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Author: Anne Cassidy

Wrap Season

Wrap Season

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The rains have finally come, and I left the house with something I haven’t had in months — a jacket. True, this is a lightweight rain jacket, hardly a warm winter coat, but still it seems like the end of something — the carefree habit of walking out wearing only what I have on inside.

I thought that this morning when I hung up the jacket in my coat cubby that I haven’t used this in a while. Even last week, with morning temps in the 40s, I got by with a sweater and a warm scarf (both of which I needed to wear in the office since they keep the blasted place so cold.

But today marks a sea change; it’s the first day of the Wrap Season. (Not the “It’s a Wrap Season,” which sounds much more interesting.)

I console myself as I always do on issues of weather and climate. At least I’m not in Chicago, where the Wrap Season lasts from September through May.

Long Dive

Long Dive

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As I mentioned last month, I’ve been dipping into journals I kept long ago. This morning’s adventure was like a long dive into a long-forgotten stream. It was my voice, my way of looking at the world, but applied to a completely different set of circumstances.

No children yet, not much of a job, I was cobbling together an income from odd jobs and transcribing tapes. It was one of those times that was terribly difficult — except just surviving it made me feel whole and strong and capable.

I’m trying to write about this time, write clearly without remorse or false cheer.

The journals help.

Around the Yard

Around the Yard

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Whenever possible I like to step outside in the middle of the day and walk “around the block” — the block being an unconventional one that includes the service road behind conjoined office buildings, one of which I work in.

This gives me a chance to stretch my legs and clear my head.  If a story I’m working on has been giving me trouble, the walk will often show me the lead, transition or conclusion I need to wrap things up.

But lately, I don’t even have time for a walk around the block. So I’ve begun what I call (in my mind) a walk around the yard. Just as there is no block here, neither is there a yard. But there is a plaza in front of the building, picnic tables, seats, an arbor.  On warm days people play ping-pong or take a zumba class (only the brave souls who don’t mind an audience).

Even a five-minute stroll can loosen the old gray matter — and often does.

I Brake for Birds

I Brake for Birds

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I heard them in the flower hedge, a bank of New Guinea impatiens aglow at summer’s end. Sparrows, I guessed, or one of the other nondescript birds.

They were chirping and chattering, calling to each other. Maybe they were squabbling over a crust of bread or a late-day worm. Maybe they were planning their winter escape. Or maybe they were just commenting on the perfect air, the weightless wonder of the afternoon.

I stopped. I listened. I didn’t care who was behind me, who might have had to stop short.

I brake for birds. That’s all there is to it.

Telling Numbers

Telling Numbers

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In Vietnam we learned the battlefield could be anywhere: in a rice paddy or a house full of children. So we should not be surprised when the bullets ring out at elementary schools, college campuses, nightclubs, restaurants, amphitheaters and now in the most unreal of all unreal places, the Las Vegas Strip.

Violence is always unreal, until it is not.

So the children and grandchildren of a generation defined by “four dead in Ohio” have …

59 dead at Mandalay Bay
49 dead at Orland’s Pulse
32 dead at Virginia Tech
26 dead at Sandy Hook.

When will it stop? I think we’re all afraid that it won’t. So we say prayers, light candles, hope the next time never happens — even though in our heart of hearts we know it will.

Under Contract

Under Contract

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For months I’ve kept my eyes on a house at the other end of the neighborhood. While other Folkstone homes sold quickly, this one languished. There was nothing wrong with it. I know this because I toured it, went down the weekend of the first open house and walked through the rooms (of which there were many).

It had four levels, four bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, family room, walk-out basement,  conservatory. It had a long driveway and a fancy patio. It even had a view: You could look east down Fox Mill Road and see green yards, the land rising and falling.

But for far too many weeks, it did not have a buyer.

The realtor was diligent. He held an open house every Sunday, tacking up red balloons to pique interest.  They made me sad.

But yesterday when I drove past, the for-sale sign said “Under Contract.” It wasn’t any of my business, of course, but for some reason this made me very happy.

Personal Correspondence

Personal Correspondence

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I’m thinking about today’s to-do list and realizing that personal correspondence ranks high on it. By this I do not mean sending emails.

I mean penning a note to tuck into a birthday card to a friend I made in a church choir when I lived in Chicago. And dashing off a quick thank-you to the hostess for last Friday’s dinner. And this is after yesterday, when I wrote a sympathy card.

This is not exactly 18th century in scope. But it’s three times more cards or letters than I send in a week.  It’s real mail, that which I love receiving and still send … though not nearly often enough.

Make Bearable

Make Bearable

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Last night was the final episode of Burns and Novick’s Vietnam War. It began and ended with Tim O’Brien reading from his book The Things They Carried. 

“They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility.”

While he read, the people who had been our companions through this series — the Americans, the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, the soldiers, the antiwar activists, the vets, the military brass — we got to see what they are doing now. They are teachers and counselors, a judge. But more of them than not, it seems, are writers.

This brought some comfort. The film stirred up feelings in all of us who lived through the war, raised questions that will never be answered, dredged up divisions that still rankle. But it showed that sometimes art can distill and, if not heal, at least lance, drain and make bearable.

Missing Poetry

Missing Poetry

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Some people have their morning coffee; I have my morning poetry. Or at least I used to. Today I learned that my radio station is developing some “exciting new programs,” and to make way for them will stop airing The Writer’s Almanac at 6:45 a.m. Listeners can still hear the program online, the announcer said.

But they won’t, I’m afraid.  Or at least this one will not. I’ve had the program delivered to my inbox for years and I never listen to Garrison Keillor read the poem of the day. Sometimes I read it, but I  never listen to it.

No, what I had for years was serendipity. The program aired when I was often driving to Metro, and I could sip tea and drive and start the day with a gasp or a sigh; with a roll of the eyes or a sudden watering of them.

Poetry moves me. Even in the morning. I’ll miss it.

Behind the Wheel

Behind the Wheel

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Women in Saudi Arabia have just been given the right to drive. It’s a much-needed step toward equality in that nation, and I’d glad that it’s finally happening.

Makes me think about a time in my life when driving meant liberation, which was decades ago, when I first got my license. Now driving is an irksome duty, a way to move from A to B. Now I feel more liberated walking or riding a bike than I do driving a car. It’s hard to feel free when you’re sitting in traffic or jostling with trucks on the Beltway.

Good to be reminded, though, of the pleasures of locomotion, of not being dependent on others for transport. I could be sitting on one of those buses in Bangladesh, the battered ones that seem to have been in countless crashes. Or I could be on the back of a zemidjan in Benin, hanging on for dear life as motorscooters careen around me.

But instead I have a car of my own and can propel myself wherever I need to go. It’s nice to be reminded that it’s nice to have wheels.