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Author: Anne Cassidy

Free and Public

Free and Public

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It was a rainy Saturday in Boston, perfect for inside activities. So we visited the library — not just any library but the Boston Public Library, the first free municipal public library in the country. We walked up the marble stairway, past the lions and into the reading room.

Here were scholars at work, green-shaded lamps and a vaulted ceiling. Here was a temple of knowledge. The library holds 23 million items, I learn from its website, including Mozart’s scores, Shakespeare’s first edition folios and John Adams’s personal library.

The Boston Public Library serves 4 million people a year and millions more online (one of them me). It was the first public library to lend books and the first to offer a children’s room and a branch library.

I took only this one photo of the reading room. Intruding any further would have been a desecration.

Boston Bound

Boston Bound

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We’re off today for Boston, Massachusetts, where my niece will be married on Saturday. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in New England, though we lived there for two years. I’m readying myself for the distinctive difference of that part of the country.

When we first moved north I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t realize how unique each village would be, how some (Groton, where we lived) were market-type towns and others, like Lowell, were mill towns. After some lonesome weeks early on, I found a newcomer’s club and began to make friends. Our oldest daughter was born there, further endearing the place to me.

By the time we left I was hooked on the vibrant autumns, the apple orchards — and most of all the people. I miss them still.

(Boston’s Copley Square, courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Scintillating Shade

Scintillating Shade

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The rains have stopped, which means not only a return of sun but also of shade. I saw some spectacular specimens on yesterday’s long walk on the Reston trails. In fact, some of the patterns made me stop in my tracks, pull out my phone and snap a shot.

What contrast, what texture! It reminded me of the shade during the eclipse, the tiny crescent-moon shapes into which it was carved.

No eclipse yesterday, of course, so the textures all came from leaf wag and leaf meal, from earth and pavement, from the filter and the canvas.

Stony Man

Stony Man

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The views went on forever. The Blue Ridge that appears first as a smudge on the horizon driving west from D.C. became a green and glorious reality late Monday during a brief trip to Sperryville and environs.

The hike to the Stony Man viewpoint was uphill enough to get our hearts pumping but not so rigorous that we couldn’t talk along the way. We passed some through-hikers, serious folks with heavy packs. But we were there for the visiting and the views.

I often find myself in the park around this time of year, mountain laurel season. And there was some of that on Monday, too. But what will remain with me is sitting on warm rocks with friends, catching up, looking west and south: the light green of trees with leaves newer than those at sea level mixing with darker firs and pines. Beyond the trees the hills rose ever bluer and more distant, less distinct, until it was impossible to know whether I was looking at earth or sky.

Mall Alone

Mall Alone

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Granted, I was there on an odd Thursday afternoon, but at first I was optimistic. There was a crowd outside the Cheesecake Factory, a post-graduation celebration from the looks of it. Maybe the mall would be bustling, as it used to be.

But once inside, my spirits sagged. It was the usual sparse crowd: a few mall walkers, some mothers and children, people marching determinedly from one store to the other, completing their errands with dispatch (one of them me).

So many mall memories: taking the girls there to buy summer play clothes, First Communion dresses, prom gowns. To have their ears pierced or celebrate with lunch on the last day of school.

I miss the girls’ young selves more at the mall than most places, which is strange because we often had battles there. I didn’t buy them skanky shorts and tops at Limited Too. I humiliated them when I asked the clerk at Abercrombie and Fitch to turn down the music. The mall was one of those places where we interacted with the world — and the world seemed to be winning.

Now the children are grown and the mall is empty. I know that these two states are linked mostly in my own mind, one truth personal, the other sociological. But it’s hard not to see a connection.

Party Animals

Party Animals

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We have to keep a close eye on our parakeets. Any excuse for a party. This weekend there were two birthdays, so they went to town.

They can’t eat cake, and though they are extremely musical, have not yet managed to warble “Happy Birthday to you!”

But boy can they fly around, pull toys apart, and make a mess. It’s tempting to put them in time out … but they already live in a cage, so what to do?

Just realize that birds will be birds, crank up “Celebration” … and let the good times roll!

(The parakeet’s cage after a night of hard partying.)

A Scaffolding

A Scaffolding

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I came of age in an era when writers produced words not platforms. Which is not to say I haven’t promoted myself through the years. When my book, Parents Who Think Too Much, was published, I quickly learned that if it was up to me to bring it to the world’s attention. I devoted several months to the task, but after that I reverted to type, toiling away in obscurity.

I kind of like obscurity. You can let your hair down there, can be yourself. It’s easy to freeze when people are paying attention. One of the reasons I started this blog 15 years ago was to write more freely and for myself, not for whichever publisher or establishment was paying me at the time.

But now, with the monkey of full-time employment off my back, most of what I write is for myself. It makes sense to meld the “professional” me with the “blogging” me. I’ve added a new page to the site with links to some of my published works. I’m hoping to add another page or two before I’m done, for other works and projects. It’s not quite a platform, not yet, but it is, perhaps, a scaffolding.

(Nature’s scaffolding in miniature, shot August 28, 2021, outside Lexington, Kentucky.)

Namistay?

Namistay?

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Breathe in, breathe out. What could be more essential to meditation, yoga or life? But most of us hold our breath when the going gets tough. The inhale gets stuck, the exhale falters. The held breath tightens the muscles, interrupts the flow.

This universal tendency is not unlike clinging, the habit of mind that meditation addresses. We crave attachment; we can’t let go of people or places or things. We can’t even let go of our breath.

But the simple act of breathing can help us learn to let go. To live, we must breathe out as well as in. Each exhale reminds us of that fact. To grow as humans we must also learn to let go. “Necessary losses” Judith Viorst called them in a book by that name.

I’m a fledgling yoga student, but when my instructor pointed out this connection last week I had one of those aha moments. We end each class with “namaste” … not “namastay.” I’ll try to keep that in mind.

Drip, Drip

Drip, Drip

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It’s been a wet May. Today is too drippy to walk, but a few days ago I slipped between the raindrops and strolled through a moist and fragrant landscape. It was the ordinary world silvered into a new state of being.

Every broad leaf or outstretched bough held on its surface gleaming drops of rainwater. I had fun trying to photograph them. I was never able to capture their freshness or fragility, their glitter or gleam. What seemed like diamonds now look like water spots.

I have no illusions of photographic greatness. But snapshots jog the memory. When I look at the pictures I snapped that damp Thursday, I remember the freshness of the morning, the quicksilver beading of the raindrops, the whole sensory experience of the walk. And that’s the point of it all.

Sitting Still

Sitting Still

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I’ve been a road rat since before I can remember, a kid who thought nothing of being cooped up in a car all day because, well, that’s the price of adventure. Not that I would have phrased it exactly that way at age 5 or 11 or 14. But I knew that boredom was the price of travel.

I rediscovered a bit of that feeling last weekend on our four-day trip from Fairfax to Fayette and back. That’s Fairfax County, Virginia, to Fayette County, Kentucky: 500 miles, give or take a few. Eight hours, maybe nine if you’re pulling a trailer, which we were.

How to while away the hours, especially when you’re not driving? When there’s more than one person in the car (and sometimes even when there’s not — but that’s another story), you talk. You get caught up on work and family and what you’ll do when you arrive. And then, when you’ve exhausted all conversation, you stare out the window at the clouds.