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Author: Anne Cassidy

One-Eyed Walker

One-Eyed Walker

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I walked before sunrise this morning, wearing a headlamp to get in practice. (At least one of the places I’m going has no electricity.)

There I was, the Cyclops of Folkstone Drive, one wild eye bobbing with every dip and divot of the road.

I felt powerful, in a dark and crazy kind of way. Could I blind the drivers coming toward me? Didn’t matter. There were only three of them. And anyway, I lost my nerve, averted my eye at the last minute.

Better to muse than amuse. I thought about how the wide cone of light allowed me to see only a fraction of what lay in front of me. Just enough to tread carefully. Sometimes that’s all you need.

The Purpose of Travel

The Purpose of Travel

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A long time ago, I lived to travel. I saved my teacher’s or assistant editor’s salary so I could use it on trips to Europe, Greece and what was then called Yugoslavia. I’d plan these trips for months, find cheap charter flights (one of which almost stranded me in Athens), stay in minimal hotels — and have the time of my life.

The travel bug has never really gone away. It’s just taken a back seat to raising a family and earning a living.

I’m hoping it will make a big comeback next week when I travel to New York, Jakarta, Burma and an Indonesian island called Sumba. Right now I’m racing around getting shots, finishing assignments, arranging a complicated schedule with scores of moving parts — and imagining how my suitcase will fit everything I need, plus the three moisture meters I’m ferrying over to Burmese coffee farmers.

It’s tempting to wonder whether it’s worth all the bother. But it hans’t been so long that I’ve forgotten how it feels. i’m keeping in mind what travel does for the soul. It feeds it — and fills it.

Missing Halloween

Missing Halloween

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Halloween makes me nostalgic for the days of young parenthood. With most other holidays, the nature and tenor of them, how we celebrate, changes as children grow. Christmas isn’t the same as it was when Santa or the Easter Bunny made “appearances,” but the days are still fundamentally the same — and we celebrate them together.

But Halloween is for little kids, and my kids … aren’t little anymore.

Still, Tom carved the pumpkin and I roasted the seeds. We handed out Snickers and Sour Patch Kids. Copper was his usual crazy self.

But I kept remembering when the girls would come back with their big pillowcase hauls, masks askew, makeup smeared. They would sort candy by size and brand, then commence trading.  Who wants my Milky Way? What’s a Heath Bar? Oh, no, not raisins!!

Which is all to say that the ghosts I saw last night weren’t creepy or scary. They were cuddly elephants, cute clowns and beautiful princesses — the memories of my own sweet girls when they were young.

Crystal City Underground

Crystal City Underground

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I knew they existed but am just beginning to explore them. “They” are a series of enclosed walkways and tunnels that honeycomb the Crystal City neighborhood.

Billed as an underground mall, the Crystal City shops are connected by wide, well-lit sidewalks (halls?!) that lead to a bakery, an optometrist, a theater … and more.

Halloween would be a perfect day to write about subterranean walkways — if only they were creepy, scary, low-ceilinged and cobwebby. They are anything but.

Still, they’re odd enough that today’s the perfect day to introduce them. The tunnels are one of the funkiest things about my new work ‘hood — and the weirdness is welcome!

Kitchen Window

Kitchen Window

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At home today, and thinking about windows, especially the kitchen one, situated to give the dishwasher (the human one) a sylvan view. This time of year the view reminds me how much raking there is to do. But usually a glance outside is more calming.

I’ve looked out the kitchen window often in the past 27 years. I’ve see trees grow, age and die; leaves sprout, green and shade. While sudsing plates I’ve seen snow fall, sprinklers shower and kids run, bounce and swing.

The kitchen window faces south, and this time of year the sun is low enough to cast dancing shadows through the glass.

It’s a window on the world, this window is. Or at least my little corner of it.

Vienna Waits

Vienna Waits

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At first I wasn’t going to chance it today, the first day the Orange Line would be running straight through from Vienna to Ballston again. Forty-two days of track work had made me a Silver Line refugee.

Sure, I got used to it. The station is a little closer to my house, and there are these funky pop-up stores on the plaza. But the pop-up stores aren’t open at 6:30 a.m., and there is the basic fact that I’m driving away from the city to get into it.

So today I threw caution to the wind. I drove that familiar route, the rolling Fox Mill, the many-curved Vale. And I parked in one of those ample spots and passed through that familiar turnstile.

What can I say except to channel Billy Joel:

But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You’re gonna kick off before you even
Get halfway through
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you …


Cue the accordions. It’s my stop, and it’s back in business.

All in the Family

All in the Family

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There were frost warnings, so I brought the two ferns in last night.

I was thinking when I did it about the living they’ve seen, not only this summer — the wedding, the weeding, the frantic painting of the deck furniture — but summers past, too. The smaller plant, in fact, has been around since Suzanne was a baby.

There’s no secret involved, no green thumb. The fern is a survivor; that’s all. And it looks like one, too: leggy and potbound.

After a while a plant becomes part of the family: the rumpled uncle, the delicate aunt, the crazy grandpa. Imperfect and lovable, one of our own.

Manhattan Minutes

Manhattan Minutes

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It’s the City that Never Sleeps — and I’m a person who doesn’t sleep much. Not the best combination. Which is why I find myself typing these words at this hour in this city.

Do I do the practical thing, which is try to get a few more of those elusive 40 winks?

No, of course not. 
I’m answering work emails, writing posts, editing a story — and getting ready to walk downtown. That last one — that’s the fun part! 
For this trip I’ve had only minutes in Manhattan, but I’m trying to make the most of them.
Passing the Birthday Torch

Passing the Birthday Torch

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Yesterday we celebrated Suzanne’s birthday at the newlywed’s house. I’ve only spent two of my oldest daughter’s last five birthdays with her — given the long sojourn in Africa — so this October 23 was cause for special celebration.

It felt like a passing of the torch. We came to her rather than the other way around. She showed us new paths for walking, the way the sun slants in her back windows, some wedding gifts they just received. There was a giant cookie rather than a cake.

But when we finally all gathered (arriving in three separate cars and one bike), there was lots of laughing and talking — while consuming great quantities nan, rice, lamb vindaloo and chicken tikka.

It’s a marvelous ride, parenthood. Not always smooth, of course, but unstinting in the possibilities it provides for  surprise and gratitude and joy.

The Wind Today

The Wind Today

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The wind is unsettling and brave. It rattles pipes and the branches. It shakes leaves from the trees. It is used to having its way. You might even say it is a bully, but that would not be fair.

The wind today is like rain, blowing with such intensity that I want to brush it out of my hair and eyes. I come inside from picking up the newspaper surprised to be dry.

I tried to take a picture of the wind, of the leaves swirling in its wake. This is all I could manage.

Should I walk now or wait? Wait, I think. It is difficult to be calm when branches are bending and air swirls around you in gusts and eddies. Best to hunker down with a good book and a cup of tea.