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Author: Anne Cassidy

Late-Night Request

Late-Night Request

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It was almost 10 last night when the editor’s email arrived. I found it on my last check of the day. Could I read over my essay, which he had recently accepted and edited, and send him fixes as soon as possible?

Receiving a work-related email so late in the evening reminded me of the old days, when I’d get similar requests that didn’t feel as warm and fuzzy as last night’s did. Last night I felt plugged in and stimulated rather than tired and overworked. 

And no wonder. This time, the words in question are ones I’ve written for myself, not for others. I write them to share, as I do the words in this blog, but they are not words for hire. 

The difference gives me pause, and makes me grateful. 

Bewilderment

Bewilderment

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A late post today since I was preoccupied earlier with errands and a birthday. It’s my middle daughter, Claire’s, special day. When I began this blog, she had just started college. Now she’s a working mother preparing to have her second child. 

While I try to make gratitude the chief emotion of each day, other feelings creep in. Today it’s bewilderment, an all-too-common response. 

How can Claire be a young mother already? How can any of my daughters be grown women with families and jobs and adult responsibilities? 

Time passes. It’s the oldest story of all — and the hardest to believe. 

Rabbit Holes

Rabbit Holes

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The rabbits I wrote about last summer are nowhere to be seen now. The resident hawk has no doubt taken care of them. But there are plenty of rabbit holes around here — and I’ve been going down them to my heart’s content. 

On Monday, for instance, I spent the better part of an hour learning about the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi and his suite Ancient Airs and Dances. 

Other days I’ve plunged into the history of long-shot Kentucky Derby winners  or the geopolitics of the Iron Curtain. 

What do these topics have in common? Absolutely nothing … except that, for a few moments in the morning, I had time to learn about them. 

Plant Food

Plant Food

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The first hummingbirds of the season arrived in late April, right on cue.  They cased the joint, supped on the nectar we’d left hanging from the deck, then vanished. We hoped these were scouts who had flown south to share the news with others. 

Since those early sightings, though, hummingbirds have been scarce this summer. Only the ants seem to be enjoying the feeders.  

But in the last few days, I’ve been spying the little critters. They’ve been feeding not at the feeders but on the zinnias. Turns out those bright happy flowers aren’t just pretty to look at. They’re nutritious, too. 

Ancient Airs

Ancient Airs

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How is is that a piece I’ve heard for years suddenly amazes me? Have I just grown into it? Have I never truly listened to it before?

Respighi’s “Ancient Airs and Dances” has reached up and grabbed me by the lapels. It’s seducing me with its melodies, calming me with its chords. It’s leaving me wanting more. 

There are three suites, I learn. Respighi, a musicologist, based the pieces on Renaissance lute songs. But what is old becomes new in the hands of this brilliant orchestrator. The sprightly opening of the first, the second with its expansive denouement, and the third, described as the most melancholic. Yes, I hear those minor keys. But I also hear grandeur and joy. The recording I find orders them 1, 3 and 2, a suitable reordering, I think.  

I read more. Respighi died in 1936 at age 56. His wife, Elsa, a former pupil 14 years younger, outlived him by 60 years. A friend said their marriage “functioned on an almost transcendent level of human and spiritual harmony.” Elsa made sure that her husband’s legacy was secure. She died in 1996  at age 102. 

Quiet

Quiet

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As a walker in the suburbs, I thrive on the noises I hear along my route. On the beach, which I leave today, these may be the squawks of a gull or the pounding of the surf.  

But this week I’ve also spent much time in a pool, and I’m reminded what a silent world that can be, what a different form of exercise, floating or treading water, or doing the crawl or breaststroke, head submerged, ears closed to the sounds of the day. 

It’s a meditative space, the world of water. And above all, it is quiet. 

Chariots of Fire

Chariots of Fire

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It’s pretty corny, but I did it anyway, played “Chariots of Fire” on my i-pod as I made my way down the beach yesterday. I was looking for an inspiring piece, one that would pump up the pace a bit, and that one did the trick. 

There was the familiar opening salvo, the electronic pulses, the melody itself. In my mind’s eye I saw the 1924 Olympic athletes splashing through the surf, recalled their stories, their motivations for running, each of them different, each of them their own. 

While I can’t claim any speed records I did feel the thrill of that music. And since I was running — well, mostly walking — on a beach then, too, well … you get the idea. It was fun, it was exhilarating, it was a movie-lovers beach walk.

(A still from the beach-running scene in the film “Chariots of Fire,” courtesy Wikipedia.) 

The Sandbar

The Sandbar

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A sandbar is a curious thing — part land, part water, and, in the afternoon light, almost mirage-like in the way it shimmers near the horizon. 

Beachcombers use it to search  for shells. Gulls land on it to look for food. Sunbathers lie flat on the soft sand, refreshed by its coolness. 

I waded through still water to reach it, too, because it looked like a new way to experience the beach. I ignored the minnows and the seaweed, both of which remind me why I’m more of a pool swimmer.  

But it was worth it. Out there I felt even more a part of the wind and the waves and the sea. 

The Return

The Return

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A visit to the beach is a return to the cadence of waves hitting the shore, the predictable antics of shore birds, a big sky filled with clouds.

It’s a return to days defined not by the clock but by tides and light.

It’s a return to motion within stillness …. and stillness within motion. 

The Deep

The Deep

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The sounds of a party filled the place: laughter, conversation, the clink of glasses. But step away from the main room and it was another world. 

Sharks patrol their waters with ruthless intensity. Rainbow fish flit to and fro, a blue starfish pulsing in their tank. Porcupine fish bristle. And stingrays glide through the water like so many fluttering handkerchiefs. 

At the entrance, schools of sea creatures swim to the left of us, to the right of us, and above us, too. It was a dramatic entry into another world, a world of the deep.