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Author: Anne Cassidy

Free Books: Going Fast

Free Books: Going Fast

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Today, our public library returns to virtual and curbside pickup only. Since summer we’ve been able to enter our branch (fully masked and separated, of course), to browse the stacks and check out the new fiction and nonfiction sections. We could find our next great read. And often (at least in my case) serendipity was involved. I didn’t go hunting for The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. But there it was, languishing in the new fiction section.

So much do I count on these library visits, that when I heard the news of the closure late Friday, I added another to-do for Saturday: get over to the Chantilly branch and get some books. Apparently, many folks had the same idea. By late morning the parking lot was filling up and people were dashing from building to car, bundles of books under their arms. 

A woman with a clicker monitored our arrival, to keep capacity to Covid rules. She reminded me I could only stay for 30 minutes. That was fine; I only had 10. 

But I made a beeline for the new section, and got right to browsing. There was Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey, a memoir that’s been on my list for months. I grabbed John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened, too. It  seems a little passé by now, but I’ll give it a try. 

Into my arms went books on artificial intelligence and mindfulness and the works of Walt Whitman. If a topic seemed down my alley at all, it made the cut. 

When I left the library there were five souls waiting to get in. Free books — there’s nothing like ’em.

Tossing the ‘Bible’

Tossing the ‘Bible’

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When I think of National Geographic magazine, I think of mountains and mummies and majesty. I think of the Bible, since I’ve always approached the magazine with reverence, thanks to its plethora of fine photographs and its perfect binding. I also think of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Early in the film, when he’s a kid, he boasts that he’s been selected for membership in the National Geographic Society. 

Well, I was, too. And I can tell you what it’s like decades later, when you don’t throw out any of those precious journals, when you don’t even let your kids cut them up when they begged you to let them. Instead, you held onto the magazines, thinking they were too beautiful to toss, that somebody would want a complete set someday. A library, a nursing home, someplace.

But in a world where you can’t even give away a piano, you certainly can’t interest anyone in boxes of National Geographic magazines. In fact, you can’t even throw them all away at once; they’re too heavy. So we’re getting rid of them box by box. It’s like slowly peeling off a bandage — a painful process. But in the end, we’ll be a little bit freer, a little bit lighter, and these days, that’s what it’s all about.  

Lopez and Place

Lopez and Place

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I learned earlier this week that the author Barry Lopez died on Christmas Day. I’ve only read one book by Lopez, but it made quite an an impression. 

Lopez’s masterpiece Arctic Dreams is sometimes called a travel book. But as many critics have noted, it’s much more than that. “Arctic Dreams is a book about the Arctic North in the way that Moby Dick is a novel about whales,” the critic Michiko Kakutani wrote.

For me, Arctic Dreams was one of the first books that awakened an appreciation of writing about place. Since then, I’ve come to love the words of Annie Dillard, Henry Beston, John Graves, Aldo Leopold and many more. I’ve come to realize the power of writing about where we are rooted, of paying attention to the trees and animals and vistas that sanctify a city, a seashore, a ranch, a farm, a home. 

Lopez died of complications from prostate cancer, but according to his wife, his ailments intensified after wildfires destroyed his house in Oregon last September. He lost all his original manuscripts and a lifetime of artifacts. Most of all, I thought as I read his obituary … he lost his place. 

(Photo: Brian Schaller/Wikimedia)

Assault on the Capitol

Assault on the Capitol

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For 10 years I worked less than half a mile from the U.S. Capitol. On my lunch hour, I often walked around the place. I could have been pulling my hair out over page proofs, but as soon as I left my office on First Street and rounded the corner onto New Jersey Avenue, a calmness would descend upon me. 

It was partly the walking itself, tonic and narcotic that it always is. But it was also the fact that I, a kid from Kentucky, could spend 30 minutes strolling around such an august building and grounds. What people from all over the world traveled to see, I could include in a quick desk break. 

I was thinking of these walks yesterday when an angry mob stormed the Capitol and interrupted the people’s business. Like most Americans I watched with a lump in my throat and a sickness in my soul. That our dear country, represented by that building, should be so defiled and shamed! 

While knowing the Capitol may have made me sadder in the short-run, it’s brought some comfort as the hours have passed. I’ve imagined the route often since yesterday: the tall, labeled trees, the broad plaza on the east side, the marble steps, the fine magnolias. 

I walked, therefore I knew, and I knew, therefore I loved. That love is sustaining me now. 

Jammin!

Jammin!

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Every year at Christmastime, Mom made a jam cake. It was a recipe from Dad’s side of the family, and was passed down with great care. Mom copied the recipe over several times, but she saved the old versions. Reading through them, which I did to make sure I was getting the ingredients right, was like an archaeological dig; there was the same fragility to the oldest artifact.

Once I figured out that the “modern version” (which included purple crayon scribbles, proof of its age) was indeed a fair and true copy, I still had to make the cake, which began, as it did for Mom, with an all-out search for jam with seeds. In my case, the search took me 20 miles away, to a Walmart Super Store in Sterling. (I found this highly ironic since Mom never visited a Walmart; she thought the stores were destroying small-town America — and in this case, as with so much else, she was right.) 

Once the jam was purchased and the other ingredients assembled, I proceeded to make the cake. Mom had always made a very big deal of it, as if she was making a four-tier wedding cake. How hard can it be, I wondered. 

Pretty darn hard, it turns out. There is the sheer muscle involved in stirring the thick batter. There’s separating the six eggs, beating the whites till frothy (I was convinced I had botched this part) and pre-mixing certain ingredients (such as vinegar and baking soda) before adding them to the batter. 

By the time I got the cake in the oven, it looked like a small tornado had ripped through the kitchen. But after a tense baking period (I can remember holidays where the jam cake fell — and that was not a pretty sight), the cake emerged more or intact. I couldn’t have been prouder. Now all I had to do … was frost the thing.

Painted Bunting

Painted Bunting

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Yesterday’s paper brought the typical onslaught of bad news, but on the front page of the Metro section was a wondrous story about the rare sighting of a painted bunting. 

It’s one of those “lifetime birds” for birders, who flocked to a Maryland park to catch a glimpse of this tiny creature.  With its normal habitat far south of here, the bird’s presence represented a once-in-lifetime chance for many to see it. “Magical” is how some of them described it.

Even reading about it was enough to lift my spirits. That a tiny bird could stir up such a ruckus in a town more likely to respond to the latest scandal than to the presence of beauty in our midst is further proof of what we’re coming to realize is a silver lining of the pandemic: a greater realization of the beauty and balm of nature. 

All I can add is … what a great way to start the new year! 

(Photo: Wikimedia)

In and Out

In and Out

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The walk I took yesterday I’ve taken before in the rain, so it seemed right to embark upon it as mist turned to drizzle. And it was good to see the soggy world close-up, as drops clung to evergreens and puddles formed on the trail.

I remember the first time I walked this way, I got turned around and my return trip included a couple of blocks on the side of a road instead of in the woods. Now the twists and turns are well encoded, enough so that I could take a detour and still find my way back.

Yesterday felt like a day to stay inside — all the more reason to get out.

Filling the Fridge

Filling the Fridge

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It has come to my attention that today is Saturday, a day I usually get groceries into the house. It has also come to my attention that I have not completed said grocery expedition in several weeks. Oh, I’ve run out for powdered sugar and cold cuts. But I’ve been neglecting the tried-and-true, list-driven expedition.

I kind of dread the trip, if you want to know the truth. It seems too much like work, which I’ve sworn off these last 10 days. But we’re running low on milk, eggs and salad —  things that don’t freeze well, you may notice — and you can’t live on chocolate cake and Christmas cookies forever.

So here I go, back into a routine. I’m sure it will be fine once I get in … a little like the shock of cold water in a pool, which ultimately refreshes. And even if it isn’t, the fridge will be full again.

Imagining 2021

Imagining 2021

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The new year arrived wearing top hat and tails. It landed with a swoop and a glide and an elegant dip. It was Fred Astaire tap-dancing on the ceiling, Gene Kelley singing in the rain and Judy Garland dreaming of somewhere over the rainbow. 

Plans were canceled, isolation strictly enforced, but the American musical was not shut down, or at least not the American musical as imagined by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the 1974 classic “That’s Entertainment.” Hosted by a slew of stars (Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli and Jimmy Stewart), there were clips of everyone from Esther Williams to the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. 
It was a surprisingly apt way to see out an old year and bring in a new one. No, it wasn’t realistic. The world depicted was mostly on a sound stage or a backlot. But it was vivid proof of human imagination.  And imagination is looking pretty good these days.
The Joys of 2020

The Joys of 2020

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I don’t always write about the year’s end on New Year’s Eve. Sometimes I write about a Christmas carol or getting more sleep or any number of other topics. 

But 2020 deserves a sendoff post. A sendoff that includes “good riddance,” of course, given what a difficult and tragic year it has been for so many. But because it’s a year that has been joyous for my family, a post of gratitude and amazement, too. 

So here’s to our Seattle crew settling into new work and study and apartment, exploring the city right outside their door. And here’s to Bernadette with her amazing smile and huggable little body. And here’s to Isaiah, who beams with pleasure and shrieks with joy. 

As much as I would like to kick 2020 out the door, I can’t help but linger for a moment at all the wonder it brought us. That said, though, come on 2021. We need your sanity. We need your hope.  

(Photo: Claire Capehart)