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Author: Anne Cassidy

Bird Song

Bird Song

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It’s a sunny afternoon on the deck as hummingbirds buzz the feeders, sparrows chirp and cardinals peep. In the distance, I hear a hawk cry and a bluebird squawk.  

Turns out, all this bird listening is good for my mental health, according to two different studies published in Scientific Reports, summarized in a Washington Post article published today. 

I’m not surprised. Hearing birdsong is one of the reasons I love walking and being outside in general. Turns out I’m not alone. Researchers asked 1,300 participants to answer questions about their environment and well-being through an app called Urban Mind. They found a strong correlation between hearing or seeing birds and a positive state of mind. Another study found that listening to six-minute audio clips of birdsong reduced anxiety and depression. 

According to this, I should always be bopping around with a smile on my face because in addition to hearing outside birds, I also hear inside ones, Alfie and Toby, the parakeets who grace our house with their chatter and whose racket often prompts callers to ask, “Do you have birds?” 

Yes, I always say, yes, I do, and they’re wonderful. 

(Alfie and the late, great Bart.)

Memorial Day Movie

Memorial Day Movie

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I briefly tried watching the National Memorial Day concert last evening before switching to the Memorial Day Marathon on Turner Classic Movies, where I found a film I’d never heard of called “Hell to Eternity.”

This 1960 movie tells the true story of Guy Gabaldon, a Marine who was raised by a Japanese family and who singlehandedly and peacefully took 1,500 prisoners on Saipan, aided by the Japanese language he learned as a child. 

It’s a rare film that depicts the incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps during the war and features Japanese actors playing Japanese characters. Also, while there are plenty of combat scenes, the movie ultimately glorifies not the fighting but our common humanity. 

Not a bad way to see in Memorial Day 2023. 

(From left, actor Jeffrey Hunter, the real Guy Gabaldon, and actor David Janssen from the set of the film “Hell to Eternity,” courtesy TCM.)

On the Fence

On the Fence

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A family in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle has come up with a whimsical way to depict the immensity of space: they’ve turned their wooden fence into the solar system. 

On these planks you’ll see the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth plus our moon. Far enough down the block that my phone camera couldn’t capture them in one shot are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. 

A final panel reads “Where is Pluto? Pluto would be across our neighbor’s driveway,” followed by a discussion of Pluto’s status as dwarf planet, a fact about which some scientists are “on the fence.” 😊

It’s not the sort of thing I’m used to seeing on my neighborhood walks. But isn’t that point of travel — to take us away and shake us up and help us see our world, even our universe, with fresh eyes? 

Night Flight

Night Flight

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We left Seattle for Virginia at an hour I consider normal for overseas flights, that is, almost midnight. But then we had almost as far to go, give or take a few hundred miles

Instead of crossing an ocean, we traversed a continent. In the dark of night we flew over cities and villages, swamps and high deserts. In a darkened cabin, we covered the distance of this broad land. 

And now, after a few hours of catch-up sleep, I’m sitting where I so often do, at a desk overlooking a green yard, my slice of this planet: home. 

Ballard Locks

Ballard Locks

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In Seattle, you can’t escape the water, nor would you want to. Lake and sound, salt water and fresh, creek and marsh. One of the most fascinating water experiences in the city is to be found at the Ballard Locks, where boats pass from Puget Sound to Lake Union and Lake Washington (or vice versa). 

Locks are one of those technologies of which I have a theoretical understanding but had never seen in action until the other day.The Ballard Locks, I learned, carry more boat traffic than any other locks in the country, so there’s a good chance you’ll see a ship pass through this engineering marvel. 

To witness a craft at eye level and then, only a few minutes later, see it 25 feet lower … well, let’s just say it reminds me, once again, of the power of showing over telling. 

Unconventional

Unconventional

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When I’m here in this western city, I notice the eccentricities, the differences, how the houses assert their individuality. 

Take the Coleman House, for instance. Owned by psychiatrist, author and gardener Brian Coleman, the place is a Victorian dream, cast of warm rich colors with whimsical touches — an owl, a sunflower, a turret with the Latin phrase quo amplius eo amplius (“more beyond plenty”) — and set amidst a garden that changes with the seasons.

An article in the Seattle Times tells me that this house is featured in Private Gardens of the Pacific Northwest, edited by … Brian Coleman, who does not reveal in the book that the house is his own. 

I know the houses of my northern Virginia suburb can’t be as unconventional as this one. But they could try a little harder, couldn’t they?

 

Magnificent Forest

Magnificent Forest

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“You are entering a fragile, ancient forest,” the sign read. “Please stay on the trail.” So we entered the woods with reverence, walked quietly along the path, and guessed the age of the towering trees. 

To be old growth, a forest must contain trees more than 250 years old. Seattle’s Seward Park has them, though many of its specimens are “only” in the 200-year range.  But the Western Hemlocks are dying, the sword fern too.

How to protect them, to understand and prevent their demise? How to keep this “Magnificent Forest,” as it’s called, as dark, mysterious and magical as it is now? Researchers are working on it. And yesterday, we did our part: we looked, we marveled, we stayed on the trail. 

How the West Was Young

How the West Was Young

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I write this post from the Columbia City neighborhood of Seattle, south of downtown and (from the sound of it) on the flight path to Seatac.

The hosts of this Airbnb have thoughtfully provided a local history book on Rainier Valley, so I’ve been learning about the history of this place, from early pioneer Isaac Ebey in the 1850s, through waves of settlement, Italians to Africans and more, to the opening of the light rail line in 2009. 

What strikes me about all of this is how recent it is. Not that I exactly live in the midst of antiquities, but compared with the East, the West is … young. 

(Lake Washington waders in 1905)

Another Word for Travel

Another Word for Travel

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We spent much of yesterday in Discovery Park, exploring Capehart Forest, the West Point lighthouse and a steep trail that connects the two. A bald eagle soared above us.

West Point is one of 18 active lighthouses in the state, and the point of land it sits upon has been a gathering spot for thousands of years. As the largest park in a city of vistas, this place offers a stunning array of views to contemplate. 

What an apt name for a place of long history and tradition. Discovery: to be discovered, to find something unexpectedly in the course of a search. Another word for travel.