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Author: Anne Cassidy

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day!

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Today I share Mother’s Day with my daughters. I always do, of course, but today I do so in a special way, as two of them celebrate their own first Mother’s Days. 

It hardly seems possible. Though all three have blossomed into strong, kind, beautiful young women, in my mind they’re still long-legged girls running through the kitchen. 

What can I tell them as they embark on this journey of parenthood? Right now, I can only think of only one thing. Enjoy it all … because it goes so very fast. 

Weed Whisperer

Weed Whisperer

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It’s the golden season for weeding, a precious period before the arrival of stilt grass and the more noxious undergrowth, when I can (and do) plop myself down and gently remove the crabgrass, wild strawberries and dandelions from the periwinkle and forget-me-nots.   

Weeding at close range can be a meditative occupation. It feels less like banishing what I don’t want and more like welcoming what I do. It is garden shaping rather than green demolition. And it’s a chance to be part of the landscape, one with the clematis and creeping jenny and bleeding heart.

Before long the tenacious troublemakers will move in, the invasive grasses that seem bent on making the world their own and require a full-scale assault to stop them. But until they do, just call me the weed whisperer.

Missing the Point

Missing the Point

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In the work-for-hire phase of my life (which ended all of four days ago), I frequently used what I’ve come to think of as the make-nice punctuation mark.

“Good morning!” I would say cheerily to IT before launching into my request for help with a tech crisis. “No problem!” I would exclaim to the last-minute request for editing services that, truth be told, was indeed a problem. And of course, the ubiquitous “Thanks!” when I used the exclamation point to soften my own last-minute requests for help. 

Now I must retrain myself in the proper use of this punctuation mark, which is sparing. I must try harder to communicate the import of the thought in the words themselves rather than using a vertical line with a dot below it to do the work for me. 

“Do not attempt to emphasize simple statements by using a mark of exclamation,” say Strunk and White in The Elements of Style. And who am I to argue with them?

Which is not to say that the exclamation point will disappear entirely from my life. It will continue to clutter up emails and personal correspondence, I’m sure. Will I be missing the point? You bet I will!

(Graphic courtesy Wikipedia)

Shared Purpose

Shared Purpose

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It’s a rainy day, the kind of day when I used to like being at the office, once I was there. A coziness descended upon us, an enforced calm, or at least I felt it. At no time was it clearer to me that we were all in this together than in foul weather.

It was then that I thought of us as many parts of one body: the program officers and scientists and accountants and writers and procurement folks and so many others, all bringing their talents to the cause.

I’m remembering that feeling today, one of shared purpose. It’s a feeling I don’t want to give up, even as I embrace the freedom of my new state.

Stairs and Other Frontiers

Stairs and Other Frontiers

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My first day of retirement was not typical, if that word can be applied to a condition that has only just begun. Claire was over by 8 with Isaiah, who was smiling his 100-watt smile and soon would be crawling around the house chortling (I seldom use that word but that is what he was doing), positively squealing with glee, especially when he spied the carpeted stairs. 

He must be capable of anticipation given his excitement on simply seeing the stairs. He must be able to hold in his infant mind all the possibilities stairs can provide, the pulling up and the climbing. Of course, he did not see the tumbling down and the falling, which  I, with my adult brain, was only too ready to imagine.

When I watch Isaiah explore the world I see with fresh eyes how stunning it is, with its corners and shadows and tiny parakeet feathers that he can almost but not quite pick up because, as Claire says, the pincer grasp doesn’t become fully operational until nine months of age and Isaiah is eight and a half.

In Isaiah I also see the power of movement for its own sake. The toys that held his attention last week pale in comparison now. It is as if he is reenacting the push of human exploration, the grand urge to trudge on to the next mesa and beyond the far river bend. Watching Isaiah I can better appreciate how the American West was settled, why even now deep sea divers are exploring the last great earthly frontier.

Shimmering

Shimmering

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Over the weekend, there were walks without clock-watching, walks through every cul-de-sac in Folkstone, starting off slowly and gathering speed only when the body felt ready. 

Walks with frequent pauses, not for breath but for beauty. 

The azaleas were shimmering … and I couldn’t resist. 

Weightless

Weightless

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I knew that the last day of full-time employment would be a humdinger because it was the one that required technical tasks — and in that I was not mistaken. But as is so often true in life, it unfolded in a way I didn’t expect.

It wasn’t the “wiping” of the computer, the backup and removal of files, that had me flummoxed. I had been going about that fairly steadily for days. What held me hostage almost to the end was … the cloud: disentangling my work machine from iMessage and iPhoto and iTunes and all the other i’s that seek to unify our lives and terrorize us in the process. Because don’t you know that if you remove photos when you are signed into iCloud you will delete them from “all your devices.” And when you have more than 17,000 images (yes, dear reader, I am embarrassed to admit that is how many I have), which include the precious first photographs of your sweet grandchildren, even the thought of removal is enough to paralyze one for hours. 

Only I didn’t have hours — I had minutes, which were quickly ticking away. Luckily, an Apple Support person talked me down from the ledge, and after 30 minutes on the phone with her, and an hour of two of agony before and after, I was ready for the drive to Crystal City. 

There was a moment yesterday after I had solved these problems, after I had dropped off my computer, monitor and other work gear in a new and near empty office, when I had started driving home along the river, a drive I hadn’t taken in almost a year, when I felt positively weightless. And that’s what I’ll remember. 

Almost Bedtime

Almost Bedtime

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It’s almost bedtime here on the second-to-last day of full-time employment. Perhaps I won’t have bedtimes in this new life. I’ll live so freely that I’ll be beyond diurnal schedules. 

But I doubt it. I imagine I’ll wake up pretty much the same time as I always do. And, truth to tell, I’ll be doing much the same sort of things, too — writing, walking, reading. 

It might sound boring to many, but oh my, not to me!

They’re Back!

They’re Back!

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The hummingbirds are back! Once again, for at least the fourth time, exactly on April 28. Where have they been?  And how do they make their way from other climes and latitudes right back to this suburban backyard?  I don’t understand them — and perhaps that is part of their charm.

Seeing them again — at first just a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye — completes the season in a way no blooming tree or flower can. 

Because these tiny creatures aren’t rooted here; they return voluntarily. And they bring with them the jewel tones of the tropics, a whiff of the faraway.

(The photo is my own, but not from this year. And because it’s a female, not as jewel-toned.)

The Annual Reports

The Annual Reports

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My desk accessories and headset are in the car. The monitor is parked in the basement, ready to go. I’ll wipe my computer on Friday and take it into the office, too. Then all that remains will be … the annual reports. They were in the car, stationed for return along with the stapler and the tiered folder rack, but I had to bring them back inside because I needed to research a scholarship that began in 1993.

Now that they’re back in the house (and a heavy load they are, too!), I don’t want to let them go. I’ve built a complete set, you see, from 1985 to the present, which ranges from the time when Tom worked for Winrock to the time that I do. It’s a history of the place in a nutshell, a place I first experienced when I moved from Manhattan to a mountaintop in Arkansas right after we married and which has enriched my own career and life experiences beyond measure. 

So I asked Tom last night: “Do you think it’s a bad sign that I can’t let go of the annual reports?” He just smiled and said to do whatever I think is right. He can’t really quibble about my packrat tendencies since he’s a primo packrat himself, and he knows this is about more than being a packrat. It’s about loving an organization I’m about to leave. 

I do love Winrock. And yet on Friday I’ll type my last words for them and sign off the network for the last time. Because there’s something I love more, which is the freedom to write what I want when I want. It’s an awesome and a terrifying freedom, but I’ve earned the chance to try it, so I will. 

As for the annual reports, they’re sitting in the hallway. I’m still thinking about them.