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Author: Anne Cassidy

For Mayfield

For Mayfield

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I heard about Kentucky when good friends wrote to ask if my brother was OK. I checked the news then and learned of the horrible tornadoes that ripped through the country’s midsection. So this post is a lament: it’s a cry of solidarity for the residents of Mayfield, Kentucky, a town I’m embarrassed to say I had never heard of until Saturday, native Kentuckian that I am. 

At first, I thought it was Maysville that had been hit, a river town near where some of Dad’s kin were born. But no, it was, as I often say about Kentucky towns whose names I don’t recognize, “in the western part of the state.” And it truly is there, close to both Tennessee and Missouri, more midwestern than southern. Dawson Springs is there, too—another town hit by the deadly twisters. 

I keep thinking about the folks in the candle factory, perhaps some of them working an extra shift since it’s Christmas time and they could use the money. I think about the malls where those candles might be sold. Do we need those candles? Not really, but yes, because the residents of Mayfield need those jobs. 

It could have been any kind of factory, though. And it could have been any place. But it was in Kentucky, so my heart is even heavier. 

(Dark clouds outside of Nicholasville, from my August trip to Kentucky)

Red-Shouldered Hawk

Red-Shouldered Hawk

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My eyes are generally glued to the screen these days as I sit in my office, finishing up the paper due next week. But they do catch peripheral movement: a disruption of the leaves in the back of the yard, where there are still leaves left to rustle. 

On Wednesday, this wasn’t just any disruption. It was a bird so large that at first I thought it might be a squirrel. It had landed near a patch of bald earth and appeared to be scratching the ground. But it was almost out of my line of sight and I couldn’t be sure. 

Then a shudder of the wings, a springing into air. Either the squirrel had flown or this was a large bird of prey. It landed in the spindly weeping cherry, on a branch that barely seemed large enough to support it. 

And there it sat for many minutes, long enough to take a photograph, to view it through binoculars, to note its markings well enough that I can almost definitely say it was a red-shouldered hawk. Long enough that I could marvel at this beautiful wild thing perched nonchalantly on a tree in the backyard. 

The DNA of Shopping

The DNA of Shopping

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My Christmas list has morphed from one that was always on paper, even just a few years ago, to one that’s mostly in the notes section of my phone. 

This parallels my shopping, which has evolved from mostly brick-and-mortar to well over half online. 

I still scrawl gift ideas on slips of paper which I then tuck into my purse. And I still like to go shopping, to physically enter a store, even if I have to wait a few minutes in line or spend more time than I’d like looking for a price tag.

It’s part of the eternal give-and-take of hunting and gathering, a proclivity that I’m convinced is buried deep somewhere in our DNA.

(Not a shopping list, but a shopping district … this one in Lexington, Kentucky.)

Eighty Years

Eighty Years

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Shortly after publishing yesterday’s post, I realized that yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Eighty years … 

I looked back to see what I’d written on the 70th anniversary, and there was something I’d forgotten about: a special showing of the movie “12 O’Clock High” at a Lexington, Kentucky, cinema, which Dad had organized and hosted. 

I remember that now, how excited he was about it, how he had a little display area out in the vestibule of the movie house, with uniforms and medals and other memorabilia loaned by members of the Kentucky chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society.

Now, the World War II veterans are almost all gone. One of the more famous, Bob Dole, just passed away at the age of 98. My dad was not one of the more famous, except to me and the rest of us who loved him. But Dad was World War II to me, and since he’s been gone, I read as little about it as possible. 

(Photo: Genealogy Trails History Group)

Church Bells

Church Bells

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My church backs into a many-pathed woods poised on a rise above a creek called The Glade. Some weekends I drive over there early, park in the near-empty lot, and take a walk before mass begins. 

The last two weeks, I’ve attended the latest service. The sun has set while I’m strolling, the air grown still. I know I’m preparing to pray, not actually praying, but it’s hard to convince myself of that. The sauntering feels just as holy, the forest just as much a cathedral. 

As if to emphasize the point, church bells toll as I finish the walk. These are real bells, not recorded ones. I feel like a medieval serf being called from the fields, drawn from drudgery to the promise of eternal life. 

What Goes Up …

What Goes Up …

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From my upstairs office window I can see our neighbor’s sad deflated holiday display. The extravaganza is typical of many these days: inflatable snowmen, Santas and reindeer, even inflatable creches, decking the yards this year. 

Tall, imposing, lit from within, these blow-up holiday decorations seem to be everywhere. It’s not brand-new technology, but it seems to have reached a price point or a tipping point that makes it the decoration of choice.

When glimpsed at night among spotlit tree trunks or fairy-lit boughs, these inflatable holiday sculptures are one thing. But when spotted in daytime, without their electrical assist, they are quite pitiful: a bunch of unblown-up balloons littering the half-dead grass of early winter.

Inflatable Santas: what goes up, must come down. 

The Wee Hours

The Wee Hours

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It’s too early to speculate on the gifts of the pandemic, but I already have a candidate in mind. It’s sleep! Glorious shut-eye. Hours of deep slumber. With no need to commute, there has been no reason to wake up at 5:30. And for the last seven months, there has been even less incentive to burn the pre-dawn oil.

Or has there been? I love these early hours, and I’ve missed them lately. 

So today when I woke at 4 a.m., I tried for a while to drift back, as I usually do, but when that didn’t happen, I took it as a sign and rose for the day. 

It’s not even 6:30 and I’ve had great gobs of time to read, write and otherwise fritter away the day.

In the wee hours, the world is my oyster. 

The Concert

The Concert

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It had been a while since I sat in a concert hall. There was Wolftrap last summer, always fun, but open-air, even when you have seats. 

Last night was the whole experience: the Kennedy Center itself, the approach and the entry, picking up the tickets, walking down the long hall, and then, in the hall, the chandeliers above and instruments tuning below. There were the black ties and tails, a hush when the lights went down. 

And then, there was this young man with a clarinet, swaying with it, bending with it, reminding me of James Galway on the flute, that same elfin charm.

The clarinetist, Lin Ma, played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto as if he was born to do it, so softly in parts of the Adagio that I felt myself lean toward the stage in order to hear it better. When he finished, the audience leapt to their feet.

Last night’s concert was not only all Mozart; it was all late-vintage Mozart, every piece written in 1791, the last year of the composer’s short life. And it ended with this: bliss. 

The Message

The Message

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Say what you will about the cluttered house (and I’ve said plenty), but every so often it can surprise and delight you. 

The other night, while looking for something in the closet, I jostled a tube of silver wrapping paper, which dislodged a spool of curling ribbon, which brought down an old envelope filled with photos and a note from my father-in-law, who’s been gone for almost 29 years. 

What a gift this was, to hear again from this man who, even in the midst of his own illness was writing to share holiday photos and wisdom. The note was filled with appreciation for his home, his family, for the snow that had recently blanketed the woods around his house. 

The delivery system may have been a bit unorthodox, but the message was simple: love life while you have it. 

(A different snowfall, a different woods.)

Face Time

Face Time

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Only one other time did I attend class on Zoom. Every other Tuesday evening I’ve been driving down to Georgetown, parking in the visitors’ garage, walking along Prospect to the Car Barn Building, feeling a part of the campus, if only fleetingly. But last night, the professor called it. The last class on November 30 would be held only on Zoom.

It was a strange way to end the semester, though in truth it doesn’t completely end until I turn in the final paper in a couple weeks. But it was the last time the class would be together, this particular assemblage of individuals, only one of whom I got to know at all, since she also traveled to campus every Tuesday evening. 

But the class itself was far more lively when it was held on Zoom only. The fact that we were all little squares, rather than some of us being squares and some of us actually being there, put us on a similar digital footing. And this prompted more chatter. 

Still, I liked the in-person version of class. It’s more of a hassle, true. It takes more time. But I like to see people in three dimensions if possible. I prefer the real and original face time.

(A scene from my walk to class.)