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Author: Anne Cassidy

Begin the Day

Begin the Day

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May is unfolding slowly here, with cool nights and days that stay firmly in the 70s. I think that’s about to change soon, so I’m enjoying this cool morning and the bird song I hear as I write this post.

The trees have fully leafed out and the annuals I’ve planted are taking root. In the front yard, the breakout roses have snuck up on me again. (They’re not as full and healthy as the roses here … I wish … but given the shade in which they struggle, at least they’re still alive.) In fact, all is green and growing here, especially the weeds!

Inside, clocks are ticking, Copper is napping (after our walk at 7) and I’m grabbing a few quiet moments of what promises to be a busy one.

Thinking of all the possibilities …

It’s a good way to begin the day.

Driving in the West

Driving in the West

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On Tuesday we drove from Moab to Denver so I could catch my afternoon flight. I took the first shift behind the wheel, as we left the red rocks and headed east.

Driving in the western U.S. is a completely different activity than driving here. The mechanics are the same, but the similarity ends there. The roads are wide open and speed limits are high (80 in Utah!).

I didn’t do much but hold the wheel, keep my foot on the gas and drink in the scenery. For the first two hours there were mesas and buttes and big skies. The Spotify music Drew found was the perfect accompaniment, especially the Jupiter movement from Holst’s “The Planets.”

In fact, the big brass and soaring melody seem to have been written not for the cold wastes of a celestial body — but for the awe-inspiring landscape I saw out my window.

Decades of Home

Decades of Home

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Last night, I arrived home from my short trip to visit Drew out West. I couldn’t help but think that 30 years earlier to the day (impossible to fathom!), I stepped off another plane with baby Suzanne in my arms as we began our new life in Virginia. Tom had arrived early to meet the moving truck while Suzanne and I snuck in a quick visit to Kentucky, so he picked us up at the airport and drove us to our new home.

It was a beautiful spring evening when we arrived at Fort Lee Street, a time of the day I know now (from hanging out with photographers) is called “the golden hour.” And I still remember that light, how soft it was, how full of promise.

Though the trees were shorter then, the neighborhood looked established, lived in. Kids had a game of touch football going in the yard across the street. There were two little girls next door and another one from down the street. I looked at the throng, thought of the playmates and babysitting potential, and smiled.

The next morning, Tom woke up and went in for his first day of work (which means he’s celebrating a work anniversary today, though he doesn’t make a big deal of it).

All this is to say that our roots in this clay soil go deep. They weren’t supposed to … but they did —and still do.

At Arches

At Arches

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How to describe the wonders we saw yesterday — the sandstone arches and pillars and domes?

They seem to be designed for a Hollywood western stage set. And yet they were real: a rough beauty.

 Luckily, I was traveling with my brother, who among other fine qualities also happens to be a geologist. He could point out the striations in the rock and explain that Balanced Rock probably wouldn’t topple while we were standing beneath it — or anytime this century.

And as for the double arches, they would be there for generations of other tourists to stand beneath, and marvel.

Colorado Sunday

Colorado Sunday

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Springtime in Colorado, snow in the high peaks, streams running strong from the melt. And tucked away in the southern part of the state, the tallest dunes in North America.

Formed by wind and weather, the dunes are a natural playground. Dogs frolic, teens toss footballs, kids drag sleds up a steep slope and slide down.

It was a beach without the ocean, a hill without the pine trees. It was more like a mountain warm-up act, with snow-capped peaks in the background.

And afterward, there was a drive through a constantly changing landscape, ending with red rocks. More on those tomorrow.

Peony for your Thoughts

Peony for your Thoughts

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It’s been here for decades, this peony. It doesn’t always thrive; some years it doesn’t even bloom. But it remains. A stalwart.

Does it like where it’s been planted? It looks more comfortable than usual this year. The greenery is full and the ants were in place (which is required, I believe), so I tucked the mulch carefully around the stems, and snapped this shot.

The peony was one of the originals I ordered in my early attempt at an English cottage garden, an idea that didn’t flourish in this hard-packed Virginia clay soil. But it reminds me of my youthful enthusiasm and my gardening naïveté. It harkens back to a time before deer ate most of the plants and stilt grass had yet to invade our turf.

But enough of this gardening gloom. It’s May, and the peony (singular) is in bloom. All’s right with the world!

Late-Day Stroll

Late-Day Stroll

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Copper and I had a delicious late evening walk the other night. There was a sliver of a fingernail moon just setting in the west, along with the sun.

There were birds darting everywhere, finishing up their late-day chores before bedding down for the night. There were bats, too, I suppose, just starting their day, though we didn’t see any.

Mostly, we just strolled at the pace that has become our own, which is to say much slower than either of us goes individually. He sniffed, I mulled. It was meditative, like pacing a labyrinth.

It was the perfect way to end the day.

Grateful Acceptance

Grateful Acceptance

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This ought to be an issue more than it is — accepting a Metro seat, that is. The truth is, very few are offered to me.

There are many ways to look at this. On one hand, you could say that people are selfish louts who seldom look up from their phone screens. Chivalry is not only dead, it’s frowned upon.

But the fact is, people are reluctant to give up seats not only because they enjoy sitting in them, but also because they’re unsure of the etiquette. Will a “woman of a certain age” be offended if said seat is offered? Will she take it as insult or generosity? So there’s the ambiguity issue.

But beyond that, there is, I was thinking yesterday, the acceptance issue. I often refuse the few seats offered to me. “I’ve been sitting all day,” I say. Or, “I don’t have many stops to go …” (in actuality, I get off at the end of the line).

Yesterday, however, I gratefully accepted the seat. I’d been sitting all day, so I didn’t need it. But I was glad to mute the Metro experience by sticking my nose in a book. I accepted the seat the young man (and he was a young man, with a neat haircut and wireless ear buds) generously offered. And I accepted it without hesitation. Graceful acceptance: sometimes it’s pressed upon us.

(Grabbing a seat no problem in this empty train!)

Grandfather Clock

Grandfather Clock

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It was almost dark when the four large boxes arrived. We knew they were on their way, and Tom was eagerly awaiting them. The boxes held a grandfather clock that’s been in his family for years. It sat in the hallway of the house where he was raised, then his sister Ginna took good care of it for more than a decade, and now, through her generosity, it sits in our living room.

So many memories of this clock, the hall it graced in the house in Indianapolis, the sights it has seen, the wonderful family that grew up around it.

There was some debate about where to put it, but the spot where it landed (or maybe a few more inches to the right!) makes it seem as if it always was there.

The arrival of such a timepiece, such a legacy, is big news indeed, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it in posts to come. But I wanted to welcome it today — and note that although it hasn’t run in years, it was set up at 9 p.m. on the nose. Which is exactly the hour it marks.

Sun Screen

Sun Screen

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Driving to Metro this morning I was squinting most of the way. It was full-on sun as I headed east. An early, low sun that slanted beneath my visor and almost blinded me at times.

I was counting on this sun, hoping it would warm the air and brighten the day. And it was complying. But it was doing it with such urgency that I felt within it the slow, sluggish air of July.

It was then — and later, as I loped around the block a couple times waiting for the bus — that I felt grateful for my sunglasses. When I put them on, the glare goes away, and I feel cooler, in more ways than one.

Even more than that, I feel protected, tucked away. As if the glasses screen me not just from the sun but from everything else, too.