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Author: Anne Cassidy

The Full Fridge

The Full Fridge

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Long ago, when I was writing a magazine article about what parents could do to promote family happiness, I remember being surprised at the additional point my editor suggested adding. It’s good to keep the refrigerator stocked with good food, she said.

I’d been interviewing experts about family self-esteem and other heady topics, forgetting that all the good feelings in the world aren’t much help unless there’s a healthy body to receive them. 

Our refrigerator serves only two people now, so there’s a limit to how stocked it can be. But a couple of recent holidays plus entertaining out-of-town family last weekend means it’s been fuller than it usually is. And yes, that is happy-making … but only because it means I won’t have to cook this week. 

(No open-fridge photos this morning, but here’s one of a salad that came out of it.)

Words and Flowers

Words and Flowers

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Today, inspiration in my inbox. Sunday’s “Marginalian,” which I didn’t have time to read yesterday, reminds me (in the voice of diarist, novelist and poet May Sarton) to choose joy over will. 

Though the context in which she makes this point is through her love of gardening, a love I only partially share (I appreciate the garden a lot more than the gardening) Sarton’s point is well-taken. 

“Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it
cannot be done on will alone,” Sarton wrote. “What will can do, and the only thing it
can do, is make time in which to do it.”

This is the point I will take with me through the day, to let myself off the hook if the words don’t flow as I wish they would … that I can make the time, and that is essential, but the words come when they want to come. Just like the flowers.

For Love of Place

For Love of Place

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On this earth day I’m thinking about the places I love best on this planet: my home in Virginia, starting with the house and yard and moving beyond to woodland paths and trails, the spokes of a wheel of caring.

My hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, with its old brick homes and its new distillery district; with its rolling grasslands, shaggy limestone cliffs, white fences and horse farms.

Other places I have lived and loved: New York City, which inspired and thrilled me in my youth and revives me still. Chicago, which I heard about all my young life and where I went to college.  Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas, with its friendly people and its views that go on forever. And Groton, Massachusetts, small town extraordinaire, where I gave birth to our first child. 

On Earth Day we honor this, our only planet, and think about ways to protect and promote its health and longterm viability. But all this protection and promotion starts with love. It’s love that emboldens us, that helps us make the tough choices, do the hard things. Unless we truly care about the earth, what incentive do we have to safeguard it?   

(Above: Joe Pye weed blooms in a Kentucky meadow on a perfect August morning, 2021.)

Wiki Woods

Wiki Woods

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It has much in common with a wiki site, this woods I walk in; it’s the work of many. The invasive plant eradication I mentioned yesterday is part of it. But even the paths themselves are forged and kept alive by many footfalls. Given the amount of undergrowth out there, it wouldn’t take long to lose the trail. 

And then there are the bridges, a motley crew if ever there was one: A clutch of bamboo poles, handcrafted spans made from planks and two-by-fours, and then the places where it seems people just laid down a few pieces of lumber. 

Some of the bridges are for crossing Little Difficult Run, which meanders through the woods, steep-banked in spots. But others are for navigating the hidden springs and muddy parts of the trail. All of them necessary. All of them welcome. 

It takes a village to make a woods walk. 

Protecting the Forest

Protecting the Forest

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I’d resisted for days, but today I gave in. I reached down and pulled up a few garlic mustard plants, an edible but invasive species I’ve learned of recently, mostly from seeing pulled and trampled stems on the trail. 

It’s tall with a few delicate white flowers. At first, I admired it. But then I learned how it can dominate the ground cover in a forest, driving out the natives.

Walks are when I think and listen to music, when ideas percolate. I don’t want to wear garden gloves and trudge through the woods with a bucket and spade. But these plants pull up so easily that I hardly broke my stride getting rid of them.  If everyone pulled up a few stalks, there would be no more garlic mustard in our woods.

In the end, it’s elemental: When we notice, we care. And when we care, we protect. 

(Photo: Wikimedia)

Greening

Greening

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When I walk through the woods these days, or even when I look out the window from my upstairs office, the world I see is a symphony of green.

It’s happened so quickly, this greening. Less than two weeks ago, the forest was still a winter one, especially given that many of the early flowering trees are the ones people plant in their yards not the ones that grow naturally on their own. 

But whether cultivated or wild, the world is greening, and I wish I could hold onto it this way. 

Last Meal

Last Meal

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On Sunday the Octave of Easter ended, though the season of Easter will last until Pentecost. But for me the celebration truly came to an end when I ate the last turkey sandwich made from Easter dinner leftovers. 

Sometimes I forgo the turkey on Easter, serving only ham along with the deviled eggs, asparagus, ambrosia salad and potatoes au gratin. But this year’s crowd required reinforcements. I was happy to oblige with a 23-pound bird. That’s a lot of turkey sandwiches — and I have relished every one.

You have to understand that if I were offered a last meal, I wouldn’t hesitate. It would be a turkey sandwich made from all white meat, thinly sliced, on white bread (which I usually avoid) and mayonnaise (ditto). If I’m feeling virtuous I garnish with lettuce … but I usually don’t feel virtuous. 

I would illustrate this post with a picture of a turkey sandwich, but alas, the turkey sandwiches are gone. A glass of iced tea will have to do. It, of course, would be the last beverage. 

Human Content

Human Content

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At the end of its segment on artificial intelligence last night, CBS’s “60 Minutes” included a disclaimer it never has before. “The preceding was created with 100-percent human content.”

This kicker was the perfect conclusion to a jaw-dropping report on Bard, the new chatbot released by Google. Interviews with the Google CEO and other members of the company revealed a team of humans who seem genuinely concerned about the implications of this earth-shaking new technology. But even they seem to be struggling with what they have created. 

These bots are not sentient beings, they said, although the content they produce (including a story built on Hemingway’s famous six-word novel “For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”) make you think that they can. 

These new bots are something of a black box, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who brought up the problem of alignment — the divergence between the models we use to create artificial intelligence and the intentions we have while creating them. They teach themselves subjects they weren’t programmed to learn. They will take our jobs and create ever-more-hard-to-detect fakes. 

As a student of the human condition (the title of the class I’m taking this semester) I’m thinking about the new technologies we’ve experienced in recent decades and how we will adapt to this one. Many knowledge workers will lose their jobs and many others will be teaming up with robots on a daily basis. How will we face this new challenge when we can’t even keep up with old ones? 

Lots of questions. Not many answers. But of this you can be sure: This post was created with 100-percent human content. 

(Above: a small printing press, vestige of a lost world.) 

Closing the Gate

Closing the Gate

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For years it was the first commandment of outside living in my family. Close the backyard gate! Our frisky Copper dog was, as I’ve mentioned before, quite the escape artist, and he missed no opportunity to leave the only loving home he had ever known.

As a younger dog, he rushed the doors, both front and garage. Guests entering the house had to slide in quickly before he barreled past them. 

But at least a couple of times he found his way out of the fenced backyard into the great beyond.  One time he moseyed under the deck and squeezed through an opening we never thought could accommodate him. I found him calmly sniffing the hedges near the front stoop. 

His most likely point of departure, though, was through the backyard gate, which is tricky to latch and was prone to being left open by the meter-reading man and other folks. We lived in fear that we’d forget to check, let him out the backdoor and that would be the end of it. Copper, of course, had no fear of cars.

This week I’ve walked through the backyard gate dozens of times. And every time, not just out of habit but out of reverence, I’ve made sure it’s closed behind me. 

“Run Towards the Danger”

“Run Towards the Danger”

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I just finished reading Sarah Polley’s memoir Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory. It’s not a book I’d heard about before, but a dear friend loaned it to me, put it in my hands, said it was written by the screenwriter of “Women Talking” and I would love it.

At first, I thought it would be a replay of “Women Talking,” which I enjoyed but wasn’t sure I wanted to relive.  Then, a few pages in, I almost put it down because the opening essay is about Polley’s scoliosis, a condition that runs in our family and about which I have a fair amount of guilt. 

But it is not about “Women Talking” and I pressed on through the scoliosis parts, and less than two weeks later I finished the book, wanting more. 

Honesty is endearing, and Sarah Polley is not only scrupulously honest, but honestly funny, even when she’s describing sexual abuse, placenta previa and a concussion. The book’s title and theme, “run towards the danger,” come from her neurologist, who not only heals her brain but gives her a motto to live by — don’t shy away from what frightens you, embrace it instead. Not a bad message for this (or perhaps any) stage of life. So here’s to books loaned by friends — and friends who loan books. Sometimes they know what you need better than you do. 

(It’s telling I had to hunt for a photo to illustrate this post. Are the “Exorcist Stairs” as close as I come to danger?)