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Author: Anne Cassidy

Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye

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A few minutes ago, while working on the deck, I heard the distinctive low buzz of a hummingbird. It was not, as usual, sipping the nectar from the feeder or plumbing the petals of the New Guinea impatiens. It was, as far as I can tell, taking a closer look at me.

These tiny birds are entering their final days in this part of the world. Every glimpse I have may be my last of the season. 

So when this tiny creature entered my air space, did a few star turns and hovered in front of me, I held my breath. It was a moment of transcendence, a moment of quiet communion. The bird, I’m convinced, was saying goodbye.

(An update on this post: I saw a hummingbird a full week later, so not quite goodbye then after all!)

Recess at Home

Recess at Home

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Fairfax County may be holding virtual classes, but there is no such thing as virtual recess. That is being held in backyards, on street corners and in cul-de-sacs across the area. 

For those of us lucky enough to work out of our homes, lunchtime and recess happen outside our windows, where a fleet of bicycles and a chorus of young voices serenade us during our humdrum workdays. There are scooters and chalk art, shovels and buckets, games with their own sets of rules that we adults can never fathom. There is childhood on full display.

I’m not so far removed from child rearing that I don’t appreciate what’s going on here. All romanticizing of recess aside, parents of young children must be pulling their hair out. 

All the more reason to smile when youthful exuberance spills out onto the streets. Or at least that’s how I’m feeling now. It’s not quite time for recess yet. 

Forty-Nine!

Forty-Nine!

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It was 49 degrees when I woke up this morning. While we have moved up into the low 60s, I’m still wrapped in a blanket wearing a wool sweater (the first time to don my toasty new Inishmore-knit cardigan) and sipping hot chai.

My plan, you see, is to work outside as long as I can this season. But based on my wimpy response today I barely give myself to the end of the month. 

Given where I live, however, I realize I could be sweating in record-breaking humidity in just a few days. So for now, I plan to sit tight, wrap up when necessary, shed layers when not, and write al fresco until the cold chases me indoors.

Quiet Sigh

Quiet Sigh

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This morning’s walk gave me a taste of fall: brown leaves on the roadside, thick clouds in the sky. There were fewer people about, and I picked up my pace just to get warm.

Autumn arrives next week, but tell that to the crickets, which are chirping more slowly these days, and to the cicadas, which aren’t chirping at all.

Working outside now, I glance up at the roses that twine on top of the pergola, a few of them in second bloom.  I notice how thinned out they have become, how fragile.

It’s still a humid, green world, but the edges are peeling away to reveal what’s been hidden beneath all the time: the bare trunks of winter, the quiet sigh of fall. 

Grandparents’ Day

Grandparents’ Day

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It’s the first Sunday after Labor Day, which means …  it’s Grandparents’ Day! This is the first time I’ve ever paid much attention to this day, though I think I occasionally sent my parents my kids’ hand-scrawled notes around this time of year. Now, I’m the grandparent. I’m still wondering how that happened! 

But, since it did, I decided to look into the derivation of the holiday. Turns out, Grandparents’ Day is not a Hallmark creation. It was started in 1956 by a woman in West Virginia who volunteered with older folks and wanted to create a way to honor them. Grandparents’ Day became a national holiday in 1978. 

What I also learned from googling, though, is that today is Father’s Day in Latvia and Macedonia, Day of the Homeland in Germany, and Knabenschiessen (a holiday based around a target-shooting competition) in Switzerland. It’s also National Peanut Day. 

So we grandparents don’t have a lock on this day. Like every other holiday, we have to share it. 

Goin’ to the Chapel

Goin’ to the Chapel

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My niece is getting married today, so the family is gathering at an inn on the Chesapeake Bay for the ceremony and reception. I had a sneak preview of the spot at the rehearsal dinner last night. It’s right on the water, with gulls and boats and waves. Though less than two hours from home, it’s another world.

For the most part, my tenure as an aunt has coincided with my tenure as a mother. I had little time to relish the role in and of itself. But I felt a trace of pure “aunt-ness” yesterday … with the promise of more to come today.

It’s the same kind of love and pride you feel with your own children, just one layer removed. And, because there is more distance, there is also more perspective. At a wedding, especially, where I’ll have to do no more than a reading during the ceremony and the rest of the time enjoy myself. 

It brings back memories of almost exactly four years ago, when we turned our back yard into a wedding venue for Suzanne and Appolinaire. Weddings are like that, I think. They carry within them memories of nuptials past. 

Better Late …

Better Late …

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Most of the crepe myrtles in the neighborhood have long since bloomed and faded. The rose and magenta shades have faded to a translucent brown, the petals have dried and fallen.

But for some reason, the lavender-hued crepe myrtle in the front yard always begins and ends its blooming late in the season. Which means that instead of late-summer color, there’s early-fall color. 

I’ve meant to snap a photo against blue skies and puffy clouds. But those days came and went. Instead, yesterday’s rains have weighted the stems and leaves enough that they’re hanging their heads for a closeup.  I snapped a shot of their muted blossoms in between the showers. 

Simplicity

Simplicity

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I learned from the Writer’s Almanac  that today is the birthday of the poet Mary Oliver, who lived from 1935 to 2019. I discovered her only years before her passing, reading her prose before her poetry. But it poetry that she was known for and poetry that won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. 

Today’s entry includes a few words from Oliver about what she needed, which wasn’t much:

“I’ve always wanted to write poems and nothing else. There were times over the years when life was not easy, but when you can work a few hours a day and you’ve got a good book to read and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you’re okay.”

I will hold onto that simplicity today. 

Six Months

Six Months

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I snapped this photo of an empty movie theater after watching a film during Oscar season last winter. I didn’t know then that it would be my last visit to a theater in a very long time. 

A lapse in theater-going is only the tip of the pandemic iceberg, of course. It dawned on me yesterday that today would mark six months since I last worked in my office. I had a conference elsewhere that week, so I put in a full day in the office on March 9 and attended a conference downtown March 10-12. 

Everything changed on March 13. Shutdown orders were flying, quarantines were closing in. I managed to squeak in some errands, and even went to church that Sunday, March 15. But after that, I climbed inside and closed the hatch. Millions of others did the same. 

And where are we now? There have been almost 6.5 million cases in the U.S. alone, and almost 190,000 deaths. Global cases are topping out at 27,615, 676, and the numbers are on the increase in most parts of the world. 

Someday we will better understand this disease, someday we will have a vaccine for it. But until then, we isolate, mask and clean. It’s a new world — and we’re six months into it. 

All Dressed Up…

All Dressed Up…

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It’s the day after Labor Day, a momentous occasion that used to strike fear and excitement in the hearts of my children and all the kiddos in this area — and equal amounts of glee and relief for their parents. 

It was a day marked with the arrival of the big yellow buses lumbering down the street and stopping at the corner, where a parade of scrubbed schoolchildren with shiny new backpacks would step into them — and be whisked off to their new lives. 

That has all changed this year with the decision to hold virtual classes only in Fairfax County. There’s little glee and relief for parents, who are trying to make their children sit still for six hours of online education.  And there are no big yellow buses plying the neighborhood streets. Caption them … “all dressed up — and nowhere to go.”