Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Empty Shelves

Empty Shelves

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The shelves that were emptied for the great floor rebuild are finally back in place and ready to be filled.  We hauled them in from the garage, where they were lashed together for stability, and installed them in their rightful position.  

Now that they are dusted and polished, I’m wondering … should I return the books that have always been there, the battered paperback classics in the upper reaches, reference books and anthologies in the middle, rows of magazines on the lower shelf?

I can certainly pull together a better-looking group of printed matter, if this is all about aesthetics — but of course it is not. It’s about order and reverence and to a certain embarrassing extent, laziness. I’m used to books being where they are: do I really want to rearrange them? 

On the other hand, the empty shelves stand open for change and rearrangement. Can I really let them down?

2/22/22

2/22/22

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It’s enough to make me wish I was writing a bunch of checks today, or signing a sheaf of documents — any excuse to write the date 2/22/22 as many times as possible.

A bounty of weddings and engagements are planned, Caesarean sections, too, scads more than would be scheduled for an otherwise ordinary late-winter weekday.

But it’s not an ordinary late-winter weekday. It’s 2/22/22 — and a Tuesday, to boot. It’s a day when numbers align, boding good luck for some, mild terror for others. It’s a day of symmetry and palindromic satisfaction. It’s 2/22/22. I haven’t been this excited about numbers since 10/10/10.

(In honor of 2/22/22, a photo of 2 toddlers, courtesy Claire Capehart.)
What Might Be

What Might Be

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I begin the day with moonlight, a bright waning gibbous that cracks a sweet gum branch in two as I glance at moon and tree through this window I call my own.

How companionable it seems, this moon. Not the cool, pale orb of rounded perfection, but a heavenly body that looks at bit battered around the edges. Knocked down, but still there. 

Meanwhile, daylight is gaining on it. Soon it will fade to a translucent disc. The sun will rise, strengthen, send shards of light through the prism, make rainbows on my wall.

But I’m starting early, in the cold darkness, and this is just a glimpse of what might be.  

Loud and Low

Loud and Low

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When the winds howl, the planes fly loud and low over the house. I snapped this photo yesterday while on a breezy walk. 

Throughout the length and breadth of the neighborhood I was the only soul out for a stroll.

Call it cabin fever or just plain stubbornness. Whatever it was, it put me in place to snap this shot. 

Score One for Spring

Score One for Spring

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When I looked out my office window yesterday morning, the world was an unremitting winter gray, with just a touch of green from the grass and hollies.

Today, I see three sprays of yellow witch hazel, which burst into partial bloom with the afternoon’s balmy warmth.

We’ll see how those spare blossoms fare now, with temperatures falling into the 40s and a wild northwest wind battering the bamboo and waving the sweet gum branches.

I remind myself that the witch hazel is hardy and used to such shenanigans. It’s bloomed in far worse. Plus … those small yellow flowers are out among us now — and there’s nothing that winter can do about that.

(The witch hazel in two feet of snow in 2010.) 
Framing

Framing

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In class we talk about the “death” of the author which makes room for the “birth” of the reader, of interpretive communities that shape our understanding of literary works, and of the “indeterminacy” or gaps in meaning that allow for an aesthetic response. 

That last one seems like the loft and lightness of a shook comforter, the air pockets that provide fullness to linens and literature. 

It’s fun to think about. Just as it’s fun to think about framing, the narration of a tale that makes it what it is. Here I am, walking down a trail, pausing to snap a shot, my shadow in the photo. Life mirroring art … or something like that. 

The Coffee Table

The Coffee Table

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When my children were young I remember how pleasant it was at the end of the day to pick up toys and tidy up the house. I knew it wouldn’t last more than an hour or so after they woke up the next day, but for a few blissful hours I could float around in a state of order. 

Now that there are toddlers in my life again, I’m remembering what it felt like to live, even thrive, in the midst of complete pandemonium. There’s a letting go that is probably healthy, though it may not feel that way at the time. 

Take the coffee table. I’m sitting beside it right now, and though most of the weekend’s disorder has been put to rights, I haven’t yet re-stacked the magazines. I can still see Bernadette’s sweet face as she palmed the slick covers and slid them off one by one. What power! What glee! 

There’s a reason why the magazines are still jumbled. The better to imagine those sweet kiddos, their arms around my neck, their heads on my shoulder. 

The Moon

The Moon

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The moon was with me this morning as I drove to the airport, so early and so long ago now that it seems like another week. 

And the moon was with me later, a pale disc as I zoomed down I-66 on my way to school.

The moon is with me still, in this photo (not a very good one, I’m sorry to say), growing ever brighter as I walked through a darkening campus on my way to class.

The moon will be full tomorrow … but it’s hard to see how it could be any fuller.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture

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As the sky slowly lightens on this Valentine’s Day, I think of all the ones who are dear to me.

The little ones and the big ones, the old ones and the young ones (including a great niece born on Saturday!), the human ones and the furred and feathered ones, the ones who are no longer with us, too.

Happy is the day set aside for love and chocolate, so today I resolve to keep the big picture in mind. 

And that is, and always will be, love.

Counterclockwise

Counterclockwise

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Today I went left rather than straight out of my neighborhood and took a familiar walk in the opposite direction. 

There were the fronts of houses I usually see only the backs of; there was the wooded trail glimpsed from afar, through a backyard. 

There were ponds glinting in the morning sun, which was in my face rather than over my shoulder. 

There was this warm winter morning, made new by a change in rotation, clockwise, rather than counter.