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Author: Anne Cassidy

In Spring and Fall

In Spring and Fall

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The Kwanzan cherry tree puts on quite a show in the spring. It’s not the earliest bloomer; it waits until the soil has warmed and the forsythia and dogwood have paved the way. But when it finally gets going, it draws the eye to its big-fisted blossoms, its pink petals exploding from narrow stems.

What I’ve only started to appreciate is the show it puts on in autumn. Once again, it bides its time. Other leaves have changed, dried and blown away. But the leaves of the Kwanzan cherry have waited patiently — and this is their time.

They light up the late fall landscape, shimmering in dawns and dusks. They flutter in the breeze, brave flags waving. They gladden my heart each time I see them.

Immersed in Van Gogh

Immersed in Van Gogh

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“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”

Vincent Van Gogh

The Van Gogh immersive experience begins as soon as you walk in the door and are greeted with a wall of sunflowers, or, I should say, a larger-than-life Van Gogh-like depiction of them. A few steps away is a bust of the painter that morphs from black and gray shadows to the swirled blues and lavenders of his flowers.

You pass a re-creation of the room at Arles, complete down to the washstand and window and hat hanging from a peg on the wall. Take a photo of the room and you’ve created a masterpiece.

There are videos on the artist’s life, his hospitalization, self-mutilation and eventual suicide. And there is music: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, something by Debussy, others I couldn’t place, all soaring and emotive.

But the best is saved for last, when you walk into the final gallery and find yourself a part of the paintings. You stand or sit or recline on the floor while the art comes alive around you, pages slide off easels, stars explode in the night, and a hundred sunflowers bloom against a lapis lazuli sky. 

Dancing in the Streets

Dancing in the Streets

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I read this morning of the return of 26 pieces of history from France to Benin. The return was celebrated with dancing and singing and general merriment. There were thrones, statues and other artifacts, all taken by France from what was then its colony of Dahomey, all of them finally home after more than a century of exile.

Since some of my family hail from Benin, this is big news. And since I’ve been to that wonderful country, I have a small sense of what it must have been like to see the big truck pull up, the decorated horses and riders escorting it to the presidential palace, the jubilation of the people.

There are plenty more looted treasures to be returned, and it sounds as if Benin is fighting for those, too. But for now, for one small country tucked between the Sahel and the sea, there is dancing in the streets. 

(At the Voodoo Festival in Benin, January 2015)

Of Time and Art

Of Time and Art

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I don’t always explore the Google doodles, but I did today, lured on by the picture of a woman playing a grand piano in a room filled with art and light. 

The woman, I learned, is Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, born on this day in 1805. She’s the sister of Felix, a composer I’ve come to appreciate ever more as the years go on, and was herself a gifted pianist and composer. She composed over 450 pieces of music, including many lieder (songs) and piano works.  As a 14-year-old she could  play 24 Bach Preludes from memory. 

Fanny died of a stroke at the age of 41. Her brother died of the same cause six months later, after composing a quartet in her memory. 

What the musical world gained from these two talented siblings cannot be measured. But what more it would have gained had they lived 200 years later, when they could have been on high blood pressure medication. Of course, had they been born 200 years later, they probably would have been writing rap music. Such is the nature of time and art. 

(Photo: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s music room in her home in Berlin, courtesy Wikipedia)

Way Too Early

Way Too Early

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The Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Rails to Trails path was bustling late yesterday when I finally made my way to it. There were runners and walkers and cyclists, mostly the latter zooming by with a brisk warning of “passing on the left.” 

I slipped into what I always think of as the “bridle path” part of the trail, the unpaved route that runs alongside the asphalt. But due to the bridges over Herndon and Fairfax County Parkways, I couldn’t always stay on that calmer and less traveled path. 

What I could do was to focus on the scenery I passed: the changing colors of the deciduous trees. 

The subtle beauty of the shaggy undergrowth … and the sun setting way too early, once again.

A Walk Recorded

A Walk Recorded

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I took a stroll late yesterday through the gloaming, the exquisite though way-too-early gloaming — I was walking between 4 and 5! — then came home and wrote these words:

The late fall light is draining quickly from the sky and a bright near-half moon showing itself. There are the most delicate of evening sounds: a few hardy crickets, the bird that says “Judy” (did I determine that’s a wren?) and various human-caused sounds — a pinging that could have come from a small forge but was likely a kid banging on a pipe — the distant downshift of a passing truck. But none of these sounds disturbed the peacefulness of the landscape. They only enhanced it. 

Some of the shorter shrubs have lost most of their leaves. Those that remain seem to be offering themselves for viewing, like golden coins on a platter. Back on my street, the russets and scarlets of the maples and oaks shimmered in the twilight. 

Night falls fast this time of year, but when it’s warm, as it has been today, that doesn’t seem to matter as much.

The Purse

The Purse

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Britain’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth, has been in power for almost seven decades. And for most every moment of that time she seems to have carried a purse on her arm.

It’s a funny thing to notice, but women notice other women’s purses. And I wonder about hers: Why should this woman, who can snap her fingers at any moment and have an attendant bring her whatever she desires, need a handbag on her arm wherever she goes—including in her own castle? What does she have in there? Her phone? Her hanky? The nuclear code?

Why does this matter? I’ve thought of it recently because I, too, have been carrying my purse around even while inside the house. I take it upstairs and down. Into the kitchen and into the office. Onto the deck and into the backyard.

There’s a reason for this, of course: it’s because my phone is in my purse. And it helps that I have a purse I can wear, cross-body style. None of that prim, crooked-elbow arrangement.

Still, I don’t like carrying a purse around the house, and I’d like to stop this habit in its tracks. But that will only happen, I’m afraid, when clothing designers start giving women what they’ve always given men: pockets.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Doing the Reading

Doing the Reading

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Finding the balance point for this new phase of life is not going to be an exact science, I can already tell. I crave big blocks of time but am also terrified by them. I tremble at not having enough to do, then compensate by piling on too much.

For instance, I continue to try and do all the reading for class, even though it can be an insane amount. Last night, for instance, I realized that there’s an entire book we’re supposed to read for today.

In my mind are the words of my children. “Mom, you don’t have to do all the reading.” Wise words from people who, as I recall, were taught that they should do all the reading. 

But as with so much of life, relationships shift, patterns change, wisdom develops. 

And tonight, I will go to class at least slightly … unprepared. 

Made by Walking

Made by Walking

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We make the road by walking. That was the sentence beamed on the wall of the Methodist church in Arlington where Bernadette was baptized on Saturday. Bernadette like an old-fashioned baby in her long white baptismal gown and cap. Bernadette who reaches out her arms to be held, who crawls like a house afire and pulls herself up to stand. She is a delight, though she can still cry with the best of them.

While she has perfected the piercing wail, her cousin Isaiah has mastered the wild bird shriek, his way of letting folks know he’s not getting his way. And he used this to perfection during the baptism, even as his parents fed him Cheerios, age-old food of parents in distress, and did everything else they could to occupy him during the service.

It seems like not that long ago we were the parents on the front lines, we were the ones grabbing those little pencils and envelopes in the pews, handing kids keys and trinkets they would never be allowed to touch otherwise. We were the ones carrying a screaming baby out of the sanctuary. We were the ones making the road by walking.

During the sermon, the pastor talked about how those who come before us make the way … just as we make the way for those who come after us. A lovely image not only for the Path of Life, capital P, capital L, but for every little lower-case section of it.

Charting Time

Charting Time

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It’s only a baby habit, just getting started, but I’ve decided to keep a time chart, noting on my (paper) calendar what I’m doing and when. 

Time flows differently these days, it eddies and it stalls and sometimes it swirls by so quickly that I barely see the ripples it leaves behind. 

So rather than wondering each day, where does the time go, I will try to chart it as it flies. 

A noble experiment, yes? 

We’ll see.