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Author: Anne Cassidy

All Together Now

All Together Now

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I’m still being riveted nightly by the 18-hour documentary film “The Vietnam War.” And I mean that literally — as in riveted each night.

It’s interesting to talk with people about the show and the different ways they are watching it. Some started it a week ago Sunday, kept up with last week’s nine hours as best they could but will admit to being a little behind.

Others are recording it and planning to binge-watch it later, seeing it as all (or most) of a piece. This is the television style of day, of course. To take control of one’s viewing, watch as little or as much as one wants at a time, place (and with a delivery method) of one’s choosing.

As for me, I’m watching the film in real-time.  Even night before last, when Claire and Tomas were over for dinner, I watched what I could and then caught up with the rerun, also known as an “encore presentation,” which my PBS station runs directly after the first show of the evening.

While my viewing habits are in part dictated by lack of technical knowledge (including DVR technique), they are also generational. I like keeping up with the show on its own time. I feel a kinship with all the people watching at the same time. There’s a communal aspect to this that soothes and heals.

And where did I develop this habit of communal viewing? From annual TV events like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Peter Pan,”  From watching “My Three Sons” with Mom and Dad (provided I brush my teeth beforehand so I could jump in bed the minute the show ended at 9 p.m.). And … from watching some of the same evening newscasts that have been replayed on “The Vietnam War.”

(Photo: CNN.com.)

Equinox

Equinox

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On Friday, the Equinox, I was so busy writing about the hummingbirds’ departure that I didn’t write about the day itself, its significance as a turning point. From now till March we will have less light than darkness. The only good thing I can say is that the years pass quickly enough now that spring will be here in no time.

After a string of cool mornings and sultry afternoons, it’s easy to believe that life will always be like this: no cold, no clouds. But the balance has tilted, the leaves are turning. Soon we will have chill rain and bare trees.

There are consolations, of course, time to turn inward, clean closets, make soup. The great feasts come soon after, and maybe a bright white snowfall. I look forward to those things. But oh, I hate to see the world tilt, the light go.

Gone for the Season

Gone for the Season

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The hummingbirds are gone for the season. I had an inkling of this last weekend with their even more voracious feeding. It looked as if they were stoking up for the long journey south — and apparently they were. Something in the light has triggered their departure. They won’t return until late April.

In the last few years I’ve seen a lot of hummingbirds. The two feeders off the deck rail reel them in, and in April there were five breeds to ogle at Arizona’s Ramsay Canyon.

Watching them closely dispels some notions. Hummingbirds are pugnacious creatures, always fighting among themselves. In this way, they remind me of humans. Also in their greediness. But unlike humans they are capable of breathtaking flight, of suspension in air.

Hummingbirds make a high-pitched squeak that I thought I heard several times yesterday. But every time I looked up the feeders were empty. It must be the small peep of the robin or chickadee that I’m hearing — not the hummingbird. I’m surprised by how much I miss them.

Backward Glance

Backward Glance

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A couple days ago on a walk around the block, I came across the end of a beach volleyball game in Crystal City. Couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the sand. To heck with the game, it’s the sand I love, the sand I crave. So, on this last day of summer … a backward glance at this summer’s beaches.

I had my Florida beach fix in August, days of sun and surf with tropical breezes and breathtaking sunsets.

And then, I took in a bonus beach in Bangladesh. Cox’s Bazar is the longest natural beach in the world., and we managed to find a spare hour to visit it despite our crammed-full schedule.

I’m thinking of it now, the width and the breadth of it, the people and animals we met: a young girl selling shells, a labor trafficking victim who’d gotten a new start in life as a photographer, a merchant hawking pearls, a yellow dog.

It was a different kind of beach experience, no towels or chairs, no umbrellas, no skimpy suits. It was a rock-strewn beach with dark, hard-packed sand. But it was glorious just the same.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Turn, Turn, Turn

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Last night’s episode lasted two hours. As I drifted in and out of sleep (it was a long day), I witnessed rounds of mortar fire, heard old tapes of Johnson with McNamara, learned more about the Gulf of Tonkin error. Where have I been all these years? Obviously, not learning about Vietnam.

The conflict of my lifetime is being plumbed every night this week with a new Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary, “The Vietnam War.” Like a good baby boomer I’m watching every minute of it.

How strange to hear those voices again, Kennedy’s “heah,” Johnson’s twang; to see the faces that I remember from black-and-white newscasts. The history of our youth is strange. Is it history, if we’ve lived through it? Of course it is. It’s just that we’ve lived long enough for it to become so.

My favorite part is the ending of each episode and the music that accompanies it. Last night’s was “Turn, Turn, Turn,” the Byrd’s version. I like the harmony, I like the lyrics (hard to beat Ecclesiastes). It’s playing as I write this post. “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

(Looking for an old photo from roughly this era — and this is the best I can do. Blurry is better in this pic of Mom and me on my high school graduation. Go Blue Devils!) 

Coat Tails Flying

Coat Tails Flying

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I saw him from the bus window, a lone biker on a share cycle, not his own road bike. He was wearing no helmet and his hair was in a bun.

What caught my eye, though, was his suit jacket. It was flaring out behind him as he rode, and it made him seem, though he was suited for a day in the office, about eight years old.

He was any kid on the way to the park or the pool on a delicious summer afternoon, all his life before him. He was free! But better than that, he managed to capture this feeling on the way to work.

He was not practicing safe behavior. There was no bike helmet in sight. But I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We were behind him all the way down Clarendon, as I watched his coat tails fly.

Earth from Saturn

Earth from Saturn

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When the children were young and studying the planets, Suzanne decided she didn’t like Saturn. “It’s a show-off, Mom,” she said. All those rings, you know.

I’ve been thinking of Saturn the last few days as images of it were beamed back by the spacecraft Cassini, which plunged into the planet’s atmosphere on Friday, ending a splendid 20-year mission.

For decades Cassini has been enlarging our knowledge of the solar system, taking us to Saturn’s cool green moon Titan, and, with its Huygens lander, actually touching down on the moon’s rocky surface. Cassini discovered plumes of water vapor spouting from another moon, Enceladus, and made many other discoveries.

And then there were the photographs Cassini sent back. The rings and moons and other planets. My favorite is the NASA pic I’ve reposted here.  Earth is the tiny speck on the lower right-hand side of this photo.  Beautiful, yes — and very, very small.

Bountiful Begonias

Bountiful Begonias

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Some years it’s the impatiens that rule the yard, other years the day lilies shine. This year, it’s the begonias that are taking my breath away.

They’re big without being leggy. Their whites, pinks and reds are brighter, more intense. They are, hands down, the most attractive flowers in the neighborhood. And I don’t just mean my begonias, the ones in pots on the deck (pictured here), but the ones at the neighborhood entrance and all over the area, they’re gorgeous, too.

Begonias have long been the workhorse annual of the garden. They are cheerful whether dry or wet, and they last well into the fall. There’s a tendency, to discount them, much as we do the always willing friend.

So today, I break ranks, take notice and find the time to say, thank you, begonias, for a summer’s worth of bloom.

Sky Bridge

Sky Bridge

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A late walk last night, strolling through sunset into nightfall. Crickets were chirping, bats were swooping and down at the corner the second-bloom honeysuckle was wafting its delicious scent over the distinctive odor of the manure fertilizer some homeowner had just spread.

We aren’t used to barnyard scents here in the suburbs. A few miles down the road is a little farm park where I used to take the children when they were young. There are plenty of pungent odors there.
But here it’s a sanitized suburban aroma.

But I was soon past it and on my way back. The day was darkening, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the sky. Maybe because it was the lightest thing to look at — or maybe because I was listening to Chabrier on my iPod and thinking about Dad playing the same music decades ago.

What a link music becomes, a bridge between the living and the dead.

Meta Me

Meta Me

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This blog grew from a habit of daily writing, a habit that began when I was in high school and a student teacher made us keep a journal. This would be a commonplace book of sorts, the teacher said. We could use it to reflect on the books we were reading, the lives we were living. Decades later I’m still on assignment, still scribbling to make sense of things.

One thing I hadn’t done much is to read the journals I’ve written. Except for the odd case when I needed to check a date or a fact, I’ve tucked each book away as soon as I finished it and moved on to the next one.

Until recently, that is. For some reason I’ve gotten interested in what I wrote last year or the year before. These are not exactly page-turners — I know how they end! — but I’m finding it a useful way to herd stray thoughts and gain perspective.

So even though it’s the ultimate meta exercise — not only do I analyze my life while I’m living it but then I read the analysis! — I’m pressing on. It’s a meta me!