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Author: Anne Cassidy

Giant’s Causeway

Giant’s Causeway

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Giant’s Causeway is scenery on a large scale. If it was an opera, it would be “Aida,” something with elephants and processions.

The rocks themselves were made from lava flows that quickly crystallized. But what captured my attention wasn’t just the geology of the place; it was the beauty. The blue-gray churn of the Atlantic, the green of the low hills and the colorful jackets and parkas of humans clambering over rocks.

We walked in and out of rain, but in between, the sun sparkled on damp heather and a rainbow shimmered. We walked a while on a high coastal path that took us by cows grazing with a million-dollar view. Didn’t matter to them. They just chewed their cud and swished their tales.

Scotland is less than 30 miles from the slice of the Antrim coast we saw today. It feels like we’re at the far northern tip of the world.

(Photos to come when wi-fi is more alert!)

Saving Civilization

Saving Civilization

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To get ready for the trip I began reading How the Irish Saved Civilization, which describes how Irish monks sitting in beehive huts painstakingly and lovingly copied the great classical manuscripts.

When the rest of Europe was overrun with barbarian hordes, this rainy, out-of-the-way island was quietly making all the difference.

It’s exciting that we’re actually going to see some of these beehive huts on the Dingle Peninsula and on the island of Inishmore, two of the stops we’re making.

But first … there’s more packing to be done.

Next stop, Dublin!

Emerald-Isle-Bound!

Emerald-Isle-Bound!

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Tomorrow we leave for Ireland. The routes are planned, the car is reserved. It will be a stick shift (left -hand drive), which means an adventure from the get-go.

It’s been decades since I visited the “auld sod” with Mom. We had more than two weeks on the road with plenty of time to look up Concannons, Longs and other relatives. We found a road in Barna, outside Galway, and a man who was the spitting image of my grandfather. He told us that the Concannons on one side of the road didn’t speak with the Concannons on the other side of the road. We knew then that we had found the right family.

We also located two old bachelor second cousins once removed. Gerard and John Long lived down a long lane in County Clare. Their simple cottage had a tin roof and no plumbing. They took out their finest linens and china and served us a cup of tea with toasted brown bread. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

It’s a different Ireland now — but one I can’t wait to explore!

Summer Sublime

Summer Sublime

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On a walk Sunday evening, a last-minute stroll at the end of the weekend that wasn’t, I reveled in the sheer perfection of the air. Neither too hot nor too cool. It’s taken two months, but summer seems to have finally hit its stride.

The crepe myrtle are sending shoots of color along the lanes and the begonias have flourished with all the rain, filling pots with big, fat bouquets. Goldfinches flutter from coneflower to coneflower, hunting for seeds. The strange bird that we cannot identify continues to tantalize us with his song, which consists of a click then a tone.

Out by the street the flower box has produced one tall zinnia. Better luck next time on that score. But it’s hard to complain with the weather I walked through last night.

It was summer sublime.

Sunday on the Deck with Work

Sunday on the Deck with Work

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I’m spending a large portion of the weekend working not on my own stuff but on Winrock’s. This isn’t typical, so I don’t mind it occasionally, and it’s for a good cause.

When I do things like this I’m taken back to my freelance days, when work and life were more of a piece. I interviewed people, wrote stories, raised daughters, cooked and took care of the house. These joys and duties were mish-mashed together in a sometimes glorious, often exhausting round of duties and responsibilities.

An interview, a carpool, a long writing session. Followed by another carpool and an after-dinner writing session. Somehow, the work always got done, the daughters got raised.

And this was accomplished with no cubicles, time sheets or meetings.

So now when I’m called upon to juggle free time and assignments, it doesn’t seem strange. It seems like how things oughta be.

Look, Ma!

Look, Ma!

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I feel like the kid in the old Crest toothpaste commercials: “Look, Ma, no cavities!” I just managed to survive a six-month dental checkup without any request for a pre-six-month return.

“You look good,” said Dr. Wang, he of the “difficult extraction.” Since the almost botched wisdom tooth debacle four years ago, I’ve been through three crowns and one root canal with the guy. He’s grown on me.

When he suggested the root canal, a last-minute decision, I said, “Are you sure you can do this? Remember the difficult extraction.”  He smiled. “No, really, I can. I did three just last week.” This is how comfortable I am with him.

It’s like anything else. We went through something together, several somethings. We survived. I’ve watched as his skill has caught up with his confidence level. His compassion, too. Now he will touch my arm in the middle of a procedure. “We’re almost through. Hang in there.”

And somehow, I always do.

Driving Home

Driving Home

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Yesterday I drove past the house of the woman who watched the girls for a year or two when I was writing a book. Her name was Eva; still is, I imagine. She’s moved back to Hungary and we’ve lost touch.

Eva was reserved and all business when we met, but she proved loving, dependable, creative and quirky. The girls loved her rice pudding and began pronouncing words with a slight Hungarian lilt. “Quintan” (the name of a little boy she also watched) became “Quintone.”

Suzanne was in second grade then so she didn’t got to Eva’s, but most days I would drop Celia off in the morning and Claire mid-day, after picking her up from the kindergarten bus. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it’s what I had.

What I was remembering yesterday, though, was how it felt to be driving the girls home in the afternoon. Suzanne would ride with me to pick up her sisters, and as we chugged home in the ancient blue Volvo wagon, I would have moments of perfect contentment: a good day of writing behind me, the promise of another to come, and most of all, the girls and I together again. Dinner was yet to be cooked, homework yet to be checked, bedtime stories yet to be read. But even then, I knew — told myself — hang on to this moment, it’s as good as it gets.

Floating to the Office

Floating to the Office

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I’m back on the Pentagon bus for a couple weeks, cruising into Crystal City on the early side, hopping off before my stop, hoofing it through south Arlington before 7 a.m. It’s pleasantly cool this morning, and already a hustle-bustle on the streets.

Joggers, yoga-goers with mats slung across their backs, the caffeine-starved piling in to Starbucks and, of course, the dog walkers.

I notice a new restaurant, a crane where there wasn’t one before, an empty lot with an abandoned grocery cart. The smell of croissants or French bread baking. Traffic noise, especially on East-West Highway.

It’s a 15-minute stroll to the office from the first bus stop, and I listen to the same piece all the way, Sleepers Awake, Bach’s cantata, times five. By the time I got here, I was floating.

(Photo from another city walk, in Philadelphia)

Historical Aroma

Historical Aroma

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One of the fringe benefits of working at home is catching little household emergencies before they become big household emergencies.

I’m stretching the term “household emergencies.” Today, while pulling cereal out of the pantry closet, I was met with an aroma that was only slightly less putrid that a decaying animal. It was a rotten potato. This was not a problem last night, but it would have been an even larger problem by 6:30 p.m., which is when I usually roll back in here. Today, though, I could remove the offending vegetable and compost it before too much damage was done.

The point of this post is not to highlight my less-than-stellar housekeeping skills, but to ponder whether there is such a thing as an ancestral aroma sensitivity.

This potato smelled so noxious that I wondered if it had something to do with my Irish ancestry, with the fact that Mom’s relatives mostly came from the west of Ireland and were driven away by the potato famine.

Could I be especially sensitive to this because my great-great-grandparents smelled it all too often?  Putrid potato PTSD?  You never know.

Park Avenue Beat

Park Avenue Beat

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For the last week or so, I’ve been watching old “Perry Mason” shows while exercising. It’s a fun distraction. The show has enough twists and turns that the rowing machine minutes speed by. I find myself comparing legal justice then and now, marveling at the cut of the men’s suits (which they wore at all times) and the women’s skirts (and white gloves), pondering the world that produced this show as much as the show itself.

There’s only one problem: I can’t get the Perry Mason theme song out of my mind. It’s with me when I walk, when I cook dinner or empty the dishwasher.  It’s even with me in the office.

It has a lot of moxie, this theme song. It’s decidedly tabloid, with a detective-magazine feel. Called “Park Avenue Beat,” the song was written to exude sophistication and toughness, Wikipedia informs me. It was composer Fred Steiner’s most well-known work.

All I know is … I wish it would go away.