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Author: Anne Cassidy

Asia Bound

Asia Bound

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Tomorrow I leave for Asia: three days in Bangkok and nine in Nepal. My mission: to cover my organization’s board of directors’ trip and do additional reporting on women electric vehicle drivers in Kathmandu. It’s a plum assignment and I’ve been preparing for weeks: getting a visa and antimalarial meds, filling out forms, conducting interviews, writing and editing stories that can be published while I’m gone.

This morning I’m fielding emails from Nepal and making a last-minute schedule change. I’m figuring out how to cram two suitcases worth of clothing and electronics (I’m a human pack animal, ferrying swag and equipment from one continent to another) into one suitcase.
And finally, finally, I’m imagining what these places will be like on the other side of the world, the mountains, the temples, the Buddhist prayer flags waving.
It’s time for another adventure … 
Toys Aren’t Us

Toys Aren’t Us

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I was sad to learn that Toys R Us will be closing its stores. Not that I liked them much in their heyday. Then I was sad about the smaller closings, the independents and the Zany Brainys. But still, this marks the end of an era. Not just of toy stores but of the sort of children who frequented them.

My kids grew up with real, tangible playthings — blocks and puzzles and Legos — and of course the boxes they came in. Electronic toys were beginning to enter the market, but barely. Now they dominate the market, and, I’m afraid, childhood itself.

What becomes of children who touch screens instead of play dough, who swipe instead of stack? I guess they become the people suited for a digital universe. All I know is, I’m glad I raised my kids when there were Barbies and Bratz and My Pretty Ponies — and the big warehouse store that sold them.

Year of the Bird

Year of the Bird

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National Geographic is one of those magazines that comes into the house, lands on the coffee table and stays there. When the pile of glossy magazines is tall enough, I take it to the basement. Every so often, I read one of them. This time, it’s “Why Birds Matter” from the January issue. I unearthed it this morning after hearing its author, the novelist Jonathan Franzen, talking about it on the radio yesterday.

Turns out, National Geographic and the Audubon Society have proclaimed 2018 the “Year of the Bird.” It’s the centennial of the 1918 Migratory Bird Act, the nation’s oldest conservation law, and in its honor the magazine has given us a rapturous piece about raptors, hornbills, parrots, owls, doves, crows, you name it.

“When someone asks me why birds are so important to me, all I can do is sigh and shake my head, as if I’ve been asked to explain whey I love my brothers,” Franzen writes. Birds are diverse as the world is diverse, they are also a link to our evolutionary past. They are smart and beautiful and playful (you can apparently watch a Youtube video of crows sledding). They sing, nest and raise their young and, most of all, they fly.

“The radical otherness of birds is integral to their beauty and their value,” Franzen writes. “They are always among us but never of us.”

In the words of Henry Beston, who I’ve quoted several times in this blog: “They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of time and life.”

Leaving in the Dark

Leaving in the Dark

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Once again it’s dark when I leave for work and light when I return. This happens every year when we “spring forward,” and every year I note the change.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the long evenings — though long, frigid evenings are not exactly what I had in mind.

It’s more the shift of expectations. Can I still come home, pull on comfy sweat pants and veg out? Not so easy when it’s light till 7:30.

On the other hand, leaving in darkness has always signified seriousness of purpose. It’s the departure hour for early-morning flights and important interviews.

I feel so virtuous pulling out of the driveway with only moonlight and porch light to guide me. It’s like I’m getting a jump on the day — even though it’s no earlier than I left last week!

Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring

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Signs of spring on walks this weekend:
A patch of crocus in the yard next door. 
The first plump buds on the dogwood tree.
A clump of snowdrops in the common land.
Soon there will be lilacs and azalea, the whole show. But for now, I look for the first faint stirrings. 
The Aftermath

The Aftermath

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They came yesterday to see about the wood, the two straight trunks bisecting the back yard. Did they pass muster as lumber, or must we bring in the tree guys with their whirring chainsaws and chipper?

Don’t know the answer yet, but I wonder if they saw the potential, the long straight boards locked into those twin trunks, the 80-foot expanse of prime oak.

What I see is the chaos, the splintered branch, like bone through skin, the errant stick impaled in earth. I see the volunteer cherry uncentered and the earth ball like the underside of a mushroom.

I can barely stand to look at the trampoline. Of course, I can barely see the trampoline, so lost is it beneath the branches.

I see the heft, the waste, the terror. I see everything you don’t expect and some of what you do.

2,400

2,400

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I almost missed this one, noticed out of the corner of my eye that yesterday’s post was 2,399. Which makes today’s one of those round numbers that I write about from time to time.

It’s the ultimate in solipsism, right? A blog about the things I think about while walking … then a post about how many other posts I’ve written!

Posts on running and dancing and bouncing, about mothering and working and traveling. Posts on grieving and gratitude.

What can I say? We live in a confessional age, and this is about as confessional as I can get.  Which is to say, not as much as some, but more than others — and more than I ever thought I’d be.

A Woman, Writing

A Woman, Writing

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This morning I passed a woman in the lobby. She was sitting in a chair, writing in her journal.

Not tapping on her phone, not scrolling down the tiny screen. But engaged with the paper and the pen.

I noticed this not only because I believe in it and practice it, but because it is so rare.

When you address the page, the page does not talk back to you. It absorbs your words, the wise and the silly. It gives you space, a blank expanse without spell-check or word complete. For that reason, it is serene, even empowering.

Today is International Woman’s Day. I just wrote and posted a story to celebrate it. But when I think of Woman’s Day 2018, what I’ll keep in mind is not a year of marches and #metoo. It’s the quiet communion of writer and page. It’s the image of a woman writing.

(Pensive, a painting by Edmund Blair Leighton)

Plalking?

Plalking?

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Yesterday I read about a new trend that started in Sweden. It’s called plogging, which comes from “jogging” combined with “plocka-uppa” (Swedish for pick up). The idea is simple. You take a trash bag along on a run and collect the odd plastic bottles and cigarette butts you encounter. Disposable gloves are recommended.

Translate this to walking and you have “plalking” — or do you?

I care about the environment and have even been known to pick up a bit of errant trash. But I can’t see turning my fast walks into scavenger sessions. It’s about the rhythm, you see.

The cadence of the stroll is a large part of its magic. Take that away and you have … beach combing.

Warp Speed

Warp Speed

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At some point in my young life I decided that busyness was a key to happiness. I don’t remember making a conscious decision about this, but I do recall getting involved in one club or class after another. Why not join the choir, take modern dance, continue with piano lessons? Why not become a resident assistant in a dorm the same year I’m learning to be a high school English teacher?

Most of the time I could pull this off. Sometimes I made myself crazy. But life is seldom boring.

I write about this today because it’s one of those busy stretches when the amount of tasks to be completed make me dizzy. Most of these are work-related but there are a few personal ones thrown into the mix.

In fact, I shouldn’t even take the time to write this post. Too late now, though, it’s al… most … done!

(Seascapes can be relaxing when living at warp speed.)