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Author: Anne Cassidy

Three-Day Stay

Three-Day Stay

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The airport will be busy. I could spend the whole morning on the back side of the office, watching the planes take off and land. Or I could look right behind my building at the train tracks. They’re mostly for freight lines but carry the odd passenger car or two. The rails will be humming today, too.

And don’t even get me started on the roads. The big story on the all-news radio this week was that the worst day to drive out of the second worst traffic city in the United States before a long weekend isn’t Friday but Thursday. I was driving west on a major highway last evening — and I would agree.

So as tempting as it might be to flee, I’m looking forward to staying in my own backyard — which I’m overlooking right now, sipping tea and listening to the crows call.

Finally May!

Finally May!

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An early walk through a perfect morning: just enough chill to make my skin prickle. Birds calling from the deep woods. Almost no cars.

With the rain gone the air is perfumed with honeysuckle and spirea. Fences groan with flowered bushes. Banisters and deck rails double as plant props.

The hanging plant I bought is still alive! The red roses are blooming!

It’s finally May!

Around the Block

Around the Block

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Inside it was about 65; outside a good 20 degrees warmer. The air was filled with a collective exhale as office-workers enjoyed their lunch hours on the first warm day of the season. People wore shorts and running shoes. They were biking and strolling and just hanging around.

The outdoor seats at Cosi — the cafe where I sat and had a raspberry iced tea before my first interview here — were filled with al fresco patrons.

I walked past them though. No more sitting for me. I was in search of a block to walk around, but there aren’t too many of those here.

The one I found consists mostly of a service road behind my multi-block office complex. It’s not the grit and glamor of my old walks on Capitol Hill, but it was quiet and warm. I could stretch my legs and let my mind wander.

It was interesting, too, exploring the unseen underbelly of this glitzy space. The bleeping of backing trucks. The aroma of smokers on the periphery. It was around the block, Crystal City style.

Lost and Founds

Lost and Founds

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I looked out the window at the garden today and spied a pink balloon where the peonies are supposed to be (the peonies that have taken a hit with the cold and rain). The balloon is an interloper. A visitor. A stowaway on the west wind.

From what little girl’s birthday party did it arrive? From what sticky little hand did it detach and float away?  Did it break free from a backyard boquet to fly over tree tops and land gently among the day lilies?

Wherever it came from it arrived intact, ribbon attached and almost fully inflated.

If the garden is to become a destination for wayward balloons might it also attract other lost items? Socks and keys and earrings?

A garden of lost and founds — now there’s a thought.

Aerie

Aerie

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I work on the fifth floor of a large building that overlooks a train track, a highway, a street and National Airport. Windows on the other side of the building have a perfect view of the control tower and take-off and landing. Given that I used to work on the ground floor, this is a welcome change.

There is a light, airy and aerie-like feel to being up this high, a sense of being the first to spot the weather when it changes. And…  about an hour ago I saw a bit of sun peak through the clouds.

I was intending to report this news immediately, of course, but work intervened. And now, alas, the sun has gone away. But it was there, I’m sure of it. And the weather forecasters assure us that that sun returns in earnest in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, I’m glancing out the window whenever I have a second. Right now the only light is see is what’s reflected back at me. But I’m hanging on and hoping for more!

(OK, not up quite this high — and with a decidedly less pastoral view …) 

Rain Song

Rain Song

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The rain began before I woke up. I knew it was coming, but I didn’t think it would sing to me. A pitter-patter, yes. But not this other sound, this low ping. It’s as if someone is tuning a cello or plucking a piano string.

And it has a steady and distinct pitch, too. I hum it, walk over to the piano. Could it be an A? Always a good first try; a million tuning orchestras can’t be wrong.

But no, it’s not an A, or a C or an F. Better try some black keys. And there it is — a B flat — or at least my out-of-tune piano’s version of that pitch.

Were I of a more mechanical bent I would worry about what’s making this sound. I would check for leaks or breaks. But instead, I listen. I let the rain sing its song.

(Waiting for Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden to arrive and tune in the large golden concert hall of Vienna’s Musikverein)

Escape Route

Escape Route

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For a walk break yesterday I turned left, strolled south down Crystal Drive. The lunchtime bustle buoyed me; I was ready to explore.

It’s a neighborhood of hotels, restaurants and fancy office buildings connected by glossy indoor passageways — not my style, but handy in the rain.

Beyond all of this, I’m convinced, lie real streets with real people picking up dry cleaning, dragging reluctant toddlers, walking the dog. But to find them I first need to discover the connector routes, the roads that will take me under the busy highways that honeycomb the area.

There aren’t many of them. Crystal City is almost an island. But all I need is one escape route. The maps are open. The shoes are new.

Puttering

Puttering

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Woke up this morning after more sleep than usual and immediately started puttering. I emptied the garbage. I watered the plants. I made Celia a pot of coffee.

Then I went outside. I moved the begonias. I caught an errant strand of climbing rose, looped a green wire around it and attached it to a sister branch.

I was about ready to sweep the deck when I realized this wasn’t a Saturday but a weekday, and while I wasn’t planning to go in early today because of after-work plans, I at least had to get there by 9!

So I ran upstairs and started getting ready, but not without a wistful backward glance at all the little chores that can be slowly checked off during a morning of puttering.

A Little Life

A Little Life

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It’s difficult to know just what to say about Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. It’s not a little book, to be sure, and not easy to finish within the three weeks allotted by Fairfax County Library.

At times it was only the fact that I was 400 pages into it that made me keep reading. Not because it wasn’t beautifully written and a page turner in the character-reveal rather than plot-reveal sense of the word — but because the characters must endure the endurable. (And somehow, most of the time, they do.)

The book grapples with big questions, some of the biggest. Why are we here? How do we find meaning? What are the limits of love?

It doesn’t answer any of them, of course, but it makes us ponder them, and it makes us care about the characters who are pondering them. And that, as good fiction always reminds me, is what it’s all about.

Frost Free

Frost Free

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I once heard — and never forgot — that May 15  is our frost-free date in northern Virginia. For that reason, I don’t put annuals in the ground until Mother’s Day or later. This year I was especially careful, given our cool rainy spring.

So it was only last weekend that I bought begonias and impatiens — and even then, I hesitated. I potted the begonias on Saturday, but Sunday night’s temps were expected to drop into the 30s, so I waited till last evening to plant the impatiens. They are tender things, and need the best start in life.

The whole exercise got me thinking about risk and how our acceptance or rejection of it shapes so many choices in life. I’m more conservative as a gardener than I am in other ways. I changed jobs at an age when many others might have stayed put.  I was willing to accept in life what I can’t in horticulture.

Whether this was foolish or wise, I’m not yet sure. But I do know this: In real life, there are no frost-free dates.