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Author: Anne Cassidy

Musical Measure

Musical Measure

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The other day I walked exactly as long as it took to listen to Brahms’ “Variations on a Theme by Haydn.” Then I turned around, walked back and listened to the same piece again. Eighteen minutes down and 18 minutes back. Adding a couple minutes on each end for the turn-around and the cool-down made it a 40-minute walk, three to four miles.

It was simple. It was pure. It was exquisite. At least the musical part.

Usually my walks are prescribed by geography — to the end of the neighborhood and back — or by time — 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back. Measuring the walk by music was deliciously different: organic and thematic.

I don’t always have the freedom for a musical measure, but it’s something to aspire to.

River of Spring

River of Spring

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We had a lot of rain over the weekend, and as I dodged the drops (not always successfully), I thought about the moistness that’s the
beginning, the true origin, of spring — and of all life.
Noticing the swollen buds on the forsythia, a pinch of yellow
here and there. The greening of stems, the smallest actors.
The birds get it before we do. They know the days are
getting longer, the light stronger. They know the river of spring is rising.

I want to enter this river, knowing it will be muddy and
cold. I want to be carried along into true spring. Beyond the pale yellow of
forsythia into the pinks and whites and purples of azalea, dogwood and lilac.
Right now we are on the banks, just dipping our toe into the waters. But soon
we will be riding high.
Doves in Love

Doves in Love

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Yesterday’s damp chilly walk was full of birdsong and the smell of fresh earth. I’d already heard spring peepers, and then I spied a pair of mourning doves. More signs of spring. They sat on the road until a car was almost upon them, then flew away together into the gray sky.

Mourning doves are also called rain doves, which may be why there were out and about yesterday.

And it was a good day to be out and about. A light drizzle fell, but the earth was alive in a way it hasn’t been recently. No more cold, frozen ground.

As the body moves through space, thoughts move through the mind, and what was cluttered is suddenly cleared, as if a plump bird swept away the cobwebs with its swift wing.

Post Patience

Post Patience

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As I slowly rebuild the blog’s home page inventory, I’m reminded of its original intent:

The snow has clung to every available surface. The most spindly branches of the forsythia have “Vs” of snow, and I can imagine the accumulation, patient and slow, crystal attracting crystal until little pockets formed. I hope this blog will be the same, a slow, patient accumulation of words.

Today I focus on the patience part of this equation. Patience has never been my strong suit. In the little inventory I sometimes take at the end of the day — when could I have been kinder or stronger? — many failures come down to impatience, wanting to check off a box, complete a task, rather than waiting a while, living with the the slight discomfort of uncertainty.

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.”

That will be my mantra today, to live with what is unsolved, to love the questions themselves.

What Happened?

What Happened?

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Yesterday I wrote my entry as I always do, pushed “publish,” and checked to make sure the blog post was there. It was … but nothing else. Instead of 14 posts on the page, there was only one. The other posts are reachable, but you must click on them from the right-hand column. Not a catastrophe, but not what I wanted to see at the beginning of my day.

It was, as usual, a hectic morning. I was already late. So I came into the office, hoping that when I arrived and checked the blog, it would have magically fixed itself. This is something I believe in, by the way. I’ve known many appliances that have fixed themselves — phones and computers and maybe, once, an answering machine.

This was not one of those times.

So now I’m writing today’s post, hoping that when I push “publish,” it will appear on the page — along with its 13 lost cousins.

Here goes …

(Choosing a calm photograph this morning!)

Writer’s Writer’s Writer

Writer’s Writer’s Writer

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James Salter, I read recently, is not just a writer’s writer. He is a writer’s writer’s writer.

I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I like the sound of it. And I agree with it. Here’s why:

I had three lives, one during the day, one at night, and the
last in a drawer in my room in a small book of notes. There were wonderful things in that book, things that I am
unable to write or even imagine again. That they were wonderful was not my
doing—I merely took the trouble to put them down.    

The poets, writers, the sages and voices of their time, they
are a chorus, the anthem they share is the same: the great and small are
joined, the beautiful lives, the other dies, and all is foolish except honor,
love, and what little is known by the heart.

Writing is filled with uncertainty and much of what one does
turns out bad, but this time, very early there was a startling glimpse, like
that of a body beneath the water, pale, terrifying, the glimpse that says: it
is there.

 In the darkness the soft hum of the tires on the empty road
was like a cooling hand. The city had sunk to mere glowing sky. My own book was
not yet published but would be. It had no dimensions, no limit to the heights
it might reach. It was deep in my pocket, like an inheritance.

(These passages are from Salter’s memoir, Burning the Days. Photo: detail of wall mural from Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona)

Wild Thing

Wild Thing

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It was one of my favorite songs in the old days. Short on finesse, but full of raw energy. Even the name of the group evoked primal power: the Troggs.

“Wild thing/ You make my heart sing/You make everything/ Groovy … /Wild thing.”

It was a song that seemed radical in its day, and I was always a little proud to claim it as one of my favorites. Especially since it consisted of about three chords, played over and over again.

So imagine my surprise when I heard it recently during an Olympics interval.

“Wild thing/ You make my heart sing.”

And what was this wild thing being shilled? A fast car, a new show, a brand of mascara?  Uh, none of the above. The “wild thing” in question is … an Applebee’s hamburger.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Many Questions, No Answers

Many Questions, No Answers

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It’s a Monday that doesn’t feel like a Monday, and I’ve been reading about the Parkland shooting, listening to the young voices, learning about the cracks that Nicholas Cruz slipped through.

That we starve social services of the funds they need to help the mentally ill is a given. That our nation is awash in guns is another given. And then there are the deeper causes, the values we no longer hold dear, the center that no longer holds.

How to bind these wounds? How to mend these broken hearts? Especially when solutions are labeled liberal or conservative, and when those labels prevent us from talking honestly about what has happened and what can be done.

How to come together for the common good?

I fear we’ve forgotten how.

Year of the Dog

Year of the Dog

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It’s Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dog, the eleventh of the zodiac. I read that the Dog is associated with the earthly branch and the hours 7 to 9 in the evening. When it comes to yin and yang, Dogs are “yang.”

This doesn’t mean a lot to me. When I think of the Year of the Dog, I think of our dog, Copper, and I think of every year.

Copper is treated like a little king in this house. He lounges on beds, has grated cheese sprinkled over his kibble, and is walked frequently. His barks and whines are tolerated well, as are his middle-of-the-night requests for basement access (this only when it’s raining).

When it comes to Copper, much is given … but much is received. Copper is loving and snuggly. His big soulful eyes seem to know all. And when he jumps on the couch (like so many of his antics once forbidden and now tolerated), he pushes his back up against my leg. I’m his security blanket. But often, he is mine.

Changing Places

Changing Places

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For some reason the management company that owns my office building has set out furniture and plants, set up a coffee bar, a wine bar, hung fabric sculptures on the wall and set potted plants in the corners. When I left last night, a singer was crooning in the lobby.

We’re not sure what’s behind this sudden show of largesse, though some of us suspect rental fees will be rising soon. Is it to build community? To advertise art (some of those fabric sculptures are for sale)? To humanize?

I had the idea for this post before I heard the news from Florida. Seventeen dead in another school shooting. Can we trade this world for another? Because I’m not sure I want to live in this one anymore. Can I put chairs in my lobby and art on my walls? Can I pretend I live somewhere that I do not?