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Author: Anne Cassidy

Ten Years and a Day

Ten Years and a Day

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It’s been ten years since Mom died. It’s been ten years and a day since I last heard her voice.

I heard it at Metro Center, where I was walking to the spot where I’d wait for an Orange Line train to Vienna. My phone rang. It was my sister, Ellen.

“I thought you’d want to talk to Mom. She’s feeling better.”

Mom’s voice was breathless and bubbly. She sounded girlish, giddy.

“Hi, hi,” she said. I distinctly remember that she said “hi” twice. Not because she was confused, it seemed, but because she was excited.

“Hi, Mom. I’m on my way home from work. I’ll be coming to see you tomorrow.”

Ellen got back on the line and quickly rang off. I’d be with both of them the next day; there was no need for conversation. Except there was, because that was the last conversation.

What I’ve thought since then is that maybe Mom’s final words to me were a replay of her first ones. I imagine her holding the newborn me, cooing and smiling and saying, “hi, hi.”

Mom and I were big talkers. Through the years we spent countless hours chatting, solving all the world’s problems. Could it be that this long conversation began and ended with a two-letter word, with a word that is little more than a breath?

Evening Walk

Evening Walk

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It was after 6 before I had time to walk yesterday. The sky was reddening in the west and striated clouds were softening the light. The day was ending early as it does this time of year. I wasn’t ready for evening, but it was coming for me anyway.

I passed others on my stroll. They must have known about the beauties of this time of day, this time of year. Or maybe, like me, they were surprised by the subtle radiance of this particular evening.

The air was so soft and fresh I wished I’d left a half an hour earlier. Even 30 minutes more would have made a difference. The twilight was serene, self-contained. As darkness fell I pulled off my dark sweatshirt and wrapped it around my waist. The light gray t-shirt underneath would help me stand out from the gathering dusk.

As I reached the end of the block, turning for home, a Dulles-bound jet caught sunlight on its wings. A sun I could no longer see because it had slipped below my horizon.

Books in the Woods

Books in the Woods

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Books in the woods. These volumes and their inconspicuous case blend in so well with the trees that I walk past them half the time. But that makes finding them all the more special.

Little Free Libraries are one of the more positive “shopping” developments of the last two decades. Having a safe, dry place to trade books is inspired and simple. It’s further evidence that a barter economy is taking hold.

Most Little Free Libraries are stationed on suburban lanes, but this one is accessible only on foot. Only walkers can partake of its bounty, which seems to improve its stock.

Because this small bookcase is available only to those who happen upon it in their woodland walks, it seems akin to fairy forts and pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Not exactly magic … but close to it.

Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled Eggs

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Paul McCartney woke up one day in 1963 with a melody in his head. For a long time he thought it wasn’t his. He had grown up with dancehall tunes, and he figured it must be one of those. He played it for John Lennon, who didn’t recognize it. At a party, he played it for Alma Cogan, a 1950s British pop star. She didn’t recognize it either.

Meanwhile, Cogan’s mother entered the room, asking who might like some scrambled eggs, writes Ian Leslie in his fine book John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs. McCartney realized that the syllables were right and created the first lyrics to what would become arguably his most famous song: “Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs.”

For a song conceived almost in a dream, it took a year and a half for McCartney to figure out something more than these nonsense lyrics. That happened when he was half asleep in a cab on his way to a borrowed villa in Portugal and came up with the idea of starting each verse with three-syllable words: yesterday, suddenly. He finished writing “Yesterday” during his 1965 holiday in Portugal.

Ever since I read this story weeks ago in Leslie’s book, I’ve had “Scrambled Eggs” in my head, too. More than an ear worm, it’s a telling example of creativity’s weirdness. We don’t know when inspiration will strike, the forms it will take, or how long it will tug at our sleeves before we can decode it. For some reason, I find this enormously comforting.

Home to Home

Home to Home

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Yesterday I walked from my daughter’s house to my own. It was an impromptu decision, though mapped out earlier. There was one tricky part, involving passage on what I thought was a trail but could not be absolutely sure wasn’t a driveway.

My trespassing days are over (though never say never) so I was hoping there were no fences to scale. I was relieved that there were not. I walked the three miles absolutely legitimately.

These were suburban miles, to be sure. Not a bucolic woodland trail but a paved path along a four-lane road where motorists drive 10 or even 20 miles above the posted 40 miles-per-hour limit.

Still, I’d achieved what once I could never have imagined — I’d made my way, on foot, from one home to another. It felt like a break-through. In fact, it was.

Take a Hike

Take a Hike

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I’ve developed a cautious approach to reading the newspaper these days. I want to be informed, but refuse to let the news dictate my day. I’ll scan the headlines, dip into stories that interest me, perhaps read a few op-eds, then call it a day.

This morning I lingered over a story that fits perfectly into the philosophy of A Walker in the Suburbs. A counselor at a Maine high school, transformed by her own hike on the Appalachian Trail, decided to offer a hike instead of detention to students caught skipping class or talking back to their teachers.

While students grumbled and some parents worried that this wasn’t punishment enough, the counselor persisted. A year later, students report that the hikes have enlarged their perspectives. They feel soothed and encouraged by the three-mile expeditions. Some feel invested in school for the first time. Others hike even when they’re not in detention.

Solvitur ambulando is the unofficial motto of this blog. “It is solved by walking.” It is also solved by being outside, watching the play of light on trees, joining the parade of seasons, trudging the extra mile.

I’m always heartened to find further proof of these truths.

Volunteer Forest

Volunteer Forest

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During a celebratory bounce on the trampoline yesterday I noticed (not for the first time) that I didn’t plant most of the trees in which it’s nestled. Most of them are volunteers. They landed in their spots from errant seeds and saplings, and our careful mowing preserved them in their infancy.

In fact, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that most of the trees in the back yard are scrappy survivors — the tulip poplar, weeping cherry and sassafras tree. They remind me that, as I mentioned a few days ago, you never know.

One of the most beautiful volunteers is the Japanese maple. Early next month its leaves will turn scarlet, lighting up the leafless yard.

Are “accidental trees” hardier than their planted cousins? Seems to me they are. Perhaps they hold lessons for us all.

Look Up

Look Up

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I had only enough time to do the two-mile loop in my neighborhood, the most pedestrian of pedestrian experiences. It was mid-afternoon, and warm. My feet were dragging. And then I thought to look up.

The sky was shockingly blue, so much bluer than the sky you see in this photo, and the foliage so much greener. The orange tree, which I notice turns earlier than the others every year, added contrast.

I caught my breath at the loveliness of it all. What palettes lie hidden in even the most familiar landscape? I could have been staring at the luminous hues of an Impressionist garden or the weathered face of a Dutch master.

It’s not like I don’t look up when I walk. But this time, it was a revelation. It was as if I hadn’t seen the sky before or the trees framing it.

It was just an ordinary walk, but I looked up, and that made all the difference.

La Bella Luna

La Bella Luna

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Whenever I see a big moon I think of the movie “Moonstruck,” one of my favorites. “La bella luna,” the characters say, when an impossibly large moon beams through their windows in Brooklyn.

Last night an impossibly large moon beamed through my windows in Virginia. It shone in a near-cloudless sky. It stole the show.

I thought of other moon viewings, of how this heavenly body can comfort and caress us.

The good folks at the Capital Weather Gang explained that this year’s Harvest Moon appears large — is in fact a super moon — because it is both full and as close to the earth as it can be. It is at its perigee, a scientific term that contains an exclamation.

“Gee!” is right. It was quite a moon. And it will be almost full for the next two nights.

Art and Artifice

Art and Artifice

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A year ago I moved this blog to a new site. It seemed a big deal at the time, and still is in a way. The old site was like a well-loved but outgrown home. It had small rooms and creaky corners, but I knew its quirks.

Now A Walker in the Suburbs lives in a new place that I’m only beginning to understand. SEO? At least I know the letters stand for Search Engine Optimization. Meta description? I try to write one every day. Social support? Rarely, I admit.

It’s the eternal struggle between inspiration and presentation, between art and artifice. For me, this blog is still about the words on the page, not how those words move through the ether. I began the blog with that purpose — and I honor it still.

(The village of Kaysersberg, France provides a “frame” through which you can photograph it. More art and artifice.)