Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Seven Miles

Seven Miles

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday Suzanne and I went for a walk after work. It was a lovely spring afternoon, just begging to be strolled through.

We started at my office in Crystal City, and quickly angled onto the Mount Vernon Trail, dodging the high-speed through bikes on the narrower connector path. We had to talk a little louder when we got to Gravelly Point, where jets roared overhead from take-off at National Airport.

But by Memorial Bridge the air was soft and quiet. The fresh green weeping willow branches shimmered in the lowering sun.

Mostly, we talked. But sometimes we marveled, too. Washington has its monster traffic jams, but it has marvelous foot paths, too. And yesterday I felt like we were on all of them.

We walked for hours. So this morning, curious, I looked up the distance.

Seven miles. You could have fooled me. It didn’t feel an inch more than five.

Cleaning Up

Cleaning Up

Comments 0 Comment

Today has been set aside for office cleanup, and I’ve worn jeans for the occasion. But it occurs to me that the tidying up I most need to do is not tangible but virtual. And for this, most any attire will do.

I seldom delete email. I spent 20 minutes yesterday looking for a document that’s nowhere to be found.  Is it on my desktop? Dd I accidentally save it in a strange file? Global computer searches have yielded no trace. But while I was looking for it I shuddered at the disarray I found.

This is the way digital cleanup happens for me: a search and rescue mission.

Meanwhile, I don’t want these jeans to go to waste. I’ll find some real files to toss somewhere!

Two Years

Two Years

Comments 0 Comment

I started at Winrock two years ago today. It may have seemed an odd choice given my previous jobs in print journalism. But it’s the words that matter, I decided, not the medium in which they’re read. As for the autonomy of my reporting, I’ve decided that very few of us can say we’re not beholden to someone or something, whether it be editors, advertisers or management.

Any job change requires soul searching, asking what really matters. And what matters for me is the work itself, the pace and the breadth of it, what it stands for. This organization has its heart in the right place. I believe in its goals and mission.

More than that, this work is perfect for the easily bored. At Winrock I have a huge canvas on which to paint. I’ve interviewed old and young, farmers and bank executives, solar technicians and victims of human trafficking. I write stories and talking points, ad copy and op-eds.

I usually write without byline and most of my output ends up online. But in the end, it’s the stories that matter — that, and the writing of them.

Walking to Listen

Walking to Listen

Comments 0 Comment

A book group friend recommended this book, the tale of a young man who walked across America and listened to the voices of vagabonds and preachers, beauticians and firefighters.

Andrew Forsthoefel was newly graduated from Middlebury College when he decided to make the journey. “Everyone of us has an extraordinary story worth hearing, and I’m walking the country to listen,” he wrote on his travel blog at the beginning of the trip.

Admitting it might sound contrived, but resolved to do it anyway, Forsthoefel quickly gained my trust when he told the story of his leave-taking. His mother was worried but brave. She acts like I hope I would if one of my children announced she was walking across the country. The picture she snaps of her son walking down the train tracks behind their house in Pennsylvania is priceless. It’s the picture of a young adult doing his own thing, back turned to the camera, arms outstretched as if to say, enough, I’m done, catch ‘ya later.

Needless to say, he survives the trip — and gets a book contract, to boot. He only just reached Georgia, so I imagine I’ll have more to say about Walking to Listen.

Let me close for today with a passage about walking:


The walking itself was slowly become my home, or something like it. It was the only constant, the connective thread that tied everything together. 

(Photo: Courtesy Bloomsbury Press)

The Lady Has a Tramp!

The Lady Has a Tramp!

Comments 0 Comment

After two bounce-less months, I finally ordered a new trampoline last Sunday. Two days later, there were three boxes sitting outside the garage when I got home from work.

They were heavy and compact, a tidy package.

After a few days in the garage and hours of labor yesterday, the three boxes have become — a trampoline.

Limbs and branches from last month’s storms may still litter the landscape, but in one important way, the backyard is back in business.  Once again, the lady has a tramp.

Baby Trees

Baby Trees

Comments 0 Comment
“A society grows great when people plant trees in whose shade they will never sit.”
Greek proverb

Last winter I sent a $10 donation to the Arbor Day Foundation, which promised to send me an American redbud, crape myrtle, crabapple, Washington hawthorn and white dogwood in exchange.

And that they did.  The trees arrived last week in a little bag, their roots protected with a watery gel. Here they are in a jar of water, looking more like a dead plant that a bunch of potential trees.

It’s not that I expected lush greenery for my tiny investment. But I was still a bit shocked by the meagerness of the saplings.

Still, they have potential. One day these sticks will grow roots and leaves, trunks and boughs. They will turn their faces to the sun, rustle their leaves in the wind. One day my grandchildren may sit in their shade.

At this point, though, I have modest expectations for the baby trees. Given the number of tall oaks we’ve lost the last few years, I just hope that they bend rather than break when the wind blows.

Fernweh and Heimweh

Fernweh and Heimweh

Comments 0 Comment

Homesickness is when you long for the place you know best of all. But what about its opposite? Wanting to venture to a place you’ve never been? It’s a feeling deeper than wanderlust, stronger than attachment. Until the other day, I didn’t know it has a name.

Farsickness —or “fernweh” from the German “fern” (far) and “weh” (pain) is when you yearn for a place you’ve never been, for the faraway. I heard about it on the radio, and a quick Google search shows me the word has been out there for a while. There are “Fernweh” t-shirts and “Farsickness” travel blogs.

Digging a little deeper I learn that the word “homesick” also entered our language from the German — “heimweh.” It comes from a Swiss dialect and can also mean longing for the mountains. Ah, I think, just like Heidi. Remember when she’s sent to Frankfurt and entertains Clara but all she wants is to go back and live with her grandfather on the mountain?

To have “fernweh” we need “heimweh.” The familiar propels us to the faraway — then brings us home again.

Reminders

Reminders

Comments 0 Comment

I grew up on road trips — long, car-sick journeys to Cincinnati, Greensburg or Natural Bridge. Kentucky is rolling country, so driving through it is not for the faint of stomach. Dramamine was my friend.

None of this dampened my love of travel. In fact, it conditioned me to rigor. Which brings me to these wonderful trips I’ve taken the last two years. They haven’t been easy either — once I get there. But the fact that I can board one plane, then another — and wind up on the other side of the world …  will never stop being miraculous to me. 
So in honor of the miraculous, and because I want to keep reminding myself I was there … a few photographs from Nepal.
Haiku Day + One

Haiku Day + One

Comments 0 Comment

Late Tuesday I learned

The day’s syllabic net worth,
April 17th.
This year’s Haiku Day
Was almost done when a text
Knocked me flat with joy:
“Metal birds stirring
Orange claws puncture the night sky
Sunrise at Reagan.”
Thank you, Ms. Abo,
My own firstborn, Suzanne E,
Keep writing poems!
As the Light Allows

As the Light Allows

Comments 0 Comment

As the days lengthen I notice new landmarks on my evening walks through Arlington. Yesterday’s “find” was discovering the Virginia Square Metro Station. I looked to the left, and there it was. Not that I was ready to ride the rails. I pushed on to the Ballston Station. But it was nice to know it was there.

My first walk on this route was late last year. I barely made it to Court House before the street lights came on. And by Clarendon it was completely dark, so I hopped on a Metro there.

I got lost on my next two forays to the neighborhood. First I swung too far to the north, the next time too far to the south. I was looking for the middle way.

It took the brighter afternoons of early spring to reveal it. Fairfax Drive, the street I was looking for, looks like a parking lot when you enter from the east. It’s only when you stroll a few yards beyond the entry way that you see it blossom into a road. This is not something I could discern in darkness or even in dusk; full daylight was required.

I like discovering this neighborhood little by little, as the light allows.