Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Checking My Email

Checking My Email

Comments 0 Comment


The significance of the title is not the meaning of the word email. It’s the lack of hyphen. Until recently, according to the editor’s bible — or one of them, the AP Stylebook — email was e-mail. Then e-mail went the way of Web site, and things haven’t been the same since.

The magazine I edit bases its style on AP’s, and so I dutifully changed Web site to website when that alteration was announced last year. But I missed the memo on email. This morning’s newspaper tells me why. The Washington Post has kept the hyphen, so I remained oblivious to the change.

Why do these things matter so much? The fine article in today’s Post explains that, too, quoting David Minthorn, deputy standards editor of the Associated Press. “We’re not a bunch of old fogies sitting around in our ivory tower. We’re alive to changes and new ideas. We have a real sense that new words and changes in language reflect the culture and give us an inkling to where society is headed.”

Think of editors as warriors, standing guard over a culture where standards don’t matter, insisting — with their sharpened pencils — that they do.

Safe Haven

Safe Haven

Comments 0 Comment


For many years now we’ve had more than one teenager in our family. Today, as Claire celebrates her 20th birthday, we only have one.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adolescence lately, its pains and its challenges mostly, its crabwise path — often sideways rather than straight up or down. The circuitous road to freedom and responsibility.

I’ve read enough history to know that Western adolescence is a relatively new creation. Kids used to grow up a lot faster behind a plow or on a factory floor. A common metaphor for young adulthood now, of course, is a launching pad. A place where our young ones perch lightly on their way out of the nest.

Look closely at this photo and you’ll see the egret on the deer’s back. An unlikely pair — as unlikely perhaps as middle-aged parents and their teenage offspring. But the deer offers her back as solace, as resting place, as safe haven. Stay here a bit until you’re ready to fly farther. You know you’re safe here. We have your back — and you have ours.

Pony Swim

Pony Swim

Comments 0 Comment


Today is the last Wednesday of July — the annual Pony Swim in Chincoteague. It’s the day when “saltwater cowboys” herd wild ponies across Assateague Channel at low tide for an auction held the next day. Proceeds from pony auctions through the years have helped finance the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company. And auctioning off some ponies each year keeps the herd to a manageable 150.

The day I drove home from Chincoteague earlier this month there was an article in the paper about wild horses biting campers, stealing their food and otherwise being canny and uncooperative. I pointed out to folks that the article was about the wild ponies of Maryland; they were the ones who were acting up. The wild ponies of Virginia are probably too busy fending off mosquitoes to get into any further mischief.

I’ve never seen the Pony Swim, but I know the place well enough now that I can imagine it. The sun will shine flat upon the water, the lighthouse will loom picturesquely in the background and the charm of an old custom will unfold in a town that most days, except this day, time seems to have forgotten.

Photo from Chincoteague Facebook page

Complementary

Complementary

Comments 0 Comment


I’ve never considered myself a color expert, a landscape designer or, heaven forbid, an interior decorator. But I know what I like about color. It’s the contrast, the way one end of the wheel brings out the other.

It’s the profusion of complementary shades in the summer garden. Our neighbor’s, for instance (not pictured here; this is ours), with tall zinnias of yellow, orange and pink all mixed in with the sturdy dusky rose coneflowers.

As for us, we’ve had orange day lilies, yellow black-eyed susans and pink coneflowers all together, and, if you look at them from the right angle, you can see a purple hydrangea in the foreground, too. These bright mingling hues are enough for now. They are meant to go together; they are pleasant on the eyes.

Stop-Time

Stop-Time

Comments 2 comments


It was not the night I would have chosen to watch home movies of the girls. But Suzanne is here, and she is in a cataloging state of mind. So I found an excuse to go downstairs, to walk by the TV, and once I started watching I couldn’t stop. For there they were again — our grown-up girls as babies and toddlers, dancing and playing and learning to walk.

Here you are, you three, I wanted to say. Where have you been hiding? This is the way you’re supposed to be, giggling and singing and stirring soap suds in the sink. It’s not time for you to graduate from college, to drive to the beach, to have your first job.

It was all I could do to sit still and watch their chubby arms reaching out as they took their first steps into the world. I want to be there all over again for them, be there in a way that was so much easier than the way I must be there for them now.

Decisions

Decisions

Comments 0 Comment


The hottest days of the summer drive us indoors, where a winter mentality is lurking. Clean the basement, organize a closet. This is what I should be doing today.

Instead, I want to lie in the hammock with a good book and let torpor overtake me. It’s not yet 3. There is enough day left to do both.

Hot Days

Hot Days

Comments 0 Comment


The hydrangea wilts, the hammock waits, the cicadas hum. It is midsummer in Virginia, a sizzling hot day on tap, 101 before it’s all over, they say.

I remember other scalding summers, cooling off on the Staten Island ferry in Manhattan, the feeble breeze of a single fan in a shotgun apartment in Lexington, the blistering pavement of Chicago in July (which seemed unfair given how frigid it had been the previous winter), our long honeymoon summer on Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas. It was so humid all the envelopes sealed themselves.

When I think back on the hot days, the misery does not translate. What remains is a sense of life fully lived.

Water Therapy

Water Therapy

Comments 0 Comment


A 12-hour day leaves my right (mouse) hand tingly and numb. This has happened before and usually goes away. I vow to change positions more during long writing sessions. I also decide to go swimming last night.

There were still plenty of kids in the pool at 8:15, and the one courteous Japanese man I’ve met in the lap lane before, who bows his head and stays to the right. A funny lifeguard yells animal names at little divers as they spring off the board. “Tiger!” “Cow!” “Snake!” In the split second between the command and the water they are supposed to pounce, graze and slither.

I watch them, treading water as close to the deep end as I can, side-stroking carefully to keep my hair dry. Their giggles make me smile. As I trail my hands slowly through the water, I feel the long day slipping away.

Three Doors

Three Doors

Comments 0 Comment


This morning before work I look down the second-floor hallway. All three doors are closed. All three girls are home and sleeping in their rooms rather than the basement, the couch in the office or on the deck.

I pause for a moment at the top of the stairs, savoring the rightness of this, knowing, even as a I savor, how rare and precious it is.

The hall in this half light is cropped and close; in it, we seem more together than apart.

As and Ps

As and Ps

Comments 0 Comment


Once a month or so, Celia and I work at a food bank. We sort cans, shelve food, or make up boxes called “As and Ps.” “A” boxes contain cereal, peanut butter and jelly plus the usual complement of dried pasta, canned meats, vegetables and soups. “B” boxes hold more fruit and fruit juice, more meat and tuna, and, if possible, canned milk. I have a new appreciation for canned milk since we’ve worked there, will always give it to food banks if I have a chance.

Coming home after one of our expeditions I debate what to make for dinner. It shouldn’t be steak or lamb chops, not that we have those much anyway. And it shouldn’t be based on fresh fruits or vegetables. Something simple, whipped up from a can or a jar. Spaghetti with sauce. A simple salad from a bag. French bread. We eat well. We eat in solidarity.

Photo: Free-Extras