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Author: Anne Cassidy

The Theater Downstairs

The Theater Downstairs

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One of my hobbies is watching movies, especially ones that are nominated for Oscars. This year, that task has been made infinitely easier because many of the films are available streaming or on DVD. Some, like “The Irishman” or “Marriage Story,” both vying for best picture, were released only on Netflix. Others, like “Joker” or “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, ” are already available on DVDs.

As a result, I’ve been doing more “Oscar prep” in my basement than ever before. This creates some interesting situations. For instance, I fall asleep more easily on the couch in the basement, so that means I’m having to watch a few films twice in order to get their full effect. I watch some of them while exercising, too, which also strains my attention span (and lengthens my workout time).

However, the last movie I watched in a theater, “Little Women,” put me in a seat that reclined so far back that I might as well have been lying on the worn blue couch in the basement.

So there you have it, as basements become more theater-like … theaters are becoming more basement-like.  Sometimes I just love the modern world.

(Photo: Wikipedia — my basement looks nothing like this!)

Modern Day MLK?

Modern Day MLK?

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We need another Dr. Martin Luther King, a modern-day voice crying in the wilderness. We need someone who has a positive vision and can motivate others to follow it; someone grounded in faith who has moral clarity. Someone who understands sacrifice and can inspire others to make one.

I think about how the world sometimes gives us the people we need when we need them. Abraham Lincoln to keep our nation together. King to lead the Civil Rights movement.

We don’t always treat our heroes well, of course. King and Lincoln were both assassinated. In their case history righted the wrong, and they ultimately received the honors they were due. But honor is not what they were seeking. It was a cause beyond themselves, a greater good.

It’s hard to imagine such a person appearing now, someone who could heal the partisanship, who could bind us together again as one nation. But I’m an optimist. I have to believe there might be.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Home Alone

Home Alone

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The house is seldom empty these days, but it will be for more than a week, so I’ve been sitting in silence for the most of the day. It’s not that I don’t love my life and the people in it. It’s only that I need to recharge in quiet.

What I’m listening to now is the sighing of the wind and the chirping of the parakeets. A few minutes ago I had the Sunday talk shows on the radio, but that was producing indigestion, so I’m back to the natural sounds of birds and air.

I may take a cue from Copper and move with the sun. He starts out in the front of the house for the morning rays, then moves around to the back for the afternoon light. He usually finds a square of pure sunshine and lies down in it.

In about an hour the lowering rays will strike the living room couch in an oh-so-inviting way. It may prove too enticing to ignore.

Top of the World

Top of the World

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As I sit snug in my house with a dusting of snow on the ground and trees, I read about a land where snow and ice reign — or at least reign for a little while longer.

The research vessel Polestern is part of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAIC), the largest Arctic research expedition in history. It is studying the polar ice cap that sits at the top of the world.

The researchers recently spoke to a Washington Post reporter about what they’ve been encountering there. The resulting article read like one of those great polar adventure stories. At one point the scientists heard a low “grumble” and realized that the large floe to which they’d anchored their vessel was splitting apart. They once had to kayak across a newly formed channel to reach their instruments.

“We are teetering at the edge of feasibility,” said the co-coordinator for the MOSAIC expedition, Matthew Shupe. In the not-so-distant future, he said, “setting up an ice camp for a whole year is not going to be possible.”

But he and the other scientists can’t imagine being anywhere else. Said Shupe: “It is so cool to be embedded in the middle of this new Arctic state.”

(Photo: mosaic-expedition.org)

A Milestone

A Milestone

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This is Tom’s last day of full-time work as a senior economist. He officially retires today after more than three decades of government service. The fact that in two weeks he will begin working again for the same agency is important, yes, but today still marks a milestone in his life and in the life of our family.

There are several reasons why Tom is becoming what the government calls a “reemployed annuitant.” Some will benefit his agency and others will make our life a little easier. But what it ultimately means is that he will tiptoe into retirement, will wade into it gradually rather than diving into the deep end.

Which is not to say he couldn’t handle an immediate plunge into a life without his three-hour roundtrip commutes. He could, and in fact he will, since his new gig will be mostly telecommuting.

I’m the one who likes the gradual approach. I liken it to what the racehorse world calls “walking hots” — making sure thoroughbreds don’t suddenly lurch from 60 to 0 and sicken themselves in the process. (This is something you learn when you grow up in Kentucky.)

Retirement is a word I never used to think about but has now come out of the closet.  I’m not ready to contemplate it for myself (do writers ever really retire?), but when I do, the gradual approach that Tom is about to experience looks pretty good to me.

VA for ERA!

VA for ERA!

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Yesterday, Virginia became the 38th state to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Three-quarters of the states have now signaled their intent to make equal rights for women a permanent part of the U.S. Constitution.

From all reports it was a jubilant day in Richmond. Cheers erupted, and the packed gallery went wild. Say what you will about this being too little, too late, I’m proud of my state for this vote, proud of the women who persevered to bring it to the floor.

I see Virginia as the last, proud runner, the one who keeps her pace even as others streak by only to falter later. I see her now huffing and puffing as she crosses the finish line, long after everyone else has gone home. Maybe her achievement will be discredited — but she knows what she has done. She can hold her head high.

(Photo: Courtesy Virginia Public Radio)

Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby

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As a proud English major I was delighted to read yesterday of a study that finds a liberal arts education provides a $1 million median return on investment 40 years after enrollment.

It doesn’t surprise me, though. I’ve always believed that learning how to think, analyze and write is just as important as learning how to build a resume.

But I also agree with one of the educators interviewed for an article reporting on the study — that education is not about earnings potential or return on investment. Education is its own reward.

I’m grateful that my English major has “paid off,” that I’ve been able to earn a living with it as a teacher, writer and editor. But most of all I’m grateful that I’ve been able to keep learning through the years. That’s the greatest gift of all.

The Art of Grace

The Art of Grace

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Sarah Kaufman’s book The Art of Grace begins with a paean to Cary Grant. I like Grant as much as the next person. I especially like to watch him on screen. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a whole book about him, but that was just fine, because The Art of Grace is about much more than Cary Grant, although it holds up his charm and ease as a visual representation of the topic at hand.

Cary Grant was not only pleasing to look at, he was also easy to be with. He made others feel good — even when they spilled a glass of red wine in his lap. He was one of those people.

But we can have what those people have. Even the klutziest and most awkward among us can become graceful, Kaufman says. And while the best way to understand what she means is to read her book, there is a cheat sheet at the end. I’ve been referring to it often:

1  Slow down and plan, there’s no way to be graceful when you’re rushing.
2  Practice tolerance and compassion, take time to listen and understand.
3  Make room for others—on the sidewalk, at the bus stop, etc.
4  Strive to make things easy for people, even in small ways.
5  Make things easy for yourself. Be easily pleased. Accept compliments, take a seat on the bus, embrace any kindness. This is graciousness and is a gift for someone else.
6  Lighten your load, shed painful shoes, heavy backpacks, etc.
7 Take care of your body, the more you move the better you’ll move and better you’ll feel.
8  Practice extreme noticing. Look for grace where you least expect it.
9  Be generous. It’s a lovely thing to anticipate and fulfill someone’s hopes.
10 Enjoy, raise a glass, as Lionel Barrymore did in “Grand Hotel,” “to our magnificent, brief, dangerous life – and the courage to live it.”
Travel On!

Travel On!

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This morning on the way to work I opened yesterday’s New York Times travel section with its cover story on 52 places to visit in 2020. It’s a wonder I made it into the office. I could totally have seen myself looking up at National Airport or Eisenhower Avenue, having sailed past my stop, salivating over a double-page spread photograph of the Lake District.

I’m not a bucket-list kind of person. I love to travel but am more of an “I’ll-take-whatever-I-can-get” kind of person, and when reading a luscious travel section, as I was this morning, I pretty much want to go to everyplace I see — except, maybe, Richmond, Va., — it’s too close!

But articles like these do us a great service, I think. They simulate the imagination, they lead us to research the spots that look interesting, and, who knows, they might even be the first nudge that gets us to Tajikistan or Slovenia or the British Virgin Islands.

It’s a brand new year, a brand new decade. Travel on!

(If you’d told me in 2010 that I would visit Bangladesh, above, in 2017 … I wouldn’t have believed it!)

Walking Tall

Walking Tall

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It was an aha moment made possible by a liberal arts education, and it happened in the biology lab. While dissecting the brain of a fetal pig I came across the pineal gland, located between the two hemispheres and thought by some (including Descartes) to be the seat of the soul. I had just been reading Descartes in my philosophy class, and the fact that I was now seeing that very gland (albeit a tiny porcine version of it) made my heart skip a beat.

I still pay attention to things like this, strange connections and coincidences when the fates seem to be saying, listen up … this is important.

What I’ve been noting lately — both from Becca, the physical therapist I’ve been seeing, and reading in Sarah Kaufamn’s The Art of Grace (more later about this fine book) — is the importance of good posture.

Posture is a foundation for moving gracefully, Kaufman writes, and good posture provides an uplifting feeling. This was seconded by Becca, who tells me that in the process of tightening my core I should concentrate on being pulled up, that this will counteract a tendency to collapse in the midsection that can irritate the spine and cause sciatic flare-ups.

“If you watch people walk,” Kaufman writes, “most of us sink into our hips. … There should be a comfortable tension in the torso, lifting the abdomen and hips against gravity while helping relax and easing shoulders down slightly.”

The fates have spoken  — and I’m trying to walk tall.