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Author: Anne Cassidy

Easy Picking

Easy Picking

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The strawberry pickings of my youth happened something like this: We would drive along a Fayette County lane some crisp morning in early June. We wouldn’t know where we were going; we would just follow a hand-lettered sign down a rutted driveway. And there, in a sunny acre or two, was the soul of summer — juicy berries that stained our fingers and fell, plump and forgiving, into our hands. It was hard work, if I recall, and blissfully worth it.

Here’s the beauty of the blog. It allows for the virtual. Ever since I bought homegrown strawberries at the farmer’s market two weeks ago I’ve longed to taste them again. On Friday I read about a pick-your-own place in Loudon County. Saturday filled with errands and chores. And yesterday, when I called the place first before driving 45 minutes west, I learned that the berry patch was closing for the season — in an hour. There would be no strawberry harvest for us this year.

So I turn to the berry patch of memory, where fruit is always ripe and the picking always easy.


Photo: Images of Green

The Storm that Wasn’t

The Storm that Wasn’t

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What to call the storms that don’t happen, the sky darkening, distant rumbles, the first few fat drops — and then no more. “Strom” perhaps? Akin to “strum” as in “strum and drang,” the German phrase loosely translated as “storm and stress.” I think also of the late senator Strom Thurmond, who caused some “strum” in his day.

Stroms are disappointing occurrences, or perhaps I should say non-occurrences. The swim is postponed. The plants, parched, still need watering. For nothing I drag the new green rocker off the deck and into the living room. (I’ve given up on the old green rocker with its creaks and peeling paint.) We wait for that which never comes.

The summer strom. Not for the faint-hearted.

Aurora

Aurora

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The sky shimmered last night in response to Tuesday’s solar flare. I missed it, but I heard it was like heat lightening on steroids.

It reminds me of the only time I have seen the northern lights. We lived in Groton then and our friend Kip knocked on the door after 9. “Look,” he said, pointing up. And there, across Martin’s Pond, was a surreal display of greens and purples. It was beautiful and strange and ultimately unsettling. I’ve never forgotten it.

We were about to leave Massachusetts and I took this as further proof that we shouldn’t go. I know that Kip did. He was a native New Englander and not used to having people leave. As it turns out, Kip left us. He died from cancer in 1997. All of Groton mourned. There wasn’t a spot left to stand in the old Congregational Church at his memorial.

Somehow Kip and the aurora borealis have gotten all mixed up in my mind. When the night sky dances, I think of him.


Photo: NASA

Dinner on the Deck

Dinner on the Deck

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A slow turgid morning. Pink streaks in the sky. I sit on the deck to write, the air clammy, just a hint of coolness.

I look over at the table and remember the fun we had last night at dinner, all the girls here and a boyfriend, too. Laughing, talking all at once. There were grilled kabobs and rice, a simple, tasty meal. The mosquitoes were getting full, too. So we talked about our puny little citronella candles and how we have to find more powerful stuff.

As darkness grew, lightening bugs flashed and I plugged in the little white lights around the pergola. It was too bright. People started swatting at their legs, talking about how they were being eaten alive. It was time to clean up and move on. This morning I look at the table and remember it all.

In Another Garden

In Another Garden

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It was early evening when I crossed the yard and entered another world — our neighbors’ garden. They are away and we’re watering their plants. I found the buckets behind the hedge, ladled water onto petunias and impatiens. I marveled at the tidiness, the white pebbles and gnomes, an orderliness I admire from afar but seldom see close at hand.

And then I walked around back. Years of bamboo and white pine stand between our yards. It is mutual, this screen. It is for privacy, of course, and is highly effective. It has kept their garden a secret, the careful plantings of hostas, azaleas and begonia. The sign “Our Garden” and the white latched gate. The charm and innocence of their suburban idyll. I stood for a moment and felt the peace of the place. Then I watered the plants and went home.

In Search of Scent

In Search of Scent

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I am a woman without a scent. The O De Lancome that suited me fine for half a decade now seems cloying and sharp. I remember when I first wore that perfume; it was during a difficult time of my life, and its lemony, astringent aroma became a scented badge of honor.

I didn’t wear it again for years. In between I tried Anias, Anias by Cacherel, a flowery, romantic cologne that arrested me at a counter in the long-since departed Altman’s Department Store in Manhattan and wouldn’t let me go for years.

Then there was Oscar de la Renta, my stalwart. It sailed me through the busy years of my children’s childhoods, when I needed just a splash of something sweet to get me through the day.

After that I went back to O De Lancome. For the memories, you might say. For the invincible way it made me feel.

But I’m out of Lancome and at a crossroads. Will my new fragrance be floral or sophisticated? Light or musky? I need some serious time at a perfume counter. I need to be swept off my feet again. I’m a woman in search of a scent.

The Kingdom of Clean

The Kingdom of Clean

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I have no scrub brush, no feather duster, no complicated set of tools. I use paper towels, spray cleaner and what used to be known as “elbow grease.” Yesterday, I attacked the bathroom armed only with these. I scrubbed, wiped and polished. Weeks of travel and activities had taken their toll and I removed layers of dust, mildew and soap scum. This morning’s reward is a newborn bathroom with fluffy rugs and hair in the hairbrush, where it belongs.

The kingdom of clean. It is smooth and crisp and cool to the touch. Sometimes, in our house, it’s as faraway as a fairytale. But I like to go there sometime, even as a tourist.

His Reading Life

His Reading Life

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I just finished reading Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life. His prose rolled over me like a big wave and left me dizzy in the way a wave makes you dizzy as it recedes and leaves you teetering behind on the sand.

“I’ve built a city from the books I’ve read,” he writes. “There are thousands of books that go with me everywhere I go. A good book sings a timeless music that is heard in the choir lofts and balconies and theaters that thrive within the secret city inside me.”

Say what you will about Conroy’s writing — that his prose tends to purple, for instance — but I have never doubted that he is the real thing, and this book proves it.

“Here is what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer’s heart.”

One Day Away

One Day Away

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We went to the beach for a day last weekend — we had enough time to walk the shore, explore the boardwalk, wade in the surf, spot dolphins beyond the breakers. We had time to get sunburned and wind-whipped and eat too much ice cream. But we (or least I) came back to a house transformed. The place looked tidier than I remember leaving it. And the mental break seemed much greater than what 15 hours could merit — it felt like we’d spend a long weekend at the shore, at least. All of this from just one day away.


An update on yesterday’s post: I called the number, listened to the sad announcement that the service would be discontinued and then, miracle of miracles, heard Rob Luchessi’s brilliant forecast. Was it just my imagination or was there a special lilt in his voice when he said, “Have a GREAT day!” The Verizon weather line has been spared. Hooray!

Over and Out

Over and Out

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I dialed the number this morning, just to be sure — but it’s true. The message we’ve been hearing for months — “Effective June 1, 2011, Verizon will no longer offer time of day and weather services” — is all I hear when I dial 936-1212. No more Neal Pizzano, Howard Phoebus or Rob Luchessi — voices we’ve come to know through years of hearing them say, “Here’s the latest weather forecast. Brought to you by Verizon.” A service that’s been offered since rotary dial phones became popular in the 1930s is gone.

People don’t need dial-in forecasts when they have the Weather Channel, weather.com and scores of other ways to plan their day. But we aren’t big TV people, and it’s easier to pick up the phone than to fire up the computer. Besides, you learned more than just the weather. Pizzano, who was profiled in the Washington Post a couple years ago, might tell you that it’s National Peach Cobbler Day or Hug Your Sister Day. And he always remembered to say “have a nice day.”

So today we mourn the replacement of the little with the large, of the personal with the anonymous. Today we miss the friendly voice on the other end of the line. Today we’re going to boycott the weather.

Photo from Past Times.