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Author: Anne Cassidy

Wild Blue Yonder

Wild Blue Yonder

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Turned on my iPod the day before yesterday and took pot luck. The song that was playing: “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder,” the Air Force song. I downloaded it for Dad’s funeral and it lives on in my music files.

Hearing it by surprise didn’t make me sad. It made me smile. It was as if Dad had suddenly inserted himself into the day and was walking with me along the West Virginia lane.  I set the iPod on repeat and listened to it four or five times. It’s an upbeat song, and it quickened my step.

I’ve been hearing the melody in my head ever since. But the only words I can recall are the first and last lines. Here, in honor of Memorial Day, are the rest:

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun;
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder, 
At ’em boys, Give ‘er the gun! (Give ‘er the gun now!) 
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under,
Off with one helluva roar! 
We live in fame or go down in flame. Hey! 
Nothing’ll stop the U.S. Air Force!

Mountain Walk

Mountain Walk

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Less than two hours west is a different world, one bound by green and dripping boughs. Chalets on the hillside, mountain paths, water trickling over rocks. I won’t glorify these trickles by calling them waterfalls. But the water sings as it flows over stones and through leaves, so these trickles have an aural presence.

Some of the lanes here are paved and some not. Foot paths cross them, heading up the mountain. I may tackle one of them today. But yesterday was a get-acquainted stroll. The end of a long week.

I marveled as I strolled at how much difference a walk can make. And a mountain walk makes even more.

Almost Done

Almost Done

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It’s the 11th hour, an unusual one for me to write. The day is almost done instead of just beginning. But the house is as quiet as morning; the same clocks are ticking.

Tomorrow will be a weekend family getaway. I’ve loaded the car with groceries and will pack the perishables in the morning. Monopoly and Scrabble are going, and a deck of cards.  The dog and the thousand-piece puzzle are staying home.

You can’t wait for the perfect time; you grab the time you have and make it work. That’s how I’m feeling now, knowing that gratitude will well up soon, it always does.

Waltzing Along

Waltzing Along

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A ho-hum evening after days of cloud and rain. A walk that’s uninspired, plodding. The houses hold no surprises, and the clouds are uniform, without color or texture.

The music in my ears is plodding, too. Tunes heard too often. A switch to news makes little difference.

And then my ears hit the jackpot, a change of tempo. It’s a waltz. Not an obvious one or a schmaltzy one,  but I’d recognize 3/4 time anywhere. I find myself counting 1,2, 3; 2,2,3; 3,2,3.  Almost hypnotic, that beat. And liberating, too.

It’s like a transfusion. I pick up the pace, I loosen the shoulders. My arms swing more freely by my side. And soon I’m on the downhill slope, toward home and dinner.

Stairmaster

Stairmaster

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My eyes are still half closed when I see it looming. It’s not the longest escalator in D.C.’s Metro system. In fact, it’s not even in the top 10. But it’s long enough. And it’s my morning challenge.

No standing on the right. I start on the left and move myself up those moving steps.  Some mornings at a plodding pace; others a bit more briskly. I’m usually winded when I reach the summit, and my legs are shaky. But I’m at the top. And sorta kinda on my own steam.

There could be worse ways to start a day. I could be walking up the Wheaton escalator, the longest in the Western Hemisphere. 


It’s a Stairmaster, courtesy of Metro. 
Honorary Degree

Honorary Degree

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I didn’t place much importance on the commencements of my youth. I completed the requirements, I graduated.  These were launching pads not retrospectives.

But watching these ceremonies as a mother, aunt and sister is altogether different.  Now I tear up at “Pomp and Circumstance,” get goose bumps from an academic procession. It’s clearer to me now that these are true endings and beginnings, the kind of clear line life seldom hands us.

It’s also clear that for many, a degree is not a given. And for every smiling graduate there is someone who will not walk across a stage this year, someone who may never have worn a gown, hood or mortar board. Their reasons for not doing so are legion, and may have nothing to do with intelligence or drive. For like their robed compatriots, they too have completed difficult assignments.

So this post is for them, an honorary degree of sorts. Maybe there will be no diploma this year, but there was learning and effort and sacrifice. To the great, un-graduated multitudes, I offer my humble, heartfelt congratulations.

Armful of Books

Armful of Books

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Some find the posture early they were meant to have. I was one of the lucky ones.

Every day one of my first acts on waking is to gather the books I read from the night before and walk downstairs with them in my arms. Today it struck me how long I’ve carried books in my arms. That is an activity and a posture I’ve had early and long.

The book titles have changed, the weight, the topic, the number of pictures therein. The arms, too. They have grown longer. And sometimes they have held other things along with the books. Babies, for instance, and file folders and, lately, a computer thin enough to slip into one of those folders.

But books, always and forever.

Flowery Bower

Flowery Bower

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Early on in my almost three decades (gulp) in this house, I tried to plant an English cottage garden. I’d seen the photos in catalogs and they struck my fancy. I liked the informality, the abundance, the palette.

So with the ardor of a novice gardener I ordered peonies, daisies, astilbe and climbing roses. I hacked my way into the clay soil, added lime and peat moss and gave those plant babies a chance. I watered and mulched and fussed.

The peony produced one flower (with the requisite ants) but never thrived. The astilbes barely lasted a summer. I learned quickly that I needed coneflowers rather than daisies.

But the climbing roses were a different matter entirely. The climbing roses “took.”

So now I have a flowery bower, courtesy of an English cottage rose.

Internal Dialogue

Internal Dialogue

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As national events heat up and the news changes by the minute, I’m tuning my headset to news stations as I hoof it.  It’s not the calm strolls I usually crave, but it makes for some brisk walks and some fascinating internal dialogue.

“How could he?” “Will they really?” “Oh yeah?” “We’ll see about that.”

These conversations take place only in my head, but they are stimulating in their own way.

Walking and talking: It’s the way it is now.

Dining with Roses

Dining with Roses

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There could be worse company, I think to myself as I stand at the deck railing with leftover chicken and salad. The roses are budding and blooming. They are walling off the deck from the rest of the world, forming a flowery screen. And I’m alone with a modest meal, tired of sitting from a long day and even longer commute.

The roses are an antidote. They ask nothing of me other than my gaze. And so, I oblige. I lose myself in their mesmerizing centers, their pink whorls slightly darker than the outside petals. But the overall picture one of pastel loveliness.

Pastels and spring, after all, go together. The color of new life, of shades that have not yet been tested. Hues still wet behind the ears.

Today the temperature will soar and the roses will wilt. But last night, for one perfect al fresco dinner,  I had them all to myself.