack of omens…
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At the Curtain of Dusk
During a recent trip to the county dump, I tossed all of our garbage into dumpsters, then took a baggie of dry dog food from the front seat and poured the cup or so of food onto the gravel. I didn’t see the little cat that has greeted me for a while now, and I called to her, but she didn’t show. Driving out of the parking lot, I noticed for the first time a sign that warned against feeding feral cats, and indicating that anyone caught doing so would be considered the cat’s owner and would be responsible for damages and any fees incurred. I shrugged it off, but…
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Synchronicity and Sadness
My friend William James Tychonievich writes frequently, eloquently, and in a lively manner about the synchronicity he observes in his daily life. Today I thought of WJT when I learned that a talented but erratic country singer named Luke Bell apparently killed himself yesterday, the same day I learned of the suicide of my childhood friend Len. Mr. Bell seems to have lived a life that could be accurately described as tortured, and the life-taking whispers that chased him for much of his life finally overtook him. You don’t have to listen to many of his songs to recognize his talent and his emotional depth. I thought I would post…
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Almost Dog Days
The heat of August seems to be steady and unmoderated all over the United States. I’ve talked to people from all over the country lately, and I can’t recall a single exception to the “It’s very hot, and even worse, it’s very humid” remark when I ask about the weather in someone’s locale. Mrs. Orr was talking to the kids and grandkids in Texas last night, and I spoke briefly to Numbah One Grandson. I asked him, “Is it hot there?” And he replied, with eyes cast up at the ceiling fan, propellering above his head, “Oh, it’s real hot.” This from a Texan. ‘Nuff said. Yesterday was a two-shower…
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The Value of Moments
This morning, this gray and dripping morning, I walked in a neighbor’s corn field, thick-grown with silage for his cows. Except for the soft sighing in the tops of the trees in my woods behind me, the silence was deep and cyclical, like a tide, like a black spot in space between two stars. I stood in the chest-high corn plants and listened, and heard nothing but breeze, and I listened again, and inexplicably, a song came into my head, a song I have neither heard nor thought of in years. I walked on through the corn and then at the perimeter found some bear scat. A calf watched me…