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Author: Anne Cassidy

“With Room”

“With Room”

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This morning while carrying a mug of hot tea from the first floor to the second floor of the house, I thought about the coffee shop lingo I only learned last year,  that of ordering a tea to go “with room” — meaning to leave a little space at the top for the milk.

I remember what a revelation this was when I first heard it, a practical shorthand for communicating that I didn’t want scalding water up to the very brim of the paper cup.

Today, of course, I was not in a coffee shop but in my own house, but I have learned the hard way that when the cup is full the carpet bears the brunt of it. So “leaving room” is now a mantra both at home and away. 

It’s not one that comes easily to me, however. I’m an up-to-the-brim kind of person, and restraining myself enough to leave room is an act of restraint I’m not always willing to make. 

The little bit of wisdom that flew down on me when I glanced at my not-quite-full-cup this morning was that it’s an easier way to live and is perhaps worth a more-than-occasional try. Living “with room” means not packing every day quite as full, leaving minutes at the beginning and end to think, ponder or meditate. Living “with room” takes some of the edge off he day.

(My brother is an excellent packer, but even he left room in this well-stocked box of gifts.)

Sixty-Four!

Sixty-Four!

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The spring weather that was promised yesterday more than materialized. It reached 64, way above the 59 that was originally predicted and warm enough to take my laptop out to the deck and work there for a few hours.  

What a boost to soak up the rays of the still-faint late-winter sun, to hear the wind chimes clang in the unaccustomedly warm breeze.  It was just a taste of what’s to come, but it broke a deadlock of sorts.  

Winter has less of a hold on us now. We may still have cold rain, chill wind, freezing temperatures. But the witch hazel tree, responding to yesterday’s prompts, has burst into bloom.  It’s the earliest harbinger of spring in our yard, and I’m glad for its vivid evidence that yesterday was not a dream. 

(The witch hazel tree photographed in an earlier, snowier winter)

Fifty-Nine!

Fifty-Nine!

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The weather folks tell me that today’s high will be 59. Fifty-nine! I stare at my phone, at the sun icons and the numbers below them, which tell me that at 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. it will be 59. I figure if I look long enough those numbers might turn from 59 to 60. 

Sixty would be nice. It’s not much more than 60 inside right now (the nighttime temps still prevailing). Sixty would feel balmy and Florida-like to me, stuck mostly inside at the tail end of what’s beginning to feel like a very long winter.

Fifty-nine, on the other hand, still has a chapped, windswept feel. 

Before finishing this post, I walk out through the garage to pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway. It feels pretty darn warm already. I can feel the difference in my bones. There’s a skip in my step as I walk back in the house.

I try the phone one more time. It now tells me that at 4 p.m. it will be 61! That’s more like it. 

Steeped

Steeped

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Making tea this morning, I ponder the word steeped, its meaning and its sound, how the double vowel elongates the word, how saying it out loud mimics its effect. “S-t-e-e-p” — as in a hard climb or a long soak. 

What a lovely word, steeped. It speaks of richness and tang and satisfaction. It speaks of judgment. Coffee is brewed, tea is steeped. There’s a world of difference in these processes. In one it’s clear and proscribed; in the other, it’s open-ended and subject to taste. With steeping, time is part of the equation.

This morning, I feel steeped in place, which does not mean I’m gazing at a fetching vista but that I feel totally saturated with the place I am. It’s not a bad place, not at all. In fact, it’s a wonderful place, this house, so full of love and memories.

But it is, after all, only one place. And there are so many other places out there. 

 

The Soundtrack

The Soundtrack

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With slower walks closer to home, the soundtrack of the stroll grows in importance. Because as much as I would like to say that I walk in silence, the better to hear the faint voice of inspiration, I usually do not. In fact, the music often is the inspiration. At the very least, it’s the pace-setter.

Sometimes it’s Bach or Brahms or Dvorak coursing through my brain, and my cadence flows from the tempo of the movement, speedy during the prestos, slower for the adagios.  Other times, I play jazz or folk or show tunes; the latter have a lightheartedness especially appreciated these days. The soundtrack can be seasonal, too: Irish tunes are prepped and ready for next month. 

Music is a mood enhancer, amplifying good thoughts, soothing anxious ones. Often I come back in the house from an amble and keep the buds in my ears, finishing a movement or a song, prolonging the escape just a little longer. The soundtrack of the walk throws long shadows on the rest of the day.  

Getting Out

Getting Out

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It’s Saturday, time to get some food into the house. Apart from walks around the neighborhood, the last time I jumped in the car and drove away was … two weeks ago. 

Even for Pandemic Speed this is glacial. No wonder I’ve been pacing the floors on Fort Lee Street. I thought it was to stretch my legs during long work sessions. But no! I think it’s been to re-enact a more primary urge: to leave, to step out, to move from one place to another.

While some people have been hunkering down like this for months, I’ve still been going out to the grocery store and on a few other errands most weeks. And I can say that while from a germ standpoint this practice may be debatable, from a mental health standpoint it is not. 

Getting out is good for you. Which is why I plan to do it … soon.

(Sorry to say I will not be seeing this on my drive to the supermarket.) 

Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories

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The voice is melodious, measured, often accented. The intoned words are taking me out of myself, out of the self that tosses and turns when it awakens at 3:30 or 4:20 a.m.  They are shifting my thoughts, turning them toward the drama of others. They are reminding me that the world is large. 

In my arsenal of sleep-inducing weapons I have a new favorite: Audible. I had tried using the recorded books program to this purpose more than a year ago, when I first discovered it, but I had not yet figured out the “Sleep” feature, which allows you to set a timer for anywhere from five minutes to 120. On that occasion, I lost about 30 minutes of the book and had quite a time finding my way back to the place where I lost consciousness

But now, I can set the timer to 10 minutes, certain that, even if I do fall asleep before it runs out, I will easily find my way back. No light to flip on, no pages to fumble through. The darkness of the bedroom preserved. I can plug in, listen to, and drift off as someone reads me … a bedtime story. 

Sleet!

Sleet!

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The fluffy white stuff we were (sort of) promised yesterday has turned out to be a bunch of crunchy ice crystals instead. It’s a sleet storm, not a snow storm, that’s greeting Fairfax County this morning. 

So what to do? You can’t sled on it, can’t walk through it, can’t drive in it, can’t even admire it as it falls. 

To put on my optimistic hat (oh my, it’s getting a lot of wear these days, since I only pull it out when natural optimism fails to respond), we are not getting freezing rain, which is what pelted us all day Saturday. Sleet does not coat tree limbs and bring them down. 

Let’s praise sleet then not for what it does … but for what it fails to do. 

(A photo of what we don’t have this morning.)

Ash-Free

Ash-Free

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It’s an ash-free Ash Wednesday here. Instead of spiritual reading, I’ve been trying to change a password and perform various other online acrobatics with all the attendant trials of patience that requires. 

Perhaps there is such a thing as a prayer for online patience. There are indeed prayers for calmness in the storm and for patience in times of confusion. I don’t see exactly what I’m looking for, though, something like this:

Oh Lord, I know that in the vastness of your creation there are answers to the technological problems that beset me. Fill me with calmness and understanding as I yet again attempt to _____(change my password/check on my order/request information/insert need here). I know that these bits and bytes are but a small part of the marvelous world we inhabit. Help me to put them in perspective as I live a full and meaningful life in the real world. Amen.

Misty Morning

Misty Morning

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With all the snow, sleet and freezing rain we’ve had recently, it was a relief this morning to wake up and find … fog! And not a pea soup variety but a gentle, mysterious, romantic kind of fog that softens the landscape and turns the trees into ghostly sentinels.

Here is a form of water molecule that we can handle, one that doesn’t need to be shoveled or sprinkled with melting crystals. 

Given the Arctic cold assaulting the midsection of the country, we’re lucky today to have what we have: not hard sub-zero temps but puddles of melted ice draped with mist and brume.