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Author: Anne Cassidy

Foolish or Fake?

Foolish or Fake?

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It’s April 2, and having shared no foolery yesterday I went in search of some today. I looked online and found a few famous pranks from history. 

On April 1, 1957, the BBC aired a segment on the great spaghetti harvest happening in the Ticino region of Switzerland, near the Italian border. There was footage of farmers “harvesting” the spaghetti and then sitting down to eat it al fresco (and maybe al dente, too). Some viewers were convinced enough that they called the network to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti at home. 

More recent April 1st “new product” announcements include Velveeta skincare, Cauliflower Peeps and Teletubbies cryptocurrency. And then there’s this year’s “launch” of Harry and Meghan’s new video game “Mexit: The Call of Duke-y,” in which the couple must surmount obstacles on their way to California. 

My impression in general, however, is that pranks aren’t what they used to be. In a world of fake news, April Fools’ Day is redundant. 

(Spaghetti “harvest” photo courtesy Wikipedia.)

For the Women

For the Women

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On this, the last day of Women’s History Month, I’m thinking about the women in my life: my daughters, sister and mother, my sisters-in-law, grandmothers, aunts and cousins.

I’m thinking about my women friends, so many dear ones, some I’ve known since high school and college, others of more recent vintage. 

I’m thinking about the women I’ve met on travels around the world, women tackling enormous problems with grace and good cheer.

How strong these women are, kind and capable and funny. Yesterday, still mulling over the tragedy in Nashville and lawmakers’ tepid response to it, I thought, if women were in charge, we would do something about it. 

First, we would not be in the same dire predicaments if women were running the world. But even if we were, we would be facing them differently, more collaboratively and courageously. 

I could be wrong, of course. Maybe women would fall into the same traps that men do. But I don’t think so. And I hope one day we have a chance to find out.

(I met these women from Ntcheu, Malawi, in December 2018.)

A Few Words on Nashville

A Few Words on Nashville

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I generally avoid writing about political topics here, thinking that we get enough of those from other sources. But it’s hard stay quiet about the latest school shooting. Three nine-year-olds! A principal, custodian and substitute teacher! People who love children doing their best to keep them safe. 

If we take a long view of history, the 2020s are not an especially violent time. But if we start with the world in which most of us grew up, then the fact that three months into 2023 we’ve already had 130 mass shootings (defined as four or more people killed), or the fact that one in 20 Americans owns at least one AR-15 rifle, a gun designed for military use, it’s hard to argue that our society isn’t violent. 

As it happens, the Washington Post began a series on the AR-15 on Monday. It was the lead story on the Post website … until the Nashville school shooting took that prime position. 

Undoubtedly, many factors are producing these mass shootings: mental illness, social media, a culture of celebrity, a lack of belonging. The people who are perpetrating these acts, often little more than children themselves (though not in this case), are usually loners, people who in their final acts seek the notoriety they hope will make up for the anonymity in which they’ve lived. Banning assault weapons would not solve all of our problems. But it would be a huge start. 

I keep thinking about the Covenant parents sending their children off to school in their plaid uniforms, backpacks and lunchboxes in tow. Those parents were expecting to see their kids back home Monday afternoon. They would have offered them a snack, nagged them about homework, given them a hug. Instead, they had to identify their bodies. 

We are the adults. We’re supposed to keep our children safe. And we’re not doing our job. It’s as simple — and as horrifying — as that. 

The Happy Key

The Happy Key

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The wind chimes languished when they hung from the deck railing. They were close to home but blocked from the breeze that would make them sing. 

For a while now, though, they’ve dangled from a low limb of the witch hazel tree, far enough out in the yard that the wind catches them, moves their string and clapper. When I’m out in the yard weeding or picking up sticks I hear their song. 

The chimes have been restrung and refurbished several times, but I still remember unwrapping them, the little note that explained they were in the “happy key of D Major.”

Is D Major a happy key? I’ve never minded it. Only two sharps. Not as easy as G Major (one sharp) or C Major (all white keys) but easier than A (three sharps) and E (four). 

I did a bit of googling, learned that Franz Schubert called D Major the key of triumph and hallelujahs. That’s good enough for me. 

The Volunteer

The Volunteer

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Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough.

I don’t have many lines of poetry at my fingertips, but for some reason, I have these by A. E. Housman. Today, I’m thinking about — and looking at — the pale pink weeping cherry in the backyard.

It wasn’t planted, and I wasn’t even aware of it until we almost lost it in the great tree debacle of 2018. But it must have been there, growing slowly and a bit crookedly, trying to reach the light through a thick canopy.  

But now the yard is open, tree coverage is sparse, and the delicate plants, including this earnest volunteer, have a chance to shine. 

Such is the life cycle of a forest, even when the forest is in a backyard.

(This volunteer may be kin to another I wrote about several years ago.)

Plodding

Plodding

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Over the weekend, I broke in a pair of hiking boots, my first ever. Though I’ve hiked plenty, I’ve always hiked in running shoes, which is pretty much what hiking boots look like these days. 

The clerk who helped me said that as long as I stay in the eastern half of the United States and don’t carry more than 15 pounds, I could get away with what he called trail runners. Trail runners look exactly like running shoes, so I passed on them. If I’m finally going to spring for a pair of hiking boots, I reasoned, I want them to resemble the real article at least slightly, meaning bulky, brown and many-laced.

The ones I finally settled on (and I mean finally — I tried on six pairs) look sturdier than tennis shoes but less daunting than I originally imagined. The difference lies in the gait they enforce. One is not fleet of foot in a pair of hiking boots; one plods. But plodding isn’t so bad, I’ve discovered.

A Replacement?

A Replacement?

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In class this week we talked about good and evil, the decline of religion and the ascendancy of the “spiritual.” A question the professor threw out to us then that I’m only answering now is, what is religion’s greatest potential alternative? What’s replacing it?

There’s some irony in answering this question in a social science class because in many ways, the answer to these questions is … social science. 

Psychology and social psychology have not answered all the questions, but they have provided close-enough answers that the influence of religion has paled. They have answered the problem of evil with the medicalization of evil, a belief that much wrongdoing is due to illness rather than sin. Hard to compete with that. 

The Beauty

The Beauty

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I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve trekked around the Tidal Basin to see Washington, D.C.’s cherry trees in bloom. More times than I can count, for sure. I’ve seen the trees with toddlers in tow, with Mom long ago, but for the last many years, I’ve seen the blossoms alone, usually before or after work.

Yesterday I went down early, as if it were still a workday for me, wanting to beat the crowds. I snapped photos of people, not just blossoms, because it’s the people I notice year after year. Old and young, nimble and slow-moving. The amateur photographers and the serious, long-lensed people, too. 

There was a woman in a strapless dress with a pink parasol. She made a lovely focal point for this amateur photographer, but she must have been cold. I was wearing three layers. 

If you look closely at her, you’ll notice the water lapping nearly at her feet. Some parts of the path were completely submerged and pedestrians had to detour up a little hill until the trail reappeared. There have been articles lately about the peril the blossoms face with rising sea levels and early blooms. 

But when I saw the trees again, I wasn’t thinking about the peril—just appreciating the beauty. 

Seriously Speaking

Seriously Speaking

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I’ve just finished George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading and Life. It’s a slightly misleading subtitle because Saunders is the one giving the master class. It’s his interpretations of Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev and Tolstoy. The interpretations are only there because the stories are, of course, but Saunders has a way of parsing and illuminating these classics that makes you want to read them—and do your own best work, too. 

One piece of advice I found especially helpful (even as a nonfiction writer) is when Saunders describes how he came to find his “voice.” I use quotation marks here because Saunders points out that we have many voices. What we need to do is find the voice that is most energetic, even if it’s not the spare, Hemingwayesque one we originally thought was ours. 

When Saunders first found his “voice” (I will persist with the quotation marks), the story that resulted was the best he’d ever written, he said, but it was no Chekhov or Tolstoy. He felt he had let the short story form down. “It was as if I’d sent the hunting dog that was my talent out across a meadow to fetch a magnificent pheasant and it had brought back, let’s say, the lower half of a Barbie doll.”

In a world in which writing is taken oh-so-seriously, Saunders is seriously refreshing. 

Springing Ahead?

Springing Ahead?

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Today is our first full day of astronomical spring, though the chilly morning temps make it feel more like winter. We in the mid-Atlantic have been spoiled this year, with snowdrops blooming in January and daffodils in February. It’s been a non-winter. 

Now that we have late light, too, I feel a bit like Punxsutawney Phil, dragged out of his burrow only to dip back in because the sun’s too bright. These late-light evenings, as much as they thrill, can seem like too much too soon. 

There’s a part of me that still craves the lamplit afternoon, the cozy cocooning feel you have in winter, a pot of soup bubbling on the stove, no outside chores calling my name to add to the inside chores that are always with me. 

In other words, winter gives me a pass of sorts. And now … that pass is over.