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Author: Anne Cassidy

The Aftermath

The Aftermath

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They came yesterday to see about the wood, the two straight trunks bisecting the back yard. Did they pass muster as lumber, or must we bring in the tree guys with their whirring chainsaws and chipper?

Don’t know the answer yet, but I wonder if they saw the potential, the long straight boards locked into those twin trunks, the 80-foot expanse of prime oak.

What I see is the chaos, the splintered branch, like bone through skin, the errant stick impaled in earth. I see the volunteer cherry uncentered and the earth ball like the underside of a mushroom.

I can barely stand to look at the trampoline. Of course, I can barely see the trampoline, so lost is it beneath the branches.

I see the heft, the waste, the terror. I see everything you don’t expect and some of what you do.

2,400

2,400

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I almost missed this one, noticed out of the corner of my eye that yesterday’s post was 2,399. Which makes today’s one of those round numbers that I write about from time to time.

It’s the ultimate in solipsism, right? A blog about the things I think about while walking … then a post about how many other posts I’ve written!

Posts on running and dancing and bouncing, about mothering and working and traveling. Posts on grieving and gratitude.

What can I say? We live in a confessional age, and this is about as confessional as I can get.  Which is to say, not as much as some, but more than others — and more than I ever thought I’d be.

A Woman, Writing

A Woman, Writing

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This morning I passed a woman in the lobby. She was sitting in a chair, writing in her journal.

Not tapping on her phone, not scrolling down the tiny screen. But engaged with the paper and the pen.

I noticed this not only because I believe in it and practice it, but because it is so rare.

When you address the page, the page does not talk back to you. It absorbs your words, the wise and the silly. It gives you space, a blank expanse without spell-check or word complete. For that reason, it is serene, even empowering.

Today is International Woman’s Day. I just wrote and posted a story to celebrate it. But when I think of Woman’s Day 2018, what I’ll keep in mind is not a year of marches and #metoo. It’s the quiet communion of writer and page. It’s the image of a woman writing.

(Pensive, a painting by Edmund Blair Leighton)

Plalking?

Plalking?

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Yesterday I read about a new trend that started in Sweden. It’s called plogging, which comes from “jogging” combined with “plocka-uppa” (Swedish for pick up). The idea is simple. You take a trash bag along on a run and collect the odd plastic bottles and cigarette butts you encounter. Disposable gloves are recommended.

Translate this to walking and you have “plalking” — or do you?

I care about the environment and have even been known to pick up a bit of errant trash. But I can’t see turning my fast walks into scavenger sessions. It’s about the rhythm, you see.

The cadence of the stroll is a large part of its magic. Take that away and you have … beach combing.

Warp Speed

Warp Speed

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At some point in my young life I decided that busyness was a key to happiness. I don’t remember making a conscious decision about this, but I do recall getting involved in one club or class after another. Why not join the choir, take modern dance, continue with piano lessons? Why not become a resident assistant in a dorm the same year I’m learning to be a high school English teacher?

Most of the time I could pull this off. Sometimes I made myself crazy. But life is seldom boring.

I write about this today because it’s one of those busy stretches when the amount of tasks to be completed make me dizzy. Most of these are work-related but there are a few personal ones thrown into the mix.

In fact, I shouldn’t even take the time to write this post. Too late now, though, it’s al… most … done!

(Seascapes can be relaxing when living at warp speed.)

Hooray For …

Hooray For …

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I enjoyed the movies nominated for Best Picture this year more than I have any crop in years. Either I’m getting inured to the Zeitgeist, or there were more throwbacks. The latter, I think.

What was not a throwback was the ceremony itself. I realized at the end of it that what I look for in the Oscars is some kind of old-time glamour that hasn’t been there in years. Last year’s ceremony had such a shocking conclusion that it didn’t matter. The year before that I was probably too rattled to care.

But this year, I did notice, I did care and I did wonder. When things seem Not the Same, how much of it is because things are actually changing, how much is the raging of age (“nothing is as good as it used to be, dearie”) … and how much is a combination of the two?

(Danielle Darrieux from In Memoriam, Oscargo.com)

Toppled and Crushed

Toppled and Crushed

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I knew it was a dumb title … Kingdom of the Wind. Well, that kingdom just took down not only the Sword of Damocles, but the 110-foot-tall split-trunk oak that had snagged it. And with an awe-inspiring precision, the huge tree fell right on top of my trampoline.

Smashed it, split it right down the middle.

I’m grateful no one was hurt, that Copper wasn’t in the yard … and of course that I wasn’t bouncing at the time (not that I would have been in 60-mile-an-hour gusts).

But the trampoline meant so much to me, as did the tree — and now they’re both gone.

Soon there will be chainsaws, re-fencing, carting the trampoline away. There will be estimates, expenditures, recalculations.

But there won’t be that portal to the sky.

Kingdom of the Wind

Kingdom of the Wind

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When the wind blows this hard (gusts up to 67 miles an hour), I feel like I’ve entered another country, a howling, raging place, a Kingdom of the Wind. I wake to its sound.

The bamboo beats a rough staccato on the siding, and there’s a clanging I can’t quite place. Is it a rogue bucket on the deck, or old Jacob Marley rattling his chains?

With winds this high, either Dulles Airport is closed, or diverting its traffic to an alternate runway, one that goes … right over our house! So on top of wondering if a tree will fall, I’m worried that a plane will, too.

An unsettled morning to be sure, with government offices closed and my office shuttered. I have one question: Will the errant branch we call the Sword of Damocles finally be blown out of the old oak? It’s dancing madly out there now, but is so wedged in place that it lingers still.

Just lost power … just got it back …

It will be a long day here in the Kingdom of the Wind.

Flowers, Real and Imagined

Flowers, Real and Imagined

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Here in Crystal City, folks are trying hard. Brightly patterned skins have gone over the gray stone buildings, blank walls have sprout faux gardens, while not far away a sheltered cherry tree breaks into early bloom.

A colleague thinks we’re trying to lure Amazon’s HQ2, and that may be the case.

But all the paint and netting in the world can’t camouflage the button-downed corporate soul of this place. The only thing that does that for me are the people. At lunchtime on a warm day, the place is full of life. Pale office workers play ping-pong or corn hole. Smokers linger longer in front of buildings. Bikers and runners mingle on the sidewalks.

So if paint and netting bring out the people, then bring them on!

Deadlines, Real and Imagined

Deadlines, Real and Imagined

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Writing this blog is completely voluntary, of course. No one is paying me to do it, no one is expecting me to do it. Which is why, when things are especially crazy at work, I post here later in the day.

Today has been one of those days. Having waited all day for a logical stopping point, I’ve finally given up. I’m writing now at an illogical stopping point — meaning that I still have work to complete before close of business.

Ironically, it’s often when I telecommute that I don’t post here until later in the day.  Overcompensation, a different routine, real deadlines interfering with imagined ones.

But which are more important? The real ones demand response, will get it one way or the other. The imagined ones can slip away. Does that not make them the ones that need me most?

Seems that way to me.

(Rushing here, rushing there. But at least I’m not riding Metro today.)