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Author: Anne Cassidy

Driving In

Driving In

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Every so often, I drive to the office rather than taking Metro. Whenever I do, I’m amazed at how easy it is to get here. Public transportation turns a journey into a series of segments — the drive to the Metro, the Orange Line ride to Rosslyn, changing to the Blue Line for the five stops to Crystal City, then the walk from the Metro Station to the office.

On the other hand, driving in is all of a piece. Yes, there are directions to follow; there is merging, passing and the usual frustrations of life behind the wheel. But in terms of steps taken, it’s simple.

Why don’t I do it all the time, you wonder. Because I can’t, at least not easily.  The most direct route charges solo drivers up to $50 for the privilege of traveling nine miles on pockmarked roads. So unless I have a passenger, or the high-occupancy vehicle restrictions are lifted, I take Metro.

This is good for my carbon footprint, but bad for the only bottom line that really matters in the end —  time spent.

As I was strolling to the office from the parking garage this morning, I noticed how close it is to what will be our new office location. That may be incentive enough to drive in the long-way around (which is possible). Maybe that will be my treat to myself for the next year or two. A bit more simplicity, and, in the end, a lot more time.

Lasting Impressions

Lasting Impressions

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Remembering where I was this time last year, zooming through the streets of Phnom Penh in a tuk-tuk, about to leave for the eastern part of the country, where I would have a strange and unforgettable experience with bats.

The trips I’ve taken the last few years will never leave me. Though the reporting I’ve done has long since been turned into articles, the impressions it left will always be part of my writing.

They come in especially handy when I need to remind myself that the world is much larger than my little corner of it. The last few days I’ve been remembering a woman who seemed the incarnation of sadness. She had been trafficked, beaten and abused. Through a series of remarkable occurrences she found her way back home. But the poverty she returned to was so severe — her kids ate rice and roasted rat because that’s all they had — that it wouldn’t surprise me to learn she’d once again taken her chances with a job offer abroad.

She was a beautiful woman whose children hugged her tenderly. They seemed to know what she had done for them. How could they not?

February Flowers

February Flowers

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I photographed these daffodils on February 7. They were sheltered by a brick wall and no doubt blooming early because of it. But yesterday, I noticed that my own daffodil shoots are plumped with buds — and they’re not sheltered at all.

The winter jasmine has been out since January,  the early spring buttercups for at least two weeks and I just spied a Lenten rose. I wrote about snowdrops a while ago; they’ve been blooming almost a month now.


If spring continues unabated we’ll have a three-month-long procession of bloom, starting with the shyest white crocus and leading up to the gaudiest pink Kwanzan cherry. It’s the other side of global warming — an early spring. And right now, I’m feeling grateful for it. 
Food Palace

Food Palace

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For the last couple of years I’ve shopped for food at a discount grocery chain where prices are low and brands are simple: basically there’s one. This means there’s limited selection, and I like it this way. There’s no need to deliberate, so I save time and energy.

A couple days ago I found myself in the antithesis of this grocery store. I found myself in a Food Palace. There were a dozen types of pate, mushrooms so exotic I’d never heard of them and a bakery to die for. It was chaotic and amusing. I was often bewildered. But the mushrooms were delicious when sautéed in butter — and I tore into the chewy but tender Tuscan pane on the way home.

It was as if the food choices I’ve eschewed these last two years had gathered around and started taunting me. See what you’ve been missing, they said.  Look at this richness, this bounty.

I looked, I appreciated. But the very next day I went back to my discount grocer.

Celebrating Neighbors

Celebrating Neighbors

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Research has proven that our moods may be lifted higher by a random conversation than by all the cajoling of a close loved one. If this is true — and I have anecdotal evidence that it is — neighbors are likely some of its greatest practitioners.

Neighbors are the ones we bump into while picking up the newspaper at the mailbox (regrettably, while wearing a bathrobe some mornings). The ones we grumble with during the fall raking season. And they are the ones whose banter may unwittingly set our day on a upward course. 
We were lucky enough to fall into a group of neighbors all relatively new to the neighborhood when we moved in. Most had young children, many had chosen this neighborhood for the big backyards and nearby woods. In a region I always thought would be transient, this neighborhood has been remarkably stable. It’s a place where people notice, where people care.

Last night we said farewell to some of our oldest, dearest neighbors. Though I’m sad to lose them, the send-off was such a celebration of neighborliness that I’m left not with sadness, but with joy.

(A Virginia neighborhood from the air.)
Acoustic

Acoustic

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How to catalog the sounds of the walk I took this morning? The crunch of stiffened grass, the swish of my parka as I strolled through the chill. The pounding of my feet on frozen ground.

It’s been for the most part a warm, gray, sodden winter. But today it’s blue skies and brisk air.

Most of all, it’s the music of the a frosty morning.

Many Loves

Many Loves

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On a day dedicated to love, I think of my people and of love’s many faces. Of romantic love and parental love, the love of friends.

I think about the love we have for those who are gone, and the love we have for animals. The love we have for place, for movement, for moving through space, which I celebrate on these pages.

So many loves we are given. Loves that light the way. Even when we don’t see them, they are there.

Team-Work

Team-Work

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An email newsletter I edit has a feature we call Team-Work. We decided to use a hyphen, though the word is typically spelled without it. I can’t remember now exactly why we did that, except it had something to do with emphasizing the separate nature of those words, the “team” and the “work.”

I bring this up today because, perhaps like many of us, I thrive on a mixture of teamwork and solo endeavors. The percentages of the mix depend on many things, including how busy I am and how protective I am of the product in question.

Lately I’ve realized that I wouldn’t make a very good ghostwriter. Though most of what I write now is without a byline, I’m well compensated for it and believe in the institution. In other situations, I enjoy getting credit for what I write. Not exactly teamwork, but there you have it.

Which is why I chose the multicolored rag rug photo to illustrate this post. It reminds me of the power and the beauty that’s possible when many become one.

Begin Again

Begin Again

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All is calm on the back end of the blog this morning: 3,000 posts, 3,000 published, no drafts. There’s a sense of fulfillment and completion. Which means there’s a part of me (the tired part!) that wants to say, let’s take a break.

But of course, that part of me won’t win out. Not because thousands of fans are clamoring for each new post. Hardly! But because life is all about starting over.

So this is a post about doing that, every day. It’s time to begin again … like it always is.

3,000!

3,000!

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A few months ago, when it became apparent that I was closing in on the blog’s 3,000th entry about the same time that I would celebrate its 10-year anniversary, I stepped up my posting schedule.

I’ve always written a post every weekday and usually one on weekends. But once I realized how close these two moments would be I started posting every day.

When I did the math I realized it would be close, really close, but I would be off by four — 2996 posts on February 7, the blog’s tenth birthday.

So I had a dilemma. Should I actually post twice a day for several days? How obsessive was I going to be?  Apparently, thankfully … not enough!