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Author: Anne Cassidy

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.

Smells Like Fall

Smells Like Fall

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A headline in the paper yesterday: Feels like summer, smells like fall. Exactly! Trees are yellowing and thinning. Leaves are piling up, collecting in gullies and storm drains. Mums are in their glory.

But all of this is happening (yes!) in 80-degree temps. The evenings have been chilly enough to set the trees on fire, but days are warm and mellow. It couldn’t be better for someone who longs for summer temperatures all year long.

Meanwhile, that lovely aroma, the acrid smell of autumn, is in the air and on the tongue. These are days you wish would last. The color and the light, each day a drop of butterscotch or honey.

Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy

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In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance describes his unlikely journey from a chaotic childhood in Middletown, Ohio, to college, Yale Law School and a real shot at the American dream. It’s been a good book to read during this crazy election season, as we have a national conversation (shouting match) about “making America great again.”

While Vance does not disparage the government help he receives — the Pell grants and scholarships and the four years he spent in the Marine Corps that turned his life around — what made a difference for him, he says, was not policy but people: his grandparents, sister, aunts and uncles.

They were there to pick him up when he was down, to show him by example how to live his life. But they — his hillbilly tribe — have deep-seated problems of their own that government policies alone won’t solve.

To read this book is to feel both depressed at the depth of these problems and inspired that someone can surmount them. It is, also, to realize how complex are the workings of the human heart.

See How They Run

See How They Run

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Washington, D.C.’s Metro system has been much maligned lately, both here and, frankly, all over the media. But here’s one advantage that is seldom mentioned: Metro keeps us in shape.

I thought about this today while running for a train. D.C. strap hangers know how long it will be until another train appears, so when they see one coming — especially at the end of the Silver Line, where the tracks are visible across a vast stretch of elevated sidewalk — they take off.

This is in addition to the escalator and stair-climbing (systems are often broken so you’ll be climbing no matter which you take), the balance improved by frequent standing in crowded cars, and, of course, hanging on for dear life (great for upper body strength).

The commuting life is a healthy life, as long as you ignore the stress levels. Take those out of the equation and you have the perfect fitness opportunity. Puts a whole new spin on the words “in training.” Why join a gym when you have Metro?