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Bye Bye, Brood X!

Bye Bye, Brood X!

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There’s no way of knowing who he or she will be, no way of pinpointing the last cicada in Virginia. Will it be a female dragging herself to a Kwanzan cherry tree to lay her eggs, perform her final duty. She walks so slowly up the trunk, settles herself with infinite tenderness. 

Or will it be a male, singing forlornly to the ether, no ladies left with whom to mate but warbling his most beguiling tune anyway. Beguiling to other cicadas, that is, shrill and sad to us.

The rest of their brood has been swept off of decks and stairways. Cicada carcasses have piled up at the base of crepe myrtles or road berms, marking where the insects met with predators — birds, dogs, automobiles. The tiny corpses litter the yards and driveways. 

Except for a few stowaways, Brood X is becoming a memory, a moment, a thing of the past.

And yet … even now the young are burrowing into the dark soil, tunneling down to their long sleep. In their species memory is a golden era, filled with flitting and humming and loving. They know, if they bide their time, it will come again. 

Lessons for a Lifetime

Lessons for a Lifetime

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He stood behind the lectern on one leg, resting the other, knee crooked, on his desk. I’m still not sure how he achieved this position without falling over, but somehow he did. His sleeves were rolled up, and his voice was husky. 

Toiling in the vineyards of academia can be a lot of work. But Dr. James Ferguson did that work, and because he did, legions of Hanover College students fell in love with The Magic Mountain and The Brothers Karamazov, with Faulkner and Bellow and Eliot. 

Dr. Ferguson, who died May 12, was the kind of teacher you get once in a lifetime — if you’re lucky. Though I studied with professors who published more, whose names were more recognized in literary circles, Dr. Ferguson was the real thing: a man who loved the great books and thrived on helping others love them, too. 

The details of his life that I learned from his obituary — that he came from a family of Dust Bowl migrants who moved from Missouri to California and slept for a while in their car, that he served in Korea and got his Ph.D.  with the help of the GI Bill, that he took care of his wife, who had a chronic illness, and his mother, who lived to 102 — tell me that his didn’t just teach the great books, he lived the great life. 

But these facts don’t surprise me.  His respect for the written word seemed to flow from his whole being. What I took from him was to love literature not for where it could take me but for what I took from it—  lessons for a lifetime. 

(“The Point” at Hanover College, where Dr. Ferguson taught from 1963 to 1992.)

In Formation

In Formation

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In honor of Memorial Day, the movie channel has been running World War II-era films. I’ve caught parts of several — “The Great Escape,” “Destination Tokyo” — plus a War Department short about the U.S. Army Air Corp.

In the film, narrated by then-actor Ronald Reagan, a young cowboy from the boonies becomes a war hero. We watch him go through basic training, meet the people who knew him back when, follow his improbable journey from ranch life to flying B-17s over Japan. 

What struck me about the flying scenes is the tightness of the formations. The crew members (including my Dad) were not only united within their Flying Fortresses, but were nestled together outside of them, too. They did not fly into battle alone. 

As I embark on another trip around the sun, I’m grateful for the ones who travel with me. 

The Spa Treatment

The Spa Treatment

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I’m trying not to make too much of the fact that although there are three mothers now in my immediate family, the only creature who had a spa treatment on Mother’s Day was Copper the dog, who not only is not a mother but was most likely never a father either.

Granted, it was not exactly a long languorous soak in the tub followed by a mani-pedi and massage. It was a trying hour in a van in our driveway during which he almost hyperventilated. 

The groomer finally gave up without trimming his ears and neck, but she got much further than last year’s groomer, who cut short Copper’s appointment, told us never to come back, and left our nervous canine with a funny patchwork trim he’s been growing out all year. 

“Most of the dogs I see have already been banned from PetsMart,” this year’s groomer said. 

How did she know? 

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day!

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Today I share Mother’s Day with my daughters. I always do, of course, but today I do so in a special way, as two of them celebrate their own first Mother’s Days. 

It hardly seems possible. Though all three have blossomed into strong, kind, beautiful young women, in my mind they’re still long-legged girls running through the kitchen. 

What can I tell them as they embark on this journey of parenthood? Right now, I can only think of only one thing. Enjoy it all … because it goes so very fast. 

Weightless

Weightless

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I knew that the last day of full-time employment would be a humdinger because it was the one that required technical tasks — and in that I was not mistaken. But as is so often true in life, it unfolded in a way I didn’t expect.

It wasn’t the “wiping” of the computer, the backup and removal of files, that had me flummoxed. I had been going about that fairly steadily for days. What held me hostage almost to the end was … the cloud: disentangling my work machine from iMessage and iPhoto and iTunes and all the other i’s that seek to unify our lives and terrorize us in the process. Because don’t you know that if you remove photos when you are signed into iCloud you will delete them from “all your devices.” And when you have more than 17,000 images (yes, dear reader, I am embarrassed to admit that is how many I have), which include the precious first photographs of your sweet grandchildren, even the thought of removal is enough to paralyze one for hours. 

Only I didn’t have hours — I had minutes, which were quickly ticking away. Luckily, an Apple Support person talked me down from the ledge, and after 30 minutes on the phone with her, and an hour of two of agony before and after, I was ready for the drive to Crystal City. 

There was a moment yesterday after I had solved these problems, after I had dropped off my computer, monitor and other work gear in a new and near empty office, when I had started driving home along the river, a drive I hadn’t taken in almost a year, when I felt positively weightless. And that’s what I’ll remember. 

Small is Beautiful?

Small is Beautiful?

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It was a different kind of Academy Awards ceremony last night, but I still watched the whole thing. Set in L.A.’s Union Station, the nominees and their guests sat around little tables, as if at a supper club. All of which made the event seem warmer and more intimate, though admittedly strange, without the usual glitter and fuss.

With no host and no big song-and-dance numbers, the event focused our attention on what matters most: the awards themselves and the people who receive them. Though a few recipients went on too long and there were the usual political diatribes, I enjoyed the relatively unscripted moments. You could tell people were speaking to a small audience (only 170) from the way they talked. 

By now most of us are ready for a return to normalcy, watching movies on the big screen — something Frances McDormand urged us to do when she accepted her Best Actress award — and maybe even the four-hour-long extravaganza every year that honors those films. But the performances at this year’s Oscars make a case for small over large. 

(Info booth at Union Station, pre-transformation. Photo: Wikipedia Peetlesnumber1 

Just Marveilng

Just Marveilng

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You know the days when they come, days that stand out from others not because they’ve been set aside as holidays but because they have not. They’re naturally delicious from beginning to end with no agenda other than spending time with the people you love. 

I just had one of those days. Apart from an hour or two in the morning when I finished up work tasks from yesterday, there was nothing on the calendar but a quick trip to the store. Otherwise, it was a block of time reserved for hanging out and staying in. 

By 11 a.m. the babies and their mamas arrived to spend time with their aunt and sister.  It was loud and chaotic, with gurgles and shrieks from the infants and laughter and conversation from the adults I still call “the girls.” 

Copper, revved by the unaccustomed activity, patrolled the gathering like a shark in the water, looking for plump infant toes to nibble. We managed to contain him, but barely.

Now it’s evening. The babies are at home in bed, their parents are pooped, and we … are just marveling at it all. 

(“Sock letters” welcoming Celia home.)

Reunions Now

Reunions Now

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I haven’t hugged our youngest daughter since August, when she flew back to Seattle. That’s one Thanksgiving, one Christmas, one Easter, several birthdays (including hers) and one new baby in the family ago. It other words, an eternity. 

As I look forward to our reunion today, I think about others taking place across the country, families and friends long separated by work and pandemic restrictions. 

Just yesterday, dear friends from college texted me a picture of their gathering. Was it my imagination, or were their smiles brighter than they would have been had this not been a post-Covid meeting? Doesn’t everything seem a little more significant now? And if it doesn’t, shouldn’t it?

Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday

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I write today as the eggs are boiling, before the bulk of the cleaning starts and the cake goes in the oven. There will be 16 people here tomorrow. That’s a big gathering when the number is usually two. 

And it’s a big moment in this slow return to normalcy. It’s not exactly like the opening of the gates in Oran from Camus’ The Plague. Our experience with disease has been longer but less acute than what those poor fictional souls experienced. 

But it’s been enough, thank you very much. And our hope that this might be the beginning of the end will make tomorrow’s alleluias ring out all the louder.