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Author: Anne Cassidy

Late Light Walk

Late Light Walk

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It was almost 7 p.m. last night but the air was so fresh and still, so lit up from the inside, that I just had to pull over and walk through it.

Luckily, I was near a Reston path. So I laced up my spare tennis shoes and hit the trail.

I’ve just been reading Annie Dillard (more about her in a later post) and am sorely conscious of how beautifully light can be described.  So let me just say that I felt as I was walking through a painting by Thomas Cole or other Hudson River School painter. I felt that the light was shimmering all around me, that it was bouncing off the trees and the darker shapes and illuminating them, too.

It wasn’t quite as dramatic as these photos (snapped, ironically enough, quite near the Hudson River, on the train trip home night before last) but it had some of this drama.

It was dark by the end of my walk, but that didn’t matter. I was all lit up inside.

Beyond Comparison

Beyond Comparison

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Penn Station, New York, N.Y. , 6:45 p.m. I mill around by the big board that announces train tracks. It’s a people watcher’s paradise: a mix of commuters and long-distance travelers, people with big bags and small bags and pillows and backpacks. People with coffee and salads and bagels to eat in the train or take  back to the folks at home. Every so often a train will be announced, followed by a predictable swarm to E10 or W13 or whichever gate has been tagged.

Fast forward three hours. Union Station, Washington, D.C., 10 p.m. The train arrives right on time to a station that is far too empty, far too clean. It even smells of disinfectant.

I could go on … but I won’t. It’s home now. Or at least the gateway to home. And it’s almost beyond comparison, the two cities are so different.

Let me just say this, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson or whoever said it of London … He who is tired of New York is tired of life.

Two Thousand!

Two Thousand!

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It’s a big day for the blog — its two thousandth post! And it passes this milestone in the Big Apple, the perfect setting for a celebration.

It’s fitting — because this is where I lived when I started making my living from writing. It wasn’t much of a living in those days. McCall’s Magazine barely paid its young editors enough to live on. I had a second job as a live-in “mother’s helper” for a crazy and lovable family on the Upper West Side to make ends meet.

But I was living the dream: writing, editing, soaking up the sights and sounds of the city and walking everywhere.

I still write and edit every day, but the setting has changed. As much as I love New York City, I doubt I could ever live here again.

It’s part of me now, though, just as these two thousand blog posts are.

Long Walk in the Big City

Long Walk in the Big City

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Yesterday I took a long walk in the big city. I started in the theater district, made my way south and west to pick up the High Line, which is now available at 34th Street!  From there (where I snapped this picture and then very quickly ran out of charge), I strolled to Gansevoort Street, then down Jane to the West Side Highway and over to the long, skinny park that runs along the Hudson.

The sun was flirting with us, in and out from the clouds. At times it seemed as if it would pour. But it didn’t (until today), so I had five blissful hours of ambling.

It’s really the whole package that does it to me here in the city. It’s the energy of the people and the place. It’s all the hundreds of details — from the grumpy Penn Station employee yelling at a woman who could hardly lug her suitcase (“Why did you pack so much?”) to the crazy wedding parade I found myself swept up in at the end of the day (complete with a kazoo band).

It’s good to be here. Life enhancing, as a matter of fact.

All Aboard

All Aboard

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Heading to New York aboard the Acela Express, three  hours to the Big Apple. It’s work that takes me there this time, but I’ve built in a few hours to walk.

It will be the perfect way to calm down after a frenetic morning of packing, texting — and learning about last night’s Chelsea bombing. I can already imagine the relief of moving quickly down an avenue, the creative chaos of Manhattan setting the pace.

For now, there is the slightly bumpy ride of a fast-moving train, the only sounds those of keys clicking and newspapers turning. (I’m in the quiet car.)

It’s a rocking motion, and would, if I gave it half a chance, lull me to sleep.

Rose Hips

Rose Hips

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Overnight, it seems that fall has moved in. A clammy, chillier air,  and the back lawn is scattered with leaves. The mums don’t look so out of place now, and for some reason the climbing rose has produced a bumper crop of rose hips.

What a strange and lovely name, rose hips. I look up the etymology, learn it is a 16th-century alteration of the Middle English “hepe” and the Old English “heope,” meaning seed pod.

Rose hips are invested with all sorts of nutritional properties, have far more Vitamin C than oranges, for instance.

If I had worlds of time, I’d collect the rose fruits and make tea or jelly. The garden has produced nothing else much that’s edible, apart for oregano, mint and thyme.

Instead, I’ll snap a photo and write a post. It’s another way to preserve the goodness of the rose.

On Foot

On Foot

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Metro’s massive rehab project has me once again scrambling for a way to work, switching up my commute. Today a predawn bus and a walk to the office from Army Navy Drive.

Crystal City is not what I would call a walker’s paradise. It’s honeycombed with expressways and hotel driveways. But hey, it has sidewalks and, more to the point, it’s my work ‘hood. So I’m getting to know it, block by block.

This morning a welcome breeze, a dearth of traffic (it was early) and 70-degree temps made the stroll delightful. I passed dog walkers, joggers and a few people who looked like they had yet to go to bed from the night before.

In other words, a motley crew — and fun to observe. Just further confirmation that it’s the right way to start a day, on foot.

Found Time

Found Time

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Sometimes when I wake early I think it’s because there is something I need more than sleep. That something would be time.

I’ve never been a prima donna kind of writer. I fold personal writing into my day: dashing off a post before dawn, scribbling thoughts in my journal on Metro. I have no backyard cabin or artist’s garret (I wish). The living room is my “office,” and my writing time is whenever I can find it.

Still, there’s never enough time. So every week or two I don’t fight the early waking as much as I might. I come downstairs and grab the two hours or 90 minutes or whatever scrap of time insomnia has given me — and use it to read and write.

I might start the day a little tired, but I’ve filled a greater need. I’ve lost sleep — but I’ve found myself.

Back to the Farm

Back to the Farm

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A late day walk yesterday gave me time to leave the neighborhood. I turned right on Folkestone and headed to Franklin Farm. They’ve mown the tall meadow grass there now, and the field was looking brown and parched. But the sky was blue, the clouds were puffy and the air was exquisite. 

I strolled past the pond and fountain, its spray giving the area a spritz of humidity. Shades of things to come. Our weather will be more summery today and tomorrow.
I saw the little dock where fathers take their young sons to fish, and the shallow pools where turtles sun themselves on the shore.
The last time I took this walk was weeks before the wedding. Busyness has kept me close to home lately. So it was with new eyes, calmer eyes, that I viewed the familiar sites. The trees and fences and backyards I know so well. All of it there for the dog-walkers, the kids on bikes, the moms in spandex — and me.
September’s Shoulder Season

September’s Shoulder Season

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There’s dried brush along the road now, and sometimes a single red or yellow leaf floats slowly down to lodge on the dry brown lawns.

I wouldn’t mind a few more months of 90-degree temps — but I’m in the minority. For many, for most, summer has outstayed its welcome. People long for a little nip in the air, for crisp autumn leaves and brisk autumn breezes.

What we have now is the delicious in-between. Not quite summer, not quite fall. I remember once reading a little essay about this time of year in the New York Times. I’ve since looked for that piece but been unable to find it.

But what it said, with far more grace than I can muster this morning, is that these are charmed weeks: all the energy of a new year within the frame of September’s mellow beauty and equanimity. A shoulder season, a fleeting patch of loveliness and ease.