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Author: Anne Cassidy

A Repost for Father’s Day

A Repost for Father’s Day

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For today, a repost from 2011, when Dad and I spent Father’s Day touring his old neighborhood, which he liked to call the “culturally deprived North Side.” Reading it now makes me miss him even more.

Sometimes the old brain is too full to process what it has stored. Today is one of those days. A high school reunion, the wedding of a dear friend’s son and now Father’s Day have all run together this weekend to create a mass of memories, thoughts and impressions. Should I write about dancing last night with people I haven’t seen in decades? Or the tears that surprised me as I watched Jean’s son kiss his bride?

A second ago I showed my dad photos of his father that my cousin had posted on Facebook. The kitchen of my Dad’s boyhood home on Idlewild Court — a home we’re about to see on a sentimental journey through the streets of Dad’s past — came alive again in one of those pictures.

The multiple layers of meaning in that event — layers of nostalgia, wonder and mystery — are about as close to depicting this weekend as I can muster.

Victory Lap

Victory Lap

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Copper is an old doggie now who has twice torn his ACL. He gets around fine most of the time but is stiff after long sleeps and odd twists. Consequently, he has developed a reticence for going up or down the eight wooden deck stairs that provide access to the back yard with all of its canine potty potential. 

This, of course, has become an issue for the humans in Copper’s life, who have been known to lure him down the steps with treats, bouncing balls and plain old cajoling.

Most mornings, Copper makes it up and back without encouragement, prompted by urgency, I suppose. But lately he’s taken to celebrating this once-routine accomplishment by bursting through the back door and running around the house. 
I know that we humans must avoid the tendency to anthropomorphize our pet’s behaviors, but it’s hard not to see this as a victory lap.  Once again, Copper has prevailed over stiff joints and old age. He’s made it down and back up again. He has triumphed. And surely this is worth a little celebration. 
My People

My People

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Yesterday,  I had a 4:00 Microsoft Teams meeting followed by a 5:30 Zoom meeting. Nothing strange about back-to-back virtual meetings, the now-familiar squares on the screen. Except that the first was for my paying job and the second for a journalist group I’ve belonged to for years.

In the first there were blurred backgrounds, and some relatively tidy houses. In the second there were papers and books and sloping roofs. The kinds of rooms I live in, the kinds of rooms I love.

I also noticed the difference in discourse. There were funny, smart people in both meetings, but in the first there was policy discussion (both corporate and political) — and in the second there was observation. Everything from school openings to vaccine development to interview transcription.

It should come as no surprise that a bunch of writers would live amidst books and papers, or that they would offer up a wide-ranging conversation — but it was especially heart-warming yesterday, and it made me feel something both simple and profound. It made me feel that … these are my people.

Blackberry Winter

Blackberry Winter

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Though the heat and humidity are building here, for the last few days it’s felt like Blackberry Winter, which is what I grew up hearing an early summer cold snap called. Curious about this expression, I just learned from the Farmer’s Almanac that it’s primarily a southern term used to describe a bout of chilly weather that happens when the blackberries bloom.

There are lots of words like this in my lexicon, though I’m not pulling others up right this minute, language that harkens back to the deep roots of my Kentucky childhood. These turns of phrase created a world view that was part lore, part poetry and only a small part reality. For instance, I recall few blackberry blooms in my neck of the woods. It’s only since I’ve lived in Virginia that I’ve been aware of when the blackberries bloom, which is, interestingly enough, right about now!

As for the weather, it won’t be cool much longer. Already the heat and humidity are building, the rain that fell yesterday becoming steam that rises from the lawn, aromatic and ever-so-slightly suffocating, too.

Reading in Circles

Reading in Circles

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I still remember what I said when I opened the Kindle I received for Christmas some years ago. It was “get back from me, Satan,” or some such line, punctuated with a laugh and accompanied by lots of thank-you’s. Because it was a lovely gift and I appreciated it, even though I’d always said I’d never use one of the things.

The Kindle has been used often since then, and it has especially been pressed into service the last few months. I’ve found free classics to consume on it, purchased a novel my book group was reading, and it’s now on top of my bedside table book pile.
A digital e-reader is perfect for these digital times, but, more to the point, the Kindle is just one of several book delivery platforms. I can listen to a book, courtesy of another generous gift (this one for Audible), I can read one on my computer through the library’s lending service, I can use my Kindle or … I can read a good, old-fashioned book.  I was saving the best for last.  
Walking the Fence

Walking the Fence

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These days when I need a quick break from the computer, instead of making my way to the office kitchen to make a cup of tea or get a glass of water, I leave the house, descend the deck stairs and stroll around the back yard.

It’s not a bad idea to inspect the boundaries occasionally, to find missing pickets or other spots where Copper might sneak out. And to monitor the undergrowth, this year’s poison ivy crop and the Arbor Foundation saplings, which are still scrawny but now as tall as I am.

I started walking the fence back in early spring when the ground was still hard and plants were asleep. Since then I’ve watched the season unfold from these leisurely strolls around the property.

Mostly, it’s such a lovely way to take a break — being outside amidst green and growing things. Taking leave, if only for a few moments, of the keystrokes that define my life.

Left with a Melody

Left with a Melody

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Like so much else these days, deciding whether to go to church is fraught with questions. Since last week, we have been allowed to attend in person, but seating is limited and the experience is so different that I think I would miss Mass more sitting there than I would watching it on my laptop.

Which is why I keep tuning in … as evidenced by yesterday’s post.  It’s imperfect, but the experience still leaves me with something to think about, and, maybe just as important, something to listen to.

Yesterday, it was “Let All Who Are Thirsty Come,” a haunting melody that stayed with me as I swept the deck and mowed the yard and walked through the June afternoon.

Left with a melody … there is a power and a purpose in that.

Reinvention

Reinvention

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Reinvention is in the air, new ways of being and doing things. Many of them seem flat to me, necessary evils, the now-familiar checkerboard of faces in Zoom squares.

But there are benefits, too. Free classes, curbside services, a keener appreciation of the here-and-now, of how important it is to be strong of body and healthy of mind. I’ve just attended yet another remote Mass, one enlivened by the priest, who began intoning the Sign of Peace (where we shake each other’s hands), only to say, “Oh, that’s right, you can’t do that anymore.”

Experimentation can bring smiles or exasperated sighs. I’m hoping I can go with the former most of the time.

Through trial and error and reinvention we come to know each other better — and perhaps this, too, can be an avenue of love.

Empty Nest

Empty Nest

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Yesterday there was much fluttering and chirping in the garage as a bevy of Carolina wrens flew in and out the window. For the second or third year in a row Mama Wren had nested on an upper shelf full of old vases, tucking her abode in between a green vase and a clear one, using the shelf in between as a patio of sorts.

The fledglings must have been practicing their first moves over the last few days, when there seemed a confusing preponderance of bird life in and around the garage. There were suddenly wrens everywhere: in the holly trees, at the bird bath, at the feeder and the suet block.

Now that the nest is empty, I climbed up to take a look. How still and silent and abandoned it looked. One fact struck me: Unlike human nests, which empty and refill many times over a lifetime, when bird’s nests empty … they stay that way — at least for the season.

Bustin’ Out

Bustin’ Out

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I’m not sure how much of my world view has been shaped by Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals — probably more than I would care to admit. Given that, perhaps I can be forgiven for hearing a certain refrain from “Carousel” pinging through my head these days.

“June is bustin’ out all over
All over the meadow and the hill
Buds are bustin’ outta bushes
And the romping river pushes
Every little wheel that wheels beside the mill

Because it’s June — June, June, June
Just because it’s June, June, June.

And my favorite verse:

June is bustin’ out all over
The sheep aren’t sheepish anymore
And the rams that chase the ewe sheep
Are determined there’ll be new sheep
And the ewe sheep aren’t even keeping score

Because it’s June — June, June, June
Just because it’s June, June, June!

All of which is to say … it’s a June-is-Bustin’-Out kind of day!