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Author: Anne Cassidy

The Competitors

The Competitors

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Here in the outdoor office, where I just completed several major tasks and am taking a brief breather before starting another, I often find my eyes wandering to the hummingbird feeder. 

After a dry spell earlier in the summer, the tiny birds are at it again, zooming in for a drink and battling off competitors with fierce territoriality.
The hummingbirds may not realize how much competition they have. They may not always notice the ants, bees and wasps, even the errant spider or two, which as far as I can tell are siphoning off more of the nectar than any rogue birds. 
But I’ll just ignore that for now. If it’s OK with the hummingbirds, it’s OK with me. 
Most Beautiful Day

Most Beautiful Day

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Today we celebrate the birthday of a daughter who is about to become a mother. It has me thinking back to the day when she was born, a most glorious day, as all three of the days were when my children came into this world. 

In this case, however, July 28 was the day when an oppressive heat wave had finally broken. My second-born, who was due almost two weeks earlier, had apparently been waiting until the temperature was back below 90 before she made her appearance. The weather had turned overnight, a cool breeze had sprung up, which led the TV weather person to announce “This is the most beautiful day of the year.” 
It’s something I’ve always repeated to Claire, and today was no exception. “It’s certainly not the most beautiful day of the year today,” she responded, referring to our high temperature and oppressive humidity. 
“That’s because it’s waiting for when your baby is born,” I said. And of course, no matter what, it will be. 
Stegner and Home

Stegner and Home

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It made sense that I finished this year’s “beach book” just hours before firing up the work computer.  It made sense, though it made for less than 40 winks. That’s the way it is — or can be, when the book is good enough. 

In this one, it was almost as if I could see Stegner coming into his own as a writer from the beginning of this 562-page saga to the end. The Big Rock Candy Mountain was Stegner’s second published novel and an autobiographical gem that becomes wiser and stronger as the writer (and the characters) mature. 
I’ve always loved Stegner’s depiction of the American West, his love for the landscape and the way he grapples with the nature of home. And here I could see this in full flower: 
It was a grand country, a country to lift the blood, and he was going home across its wind-kissed miles with the sun on him and the cornfields steaming under the first summer heat and the first bugs immolating themselves against his windshield. But going home where? he said. Where do I belong in this?
…Where is home? he said. It isn’t where your family comes from, and it isn’t where you were born, unless you have been lucky enough to live in one place all your life. Home is where you hang your hat. (He had never owned a hat.) Or home is where you spent your childhood, the good years when waking every morning was an excitement, when the round of the day could always produce something to fill your mind, tear your emotions, excite your wonder or awe or delight. Is home that, or is it the place where the people you love live, or the place where you have buried your dead, or the place where you want to be buried yourself? 
…To have that rush of sentimental loyalty at the sound of a name, to love and know a single place … Those were the things that not only his family, but thousands of Americans had missed. The whole nation had been footloose too long, Heaven had been just over the next range for too many generations.
Bodies and Souls

Bodies and Souls

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The several loads of laundry I’ve done since returning home are a good re-entry point. Cleaning and folding make me feel at home. And being on the deck as my nightgown blows in the breeze helps me remember the freedom I felt at the shore.

That feeling of freedom is more important now than ever. It’s so easy to feel hemmed in by the pandemic, to think only about what we can’t do, where we can’t go.

Of course we must take care always to protect ourselves and those we love. But we must also find our own personal balance points, the tradeoffs we will or won’t make to ensure that we not only keep our bodies intact — but our souls as well.

Traveling Twice

Traveling Twice

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This year’s beach read is The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner, a family saga as broad and as deep as the western horizon. It’s been a fine book for this year’s trip, accompanying me on the plane and on the strand.

There aren’t many readers on the beach these days. There are plenty of people on their phones, and, believe it or not in this age of air buds, plenty of people listening to portable radios loudly enough that everyone nearby can hear them, too.

But I spotted only three or four people reading books on yesterday’s walk, though the day before I happened to park myself by an entire family in thrall. But though few in number, readers stand out. There they sit in perfect communion with the printed pages, as waves break and gulls swoop. They could be anywhere — running through an airport in Bangkok or driving cattle through a freak spring snowstorm in Montana.

I like to think that these readers have discovered what I have: that when you travel with a book, you travel twice.

Beyond the Beach

Beyond the Beach

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When you’re at the beach it’s easy to be seduced by it, to think there is nothing else to see or do. But  there are other pleasures. The pool, for instance. I’ve spent many hours lazing by it, reading or writing, and many hours in it, as my body cools and my fingers shrivel.

And there is walking around the little village center here, where you can people-watch, pick up a salad for dinner and buy a souvenir or two.

Finally, there’s the mental vibe of the beach, which expands beyond the sand and surf into the light and the wind — into the words I write, the thoughts I think and the dreams I dream.

I guess that’s why I keep coming back.

The Eyes Have It

The Eyes Have It

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I noticed it in late March, when mask-wearing was still rare. I noticed it when I spotted a woman in the supermarket, between the dairy and meat section. 

Perhaps she had just landed some chicken, which was scarce in those days. But I think it was a gesture of simple human friendliness rather than an expression of triumph. Because it was only a simple smile. And it crinkled the edges of her eyes, fanned up in lines toward her temples, made her pupils dance.
This will pass, her smiling eyes said to me.  One day we will be beyond all this — and we best be beyond it with smiles on our faces and fellow feeling in our hearts. 
That’s the moment when I decided that in this new world … the eyes have it. 
(Photo: Wikipedia)
Puddles

Puddles

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The last few afternoons have featured big rains with dark clouds building, sheets of water falling and palm trees swaying. These storms have left large puddles in their wake, bodies of water like small ponds, making you cross the street when you’re walking to the market to pick up the salad dressing you forgot to buy an hour earlier.

The puddles mirror the sky and the clouds that created them. The images vanish when the water meets the macadam.  I skirt them at first, but then take the time to snap a shot.

Looking at it now I see how the grain of the gravel underlies the mottled cloudscape — and the upside-down palms seem like two small brooms, ready to sweep the street of rain.

Fast Walk at High Tide

Fast Walk at High Tide

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The sun is well up in the sky, the aroma of sunscreen fills the air, all the shells have been found. It’s a fast walk at high tide.

Yes, the intentions are pure. I could imagine the early rising as I took 40 more winks, could feel myself pulling on running shoes, tying the laces, tucking my hair up in the baseball cap, heading out into a still, silent world where only a few beachcombers strolled meditatively along the shore.

Instead, I found myself hours later, dodging the breakers as they edged onto the only hard sand left, crunching the dross of smashed shells and dried seaweed.

It was hot, it was invigorating. It was a fast walk at high tide. 

Kinda Sorta Like Normal

Kinda Sorta Like Normal

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It’s not like you can forget the pandemic here. I’m aware that the virus is still raging. To get here, I wore both a mask and a face shield. And when I enter a grocery store, which is the only place I enter other than my room, people wear masks.

But on the beach, which is so broad and glorious, so built for social distancing, I can walk and look and sit and stare and pretend that life is whole once again.

In other words … it’s kinda, sorta like normal.