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Author: Anne Cassidy

Musical Dreams

Musical Dreams

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I guess the notes were flowing a little better during my practice session last night (a guarantee that they won’t flow well today!). Whatever the reason, I found myself wondering this morning if there is a community orchestra in the area.

And lo and behold … there is! Not only that, but they have summer “reading sessions” where they invite members of the community to come and play with them. I will be in town for every one.

And so …

I’m remembering what a big part music used to play in my life, how it’s taken a back seat to schooling, working, child rearing and how … it may not have to anymore.

First, I have to get through the Verdi and the Stravinsky. And then, we’ll see …

The Walking Wait

The Walking Wait

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Arlington’s ART 43 bus is punctual enough to set your watch to — although I suppose no one sets a watch anymore. But through the months I’ve ridden the “Art 43” I’ve come to count on its regularity.

This morning was another story. I figured there was a good excuse, and there was. An accident on the route tied up traffic for miles. But I waited … and waited. A small crowd soon formed.

What’s more important, though, is how I waited. On a Metro platform you can pace but you can’t walk. When you’re waiting for this bus, at least in the morning, you can walk — because the bus makes a little jog around a short block, and if you walk clockwise around the stop, you’ll see the bus in time to run for it.

All of which is to say that today I walked while I waited.

The walking wait (waiting walk?) is not the most restful walk I take. But it’s better than just plain waiting.

(Rice paddies in the sun. I figure if the walk wasn’t restful, at least the picture can be.)

Joy in D.C.!

Joy in D.C.!

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I’m not a big ice hockey fan — I don’t know a check from a puck — but I know jubilation when I see it. And jubilation is the story here in Washington, D.C., as the Capitals advance to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 20 years.

I found out from a text from Claire, my hockey-loving daughter, who used about half a dozen exclamation points at the end of her message.

It’s that kind of joy. As Washington Post sports columnist Dan Steinberg wrote,  D.C. reacted “about how you’d expect a city might react, if that city had been waiting for 7,000 or so days for a team to get to this particular spot, and if that city had seen this particular team come up short in this particular round against this particular opponent every particular spring.  There was relief. There was delirium. There was exaltation.”

It’s one of those wins that feels like more than what it really is, that feels like payback for living in a “swamp” where troubling political news combines with troubling Metro news (including the closure of four stations for 98 days next year) combines with killer traffic for a uniquely D.C. type of misery.

But today is different. It’s May. The azaleas are bursting with jewel-tone blossoms. Pollen is on the run. The Caps may not make it all the way. But right now it’s more than enough that they made it here.

(Photo: Washington Capitals)

Practice, Practice, Practice

Practice, Practice, Practice

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My daughters may disagree with me, but I don’t recall bugging them too much about practicing when they were studying cello, clarinet and voice. I think I know why. I don’t like practicing either, never have.

Now is no different. I wish I could say that practicing the string bass is stirring my soul and enriching my life. But truth to tell, I sandwich in the minutes around everything else, often in the evening when I’m exhausted. Sometimes I don’t know whether I’m holding the bass or the bass is holding me.

This is good news, though. It confirms, for one, that I made the right career choice. I can immerse myself in writing or editing and the hours fly by. The minutes I spend practicing the bass do not.

But all the minutes will be worth it when I’m part of an orchestra again, contributing my own (I hope in-tune) notes to that swelling symphonic sound.

Born in the Bluegrass

Born in the Bluegrass

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Yesterday, researching who I wanted to pull for in today’s Kentucky Derby, I ran across a fun statistic. Seventeen of the 20 mounts in the race were born in the Bluegrass. The Lexington newspaper had all the birthplaces, many of them clustered in the Pisgah Pike, Versailles area near where my parents used to live.

I didn’t know all of the farms (though I knew some, most notably Calumet, with its distinctive white and red trim). But I know all of the places, know the two-lane roads that wind to them, the way the Osage orange tree branches arch over their lanes. The roll and tilt of the land is familiar to me; it’s what I grew up with, too.

Reading those farm names, I could smell the tobacco scent that would waft through the air in the fall when I was a little girl, back when the big auction houses were still there. I could smell the aroma of Lexington’s own racetrack, Keeneland, an amalgam of spilled beer and turned soil.

Once these places were part of my external landscape, now they’re part of my internal one.

Headspace and Legroom

Headspace and Legroom

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Children need roots and wings, says one adage. They need the security of home and family and the confidence and freedom to fly away from it.

It occurs to me today, riffing on this, that what I need now is headspace and legroom.

Headspace so I can vanish into a world of my own creation, beyond home, family and work.

Legroom because as much as I need the mental space, I crave physical movement, too.

It’s freedom I’m after, both literal and metaphorical.

Deck Post

Deck Post

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It’s the first post of the season that I’m writing on the deck before leaving for work. It’s warm enough to sit out here in shirtsleeves, a delicious reversal from months of chilly mornings.

The windows were open so I woke this morning to the slap of the newspaper on the driveway. An almost full moon was setting as I left the house.

It’s a different kind of day when I have a chance to walk before work — more expansive, softer around the edges, routine on the run.

So even though I should be leaving now, I take another sip of tea, linger a little longer with the birdsong and the faraway traffic noise. In a moment I’ll get up, shoulder my bag, leave the house, drive to Metro.

But not yet.

Sappy But True

Sappy But True

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Nothing makes a mother happier than to know her grown children are hanging out together, chatting in the evenings after work, caring. That’s the way I feel, and I remember Mom feeling that way, too. What’s amazing is how the practice carries on through time, even when the parents are gone.

My brothers and sister and I spend holidays together when we can, check up on each other, chat in the evenings after work. And we care. The caring is not without a price, but it’s always worth it.

My parents gave us many gifts — optimism, resilience, a love of ideas — but best of all was the gift of each other, a fact we would have found shocking as squabbling kids in the back of a hot station wagon.

I write this today because it’s Ellen’s birthday, as good a day as any to say how lucky I am to have a sister, how I can’t imagine going through life without one.

(Ellen and I have given each of our daughters two sisters!) 

Play it Again, Anne

Play it Again, Anne

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A few months ago a high school friend called to tell me that the Central Kentucky Youth Symphony Orchestra was celebrating its 70th anniversary with a reunion concert May 20 and all alumni were invited to play. I knew in an instant that I would do everything I could to be there. The CKYSO made adolescence bearable. It introduced me to a group of people whose idea of a good time was listening to Wagner’s Liebestod on a Saturday night.

The only problem: I haven’t played a the string bass since I was in high school. I had to find one (actually two, because I’ll be flying to Kentucky for the concert), then … I had to start practicing.

I accomplished one of those missions before I went to Asia and the other 10 days ago when I found a bass to rent here and somehow got it home in a small sedan. Since then I’ve been practicing whenever I can, trying to get the notes in my fingers again.

To relearn an instrument after decades away from it is a humbling experience. I forgot how much effort it takes to stretch my left hand into position and still hold up the instrument. To give you an idea just how remedial a bass student I am: I had to Google the string intervals. (The string bass is unique among stringed instruments; it’s tuned in fourths — E, A, D and G — instead of fifths.)

But after more than a week at it, the positions and scales are coming back and I’m learning how much to tighten the bow (not as much as I was the first few days — the poor thing was starting to pop some hairs).

Now I just have to learn the bass parts for Stravinsky’s Firebird and Verdi’s Aida. To be continued …

Virginia Bluebells

Virginia Bluebells

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I can’t let April slip away without a nod to Virginia bluebells. I went to see my favorite patch of them last week.

The bluebells cluster near a trail, which winds around and through them.  It was a sparkling spring afternoon when I took this walk. A little later I spied some deer along the trail — or they spied me.
I kept walking until the wildlife trail turned into a paved path and then, finally, into the Cross-County Trail. Parts of it took a hit during the March windstorm. 
I finished off the stroll with another peek at the bluebells. Ah, that’s better. That will last me a while.