Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Think Zebras!

Think Zebras!

Comments 0 Comment

Doctors are taught that when you hear the sound of hoofbeats, think horses not zebras. It’s a saying I’ve always appreciated, worrier that I am, a reminder to see the molehill instead of the mountain. But even doctors know that in some situations, it’s better to think mountains — or zebras.

This is especially true in Maryland, where five zebras escaped from a farm and 30 days later have yet to be caught. Zebras have been spotted grazing in suburban yards and dashing across suburban lanes. 

Officials tell folks to be careful around the wild animals, that they cannot be caught, they must be corralled. Funny, I was just reading about zebras in the book Guns, Germs and Steel (more on this classic in a later post), how, unlike the forerunners of the horse, zebras are impossible to tame. They cannot be lassoed, and they have a tendency to bite. 

The Maryland zebras are living proof of these biological and historical facts. 

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

First Paper

First Paper

Comments 0 Comment

As I plunge further into class readings, further into class itself, I notice a difference in the way I’m thinking. Is it possible … could it be … is a new logical cast creeping into my thought process? 

The class topics are some of the big ones facing society: medical research and ethics, life extension and new methods of reproduction, artificial intelligence and information technologies. 

The philosophers and historians and scientists I’m reading are dealing with these changes in language that is sometimes clear, sometimes obscure but always logical. There is little in the writing that appeals to the emotions; it’s all about appealing to the intellect. 

There is a certain tidiness in this approach. But I haven’t written this way in a long, long time. Fingers crossed that I can. My first paper is due today.

The Lesson of Hummingbirds

The Lesson of Hummingbirds

Comments 0 Comment

Here is the lesson hummingbirds bring to humans, at least this human. Not just their impossible splendor, their swift jabbing attacks at the feeder like knights at sword fights flashing silver, a miracle of motion that makes me appreciate my own movements, no matter how sluggish.

And not just their seemingly impossible, near-perpetual flight, though seeing it makes me think, no matter how much I’ve done in a day, it’s never enough. 

It’s not even their way of pirouetting in front of me, as if to say thank-you, which speaks to me of gratitude whether they intend it to or not.

The lesson hummingbirds bring to me every year, from late April through late September, is, to use the movie’s hackneyed phrase … “if you build it, they will come.” Because, at least in this part of the world—and in many others from what I understand—all you have to do to see these glorious creatures is to fill a feeder with nectar and hang it it up outside. So simple, so obvious, like so many truths right there in front of me if only I would pay attention. 

 

Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning

Comments 0 Comment

It’s cool and crisp today;. The witch hazel and the weeping cherry are starting to turn, but most trees are green, and pools of shade and light still dot the lawn. 

Along the fence row, the ornamental grasses have settled in, grown up and out. They catch the light, their tassels gleaming. And the ferns, replenished by rain, are verdant again.

In between feeding runs, a hummingbird perches on the slim twig of the climbing rose, which bends slightly with its tiny weight. 

I have the feeling I often have when struck by natural beauty — that I’d like to hold it, inhale or imbibe it, anything to keep it here. 

Yard Signs

Yard Signs

Comments 0 Comment

It seemed to start with the pandemic, with the chalk art and the concerts on balconies, the way we felt during those first few weeks of the ordeal when we thought our sheltering time would be more like a long blizzard than a new way of life. 

Pundits ponder how many of the changes we’ve made over the last 18 months will become permanent fixtures. Let me add one to the mix: the proliferation of yard signs. 

Before the pandemic I don’t remember seeing many that weren’t advertising a house for sale or a renovation taking place. Politics are too hot right now for people to use yard signs to advertise their candidate of choice — at least in my neighborhood. 

Now there are signs welcoming kindergartners and high-schoolers, banners for birthdays and even notices with desperate requests. The latter includes one from a family in the neighborhood that used the back of their PTO’s grade school welcome sign to scrawl their own heartfelt message: Open The Schools!

At least that one is down now, but I think people are catching on to the potential of yard notices in an era when more of us are at home and walking around. 

Yard signs … bring ’em on. 

Autumn Amble

Autumn Amble

Comments 0 Comment

The warm and weighty air we’ve enjoyed lately has camouflaged what’s been going on close to the ground, where low branches have been thinning and yellowing. Where crimson and yellow leaves have mixed in with the green.  

 It was if the scenery had been clued into the equinox, which in a way it had, I suppose. A woods that looked summery just a few days ago seemed to morph overnight into an autumnal landscape. 

I noticed this yesterday on my post-farmers-market stroll, a lovely routine that my newly freed up work status has allowed me to enjoy. The woods near there has a blend of trees and enough underbrush that turns early in the season to burnish the place with gold, to stamp it with the season. 

But up above, there is still plenty of green. Time for many more autumn ambles. 

The Birds

The Birds

Comments 0 Comment

They swooped, they swerved, they filled the sky with their acrobatics. I first spotted them as I was stopped in traffic on Key Bridge, but could only snap a faraway shot. 

It was later, once I’d reached the Car Barn Building terrace, that I saw the birds again. I’d stopped to look at the river and the towers of Rosslyn across into Virginia (how cool that I leave my state for class) — and there they were, circling and swirling, making their presence known. 

Were they up to no good? It was hard to tell at the time. But when I looked at the (top) photo later … well,  you be the judge …

The Power of Scent

The Power of Scent

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday, on my way back from a walk, I caught a whiff of manure from a passing truck. Turns out, the truck was turning into my neighbors’ driveway where for a couple of hours the lawn was aerated and fertilized.

As a result, I spent the day inhaling whiffs of the barnyard, a scent I associate more with the farm than the suburb. 

It wasn’t unpleasant, not after I got used to it. In fact, it made me think of afternoons spent interviewing farmers in Cambodia or Malawi or other places around the world, places where roosters crowed and pigs wallowed and shy children peeked at me from behind the leaves of a banana tree.

I miss those trips, the golden sunrises, the purple twilights, but I’m grateful that yesterday, for a few hours, a whiff of the barnyard brought them back to me. 

The Art of Listening

The Art of Listening

Comments 0 Comment

I read in this week’s Brain Pickings newsletter that the composer Aaron Copland, in his book Music and Imagination, says listening to music is an art, just as playing it is. 

If that’s the case, then I practice the art every time I walk. 

This morning, fresh from reading about Copland, the “Overture to Die Meistersinger” in my ears, I thought about how I listen. It’s mostly with the ear of an amateur, someone whose love for music greatly exceeds her knowledge of it. 

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it; perhaps I enjoy it more. 

“There are few pleasures in art greater than the secure sense that one
can recognize beauty when one comes upon it… ” Copland writes. “Recognizing the beautiful
in an abstract art like music partakes somewhat of a minor miracle.”

Summer Tasks

Summer Tasks

Comments 0 Comment

Here it still feels like full-on summer, but with autumn officially beginning next week there’s more urgency to complete the tasks of summer — everything from weeding the garden to bathing the dog, a task that may happen later today, depending upon energy levels of both dog and humans.

Perhaps I should say tasks made easier by summer in the latter case, actions more easily performed outside that in, like the sudsing up and rinsing off of a sometimes cantankerous canine, or the cleaning of a feather- and seed-layered birdcage.

On the other hand, it’s also nice to read, write and think outside, to look and listen and remember, storing up the cricket sounds and bird calls for a leaner, bleaker season. Those activities should not — and will not — be forgotten.