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Author: Anne Cassidy

Shopping Online

Shopping Online

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I did my best to pretend that yesterday wasn’t Black Friday, but by the end of the day I caved and went online. And yes, there was the hysteria I remember from years gone by, or at least a virtual version of it made possible by pop-ups, reminders that there are “only five left … order soon!” and countdown clocks.

It’s the clocks that affected me most, their hours, minutes and seconds all winding down to midnight. Perhaps because I’m time-sensitive, accustomed to packing as much as I can into whatever time I have. Why should shopping be any different?

Well … because it should, that’s why. It should be a deliberative process — not the digital equivalent of pawing through lingerie in Macy’s basement. 

But darned if the online marketers didn’t figure out a way to make us care … and rush. 

Black Friday — it runs through Sunday, from what I hear.

(A real shopping experience, complete with masks.)

Looking at Clouds

Looking at Clouds

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This morning I awoke to the house at rest, a house that somehow held 22 people for a sit-down Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. 

An outside table was pulled in, borrowed chairs were tucked under it, and the best china was pulled from its sleeves, dusted off and actually used.

Today, I could do some Black Friday shopping, I could catch up with classwork …. or, I could do what I most want to do, which is to look out my office window at clouds scudding across the sky. 

Together

Together

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It’s 9 on a Thanksgiving morning and for once I remembered to turn on the TV in time to catch the parade from the beginning. It will be on in the background as the dust flies, the turkey roasts and the potatoes boil.

But the big story for most of us this year will not be on a screen. It will be in living rooms and family rooms and kitchens across the nation.

It will be when we rub shoulders, click glasses and — dare I say it? — hug each person who enters our home. For the big story this Thanksgiving is that we’re celebrating it together.

Scott Hotel

Scott Hotel

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Only time for a short walk yesterday, but I had a destination in mind: the Scott Hotel, once owned by my grandfather and great uncle. Mom and her family lived at the hotel intermittently through the years, sharing quarters with the horsemen and the tobacco farmers in to sell their crops. 

The hotel was right across from the Southern Railway Depot, a natural place to stay for a night or two if you were in Lexington on business.

It was a less likely place to house three young daughters and a son. But these were different times, harder in some ways, easier in others.

The hotel is abandoned now, has been for years. It stands in mute testimony to those long-ago lives. 

Putting the Lap in Laptop

Putting the Lap in Laptop

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As a walker in the suburbs I write very little about sitting. But sitting has become my bane. It is such a necessary part of modern existence, especially when one is mostly working on a laptop, which, by its very definition requires sitting. But I’ve done far too much of it through the years and my body is letting me know it’s displeased. 

Of course, I can stand up when I write, edit or read — and I try to put my standing desk through its paces as often as I can. But when I really need to pull out all the stops with the gray matter, I need either to be walking or sitting. 

And lately … I’ve been sitting. 

(A good place to sit if you have to!)

Olmsted in Kentucky

Olmsted in Kentucky

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I learned through weekend wanderings that famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted once turned his attention to my hometown. 

He and his brother, as the marker explains, had a hand in designing Transylvania Park, where the lovely Lexington Library once reigned; Ashland Park, where I spotted this sign; and Woodland Park, one of my favorite haunts.

It doesn’t surprise me. These places may not be the Chicago World’s Fair or Central Park (two of Olmsted’s more well-known accomplishments), but in them the built and natural environments work together. They have a beauty and a presence — a  sense of having always been there.

Feast for the Eye

Feast for the Eye

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A walk this morning before the rain moved in: tall grasses swaying, leaf piles growing. I love to walk in Lexington because, at least where I stroll, no two houses are alike. 

Some are traditional, others contemporary. Windows are mullioned or plain. Doors arched or square.

Chinquapin oak leaves litter brick sidewalks, and a ground cover I’m not familiar with froths around the base of a tree.

The variations are a feast for the eye and a balm for the brain.

In Kentucky

In Kentucky

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I drove to Kentucky yesterday, following the new route through the mountains. For the first few hours, I took in the late-fall color on the gleaming hillsides. But by early afternoon, I had driven into the predicted cold front. 

Dark clouds gathered above the huge windmills, and strong gusts sent leaves swirling and scudding across the highway. The rain started when I was at about 3,000 feet, lightly at first, then heavier by the time I reached the interstate. 

It was not the bucolic drive I had in August, when I stopped to admire the mountain views. This was a no-nonsense-just-get-me-there kind of trip. 

And it worked. I pulled into the driveway just as the last light was draining from the sky. 

In Spring and Fall

In Spring and Fall

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The Kwanzan cherry tree puts on quite a show in the spring. It’s not the earliest bloomer; it waits until the soil has warmed and the forsythia and dogwood have paved the way. But when it finally gets going, it draws the eye to its big-fisted blossoms, its pink petals exploding from narrow stems.

What I’ve only started to appreciate is the show it puts on in autumn. Once again, it bides its time. Other leaves have changed, dried and blown away. But the leaves of the Kwanzan cherry have waited patiently — and this is their time.

They light up the late fall landscape, shimmering in dawns and dusks. They flutter in the breeze, brave flags waving. They gladden my heart each time I see them.

Immersed in Van Gogh

Immersed in Van Gogh

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“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”

Vincent Van Gogh

The Van Gogh immersive experience begins as soon as you walk in the door and are greeted with a wall of sunflowers, or, I should say, a larger-than-life Van Gogh-like depiction of them. A few steps away is a bust of the painter that morphs from black and gray shadows to the swirled blues and lavenders of his flowers.

You pass a re-creation of the room at Arles, complete down to the washstand and window and hat hanging from a peg on the wall. Take a photo of the room and you’ve created a masterpiece.

There are videos on the artist’s life, his hospitalization, self-mutilation and eventual suicide. And there is music: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, something by Debussy, others I couldn’t place, all soaring and emotive.

But the best is saved for last, when you walk into the final gallery and find yourself a part of the paintings. You stand or sit or recline on the floor while the art comes alive around you, pages slide off easels, stars explode in the night, and a hundred sunflowers bloom against a lapis lazuli sky.