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Author: Anne Cassidy

Moon Walk

Moon Walk

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The story last night was the moon, large and sultry and almost full. I had already walked in the morning, but when I got home last night I had to walk a little bit more, just to keep it company.

I watched it through the trees, waited for it to rise high enough to snap a shot of it free and clear.

But the chili was simmering on the stove back home, darkness was falling, and I realized I was strolling along neighborhood streets (no sidewalks, of course) wearing all black.

It was time to go home. The moon would have to wait. So I snapped a few more photos …

Then called it a night …

A Birthday, an Anniversary

A Birthday, an Anniversary

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The birthday of an oldest child is also an anniversary of parenthood. I celebrate a big one today.

I’ve been reliving the days and weeks leading up to Suzanne’s birth — how I’d wanted her to see the autumn leaves, but how the trees were almost bare by the time she was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on October 23. It didn’t dawn on me at the time that (in addition to the fact that she would be a newborn and focusing no further than the faces in front of her!) we wouldn’t always live there. I had no idea that by her first birthday we’d be living in Virginia, where the leaves have barely started changing in late October.

But here we are — and more to the point, here she is. After years in Africa, Suzanne now lives with her husband only 20 miles away. It’s only one of many amazing zigs (zags?) of the marvelously zigzagging road of parenthood. Which began for me (gulp!) 30 years ago today.

Happy Birthday, Suzanne!

Window Seat

Window Seat

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Usually I sit on the aisle. But not when the American West is involved. Yesterday I grabbed a window seat so I could snap the vistas when I saw them … the jagged peaks and dark valleys.

… a river snaking through brown hills,

… a blue lake shaped like a jigsaw puzzle piece,

… and the snowy, showy Grand Tetons.

I was never quite sure where I was — but my phone camera’s location finder knew. We flew over the Cascades, down to Pomeroy in southeastern Washington State. From there over Sugar City and Dubois, Idaho, to Bridger-Teton and Medicine Bow National Forests in Wyoming. And from there, we flew into Denver.

Those were the geographic realities. But from my window seat I saw only shapes and shadows, geometric purity. It seemed like I was seeing the essence of things.

Seattle Fog

Seattle Fog

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Yesterday morning the fog in the air matched the fog in my brain. It flitted between my ears like so much cotton batting. I walked to the light rail line hoping both fogs would clear, the internal and the external.

I was optimistic, because it was already brightening, and though my breath came out in clouds, the humidity added warmth.

By 2 p.m., the sky was blue, and we’d found a place to grab some lunch. The mind was thinking clearer.  And the Seattle fog … was gone.

The Hills

The Hills

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To live in a city of hills is to know long views and low valleys. It’s to feel that pain in the back of the legs that comes from uphill climbs. It’s to know the slow trudge and the quick downhill.

It’s not always easy, but ease is not always the point.

As I prepare to leave Seattle tomorrow, I will keep many images in my heart, snapshots of a city that Celia has grown to love.

I will remember the city blocks and the flaming maples and Mount Rainier looking down on it all.

It has brought a psalm to mind — timeless, eternal source of strength: “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

Kubota Garden

Kubota Garden

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It’s where Seattle goes on a sunny day … or at least it felt that way last Sunday. There were lovers and families and dog walkers. The elderly in wheel chairs and walkers. Cameras with tripods, their earnest photographers snapping shots of engaged couples and even a bride.

Kubota Gardens is an oasis of green in the midst of the city. Even a city as green as Seattle, one nestled between water and mountains, needs the relaxation potential of an urban park. Kubota satisfies all the senses: the splash of water, the aroma of autumn leaves — and everywhere, flaming foliage, artful arrangements of flower and leaf and grass.

This time of year, Kubota is a riot of reds, oranges and yellows, as the Japanese maple, euonymus and  gingko flare up in their rich tones.

I did a lot of people watching on Sunday, a lot of strolling and stopping, a lot of deep breathing. It was just the respite I needed before a hectic week.

Other People’s Houses

Other People’s Houses

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You can call it a bed and breakfast, an Airbnb or a VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner), but when you come right down to it, you’re staying in someone else’s house. Someone you didn’t know before and will probably never see again.

But while you’re there (here), you become intimately acquainted with the play of morning light on window blinds, the amount of pressure required to turn the faucet, the location of the bathroom light switch so you can flick it on in the dark.

I’m a private person, one who doesn’t take naturally to early morning conversation with strangers while making a cup of tea … but somehow, this works for me.

It’s calming to stay in a house rather than a hotel. It feels as if I’m part of a community and not just visiting. And indeed I am — just one member of a band of travelers who want to see a place from the inside out.

Peak Experience

Peak Experience

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The Chief Sealth Trail winds its way through southeastern Seattle for almost five miles. Though I’d read about it in my Airbnb welcome note and tried to find it on a map, it was proving elusive to pinpoint — at least in cyberspace.

In the long run I literally ran into it. Walking down 32nd Street, I saw a rise, an opening, a grassy meadow, a break in the cityscape. It was the trail!

I turned left, and the sight almost took my breath away. There was Mount Rainier looming large in the sunset sky.  I couldn’t find an angle that didn’t involve power lines, but there it was, Seattle’s iconic mountain.

When I reached my place, I told Cris, Airbnb host, how excited I was to spot the peak. Oh yes, she said. But you can see it from our house, too. She led me to the dining room window, pointed off in the distance. And there it was again, only slightly less imposing.

Sometimes, peak experiences are closer than you think.

A Walker in Seattle

A Walker in Seattle

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We’ve been walking up hills and down, from Pioneer Square to the International District, then hopping a bus to Ballard where we walked some more.  We chugged up hills as steep as San Francisco’s, and stopped at a local watering hole for sustenance.

I’ve already walked one route twice, from my Airbnb to Celia’s place. And last night I finally found the Chief Sealth Trail (more about that later).

For now, I’ll just say that Seattle has rolled out its grandest strolling weather for this walker in the suburbs. … walker in Seattle, I should say.

Coast to Coast

Coast to Coast

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Speaking of “above it all,” … I’m about to take off for Seattle, a flight from Washington, D.C., to Washington State. In fact, I’m writing this at Dulles Airport while a history program on the popes of Avignon — “the papacy was more or less captured by the king of France” — drones on the television.

From one extreme  — an expanse of sky; the miracle of flight; a miracle, period — to the other, the absurdity of the particular.

Modern travelers are strung between these two. The wonder of the firmament outside, cramped seats and coffee inside.

Here’s hoping that the miraculous part of this flight holds up its end of the bargain.