Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Blank Slate

Blank Slate

Comments 0 Comment

I’ve started off the new year with almost as much clutter as before — with one notable exception: I cleared off one counter in the kitchen. I banished the bread box, moved the canisters and corralled the papers. Which means I begin 2020 with one clean sweep of vintage Formica.

I’m not sure why I did this, but there must be a deep-seated need to begin the year with a blank slate, to clear the way for 12 more months of experiences … and stuff.

Nature abhors a vacuum, of course, especially in this house, and things are constantly piling up on the counter: newspapers, mail, glasses, crumbs. But so far nothing I can’t dispatch quickly to its intended spot or to the recycling bin.

This won’t last long, I know. The house in general is full to bursting. There’s a warren of boxes in the basement, and a vanity and bathtub in the garage … but here in my kitchen, at this very moment, there is a lovely open countertop. And I’m going to keep it that way as long as I can.

Little Women

Little Women

Comments 0 Comment

We were at least 20 or 30 minutes into the new film version of “Little Women” before Jo uttered the famous first line: “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.” But the disjointed telling of Louisa May Alcott’s tale is one of my few quibbles with this lovely new movie.

What a moral world Louisa May Alcott has created for us in Little Women, and what a fulsome rendition of it director Greta Gerwig has brought to life in this new adaptation. Seeing it with one of my own “little women,” I thought about the world it evokes and the world she and her sisters inhabit — a world where personal sacrifices seem as out of place as dance cards and turned collars.

I devoured Alcott books as a girl and took their lessons to heart. They are simple and old-fashioned — be kind, work hard, think of others and not just yourself — but as difficult to follow now as they were then. It’s not as if the modern world doesn’t celebrate these virtues too, but the concept of self-improvement, that we are pilgrims on a moral journey, often seems lost in bits and bytes and likes.

Being immersed in an earlier time for two hours, albeit glamorized and spit-polished, made me realize what we have lost. It is much indeed.


(Photo: “Little Women,” Sony Pictures)

Whiff of a Resolution

Whiff of a Resolution

Comments 0 Comment

At this time of year ought we to be skeptical of the new behaviors we see in others? Was it my imagination or did the energetic jogger I noticed on the street the other day look down a bit sheepishly? Did he realize what I was thinking, that I was wondering whether he’ll be running this time next month?

And to use myself as an example, will the perennial “don’t worry, be happy” resolution prompt people to think “Hmmmm …. she sure seems cheerful … there’s a whiff of a resolution about her?” Probably not, of course. People aren’t thinking about much other than their own concerns, understandably.

If resolutions are even made anymore, then this time of year ought to witness some of the kindest and gentlest of interactions, both in person and in traffic. With the exception of the dieters, of course. They are allowed to be cranky.

For us resolution-makers whose earnest attempts invite knowing smiles or arched eyebrows, let’s just plow on. Yes, there may be whiff of a resolution about us … but that’s just the aroma of change.

Flip Side

Flip Side

Comments 0 Comment

Washington, D.C., had its first official snow day yesterday, with a quick-moving and more-powerful-than-anticipated storm closing federal government offices and sending commuters and school kids out on deteriorating roads.

It was a chaotic scene that’s now replaced by the peacefulness of a snow-crusted Wednesday morning. I’m working in front of a window with the transformed world spread out before me. Every limb and branch is coated in white with crows providing the contrast. When birds land on a snow-covered limb, a bit of the white stuff falls to the ground in a small clump, creating a second gentle snowfall.

I’m not a skier or skater. Walking and shoveling are the occupations that get me out into the elements. But I love these snowscapes just the same. They are a monochromatic, matte version of the usual scenery, a flip side, so to speak.

Absolutely Ridiculous!

Absolutely Ridiculous!

Comments 0 Comment

Early January requires a sense of humor, I’ve decided. Holidays behind us, long nights and bad weather ahead, we must cultivate a lighter way of looking at things. This does not come easily — especially with the doom and gloom that come to us regularly from the airwaves and our phones.

Watching comedies helps. So does talking to upbeat people, animals (though they seldom talk back) or, in a pinch, to one’s self (again, talking back seldom happens, or at least let’s hope that it doesn’t).

The right kind of book can also do the trick. The Salt Path, which I just finished, is one example; of course there are thousands of them. And then there is noticing the silly and ridiculous details of daily life. That works best of all.

Everyday Epiphanies

Everyday Epiphanies

Comments 0 Comment

This year the feast of the Epiphany falls on the first back-to-work-and-school day. For some, it may even delay the first back-to-work day. For me, back-to-the-office cannot be postponed … so I’ll just have to be astonished by the daily grind.

Maybe this is not such a bad thing. Maybe we need to take our epiphanies where we find them, not just in the grand celebrations of life but in the everyday moments — hopping on Metro, settling into the office, getting a glass of water at the kitchen sink.

It’s difficult to find wonder in the everyday, but it is, I think, what we were born for.

Over Again?

Over Again?

Comments 0 Comment

Even though I worked last Thursday and Friday, I did so at home, so tomorrow looms as the first real return day. In reflecting over the Christmas that was, I relive the lovely moments with family and friends, surely the highlight of this or any other holiday.

I also recall a day I’ll remember for its contentment, when I felt strangely happy. I say strangely because I was fighting a cold and still had a lot to do: all the cards to write, gifts to wrap and baking to do. But the tree was up and decorated and a marathon of biblical movies flickered on TV.

I addressed envelopes and curled ribbons to the soundtrack from “King of Kings” (I watched the film some too, but I listened more than looked). The majesty of that music seemed more fitting than any Christmas carol, and I went about my holiday tasks with a new sense of meaning and anticipation.

It was just a moment, but it was such a pleasant one that it seems to encapsulate all this holiday’s happy moments. Now I sit in front of that same tree, which must soon be taken down, and, well, I just wish I could do it all over again.

The Hawk Next Door

The Hawk Next Door

Comments 0 Comment

This morning I saw in a neighbor’s tree the unmistakable silhouette of a hawk. A wild thing partially tamed, this bird, because the neighbors (who hunt with bow and arrow) leave hunks of deer meat about for it to chew on.

If it sounds like I live in the woods or up a mountain, be assured that this is indeed the suburbs. But such is the wide array of residents here that this hawk sits hunched in contemplation, looking as if he owns the place — because he thinks he does!

I love that he’s nearby, though I’m glad I have no small cats to tempt him. But the presence of this bird of prey, his cries in the morning fog, remind me of the wild world that waits just outside my door. A world I’m just about to walk in…


(Couldn’t find a photo of a hawk, so an owl will have to do.)

The Salt Path

The Salt Path

Comments 0 Comment

My first book of 2020 is one I began in 2019, The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. The author and her husband, both in their 50s, suddenly find themselves homeless and decide to walk the South West Coast Path in England.

It’s not what one usually decides to do in such a situation, so right from the start I was hooked. And the further I read (I’m less than 50 pages from the end), the more I know that if I were to find myself homeless, walking the South West Coast Path would be something that I would want to do, too.

It’s about how to survive when nothing is going your way, about taking control when it would be far easier to left fate roll you over. It’s about the couple finding the “strip of wildness that was ours” between the rocks and the sea, about feeling both “confined and set free.”

“Drawn to the edge, a strip of wilderness where we could be free to let the answers come, or not, to find a way of accepting life, our life, whatever that was. Were we searching this narrow margin between the land and sea for another way of being, becoming edgelanders along the way? Stuck between one world and the next. Walking a thin line between tame and wild, lost and found, life and death. At the edge of existence.”

Winn may not know the answers (yet), but she certainly has figured out the questions.

Frosted Fields

Frosted Fields

Comments 0 Comment

An early walk on a Reston trail, one of my favorites. This is a paved path that winds between backyards and parkland before connecting with the Cross-County Trail. It’s cool and enticing in the summer because of the tall oaks that shade it — and no less lovely in the winter.

It was a quiet amble —  not a soul about — and the stillness rang in my ears. Birds fluttered in the hedges, and the stream, normally gurgling, was quiet in the cold. It was chilly, so I walked fast from the get-go, flipping up the hood on my parka and balling up my fists inside old gloves.

But three quarters of the way down on the left, I had to stop. The wetland landscape there was transformed by frost. Matted grasses gleamed with white and broken tree trunks loomed above them. There was thin ice where the creek water ponds and a monochromatic beauty throughout.

Beauty is always welcome, but never more than when it is unexpected.