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Author: Anne Cassidy

Still Life with Shells

Still Life with Shells

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When I returned with the great haul from Chincoteague I soaked the shells for a week. The bucket was so heavy I could barely pick it up. But over the weekend I mustered the muscle and shook out each whelk, rinsed residual sand from its core, and put it on the glass-topped table on the deck.

And there they sit, rain doused rather than surf doused, collecting tree pollen and stray sticks. The damp weather clouding the glass, giving the shells a soft-edged frame.

Though I took no care in their arranging, they easily fell into a tableaux. A companionable collection. A still life with shells.

A Slant of Light

A Slant of Light

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Lines from a book I just finished, A Slant of Light, by Jeffrey Lent. It was better than most at charting the ripples and eddies of a mind on a walk:

And he paused then and let his mind drift off a bit, as if overhead, riding the thermals of a hawk, or better, the air as a crow flies. And saw then his route, not along the road, but among the fields and farm lanes, the wooded ravines and gulleys that stitched together than land as a rumpled quilt, and continued walking until he came to the next to the last home on the rise of land.

 It was a book filled with long sentences that didn’t ramble but were well-tuned to the ramble, to the sight collage one experiences while moving through space and time.

It was a book that plumbed daily routines to tackle large topics. And one of the most elemental of these routines, of course, is walking — the thoughts and images to which it gives rise, the poetry it inspires.

May Day

May Day

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Ours starts out with rain, and not even warm rain. A cool 50-degree soaking that I hope hasn’t shocked the ferns, which I moved up from the basement yesterday.

It is, however, a green and portentous day, the beginning of a new month, a lovely, flower-filled one.

In the distance a cardinal sings. I can imagine it puffed up against the chill, delighting in the moisture as birds do.

The rain is making the companionable sound it does when it flows down the gutters and into the grass The yard is seeded and needs to be weeded. The rose is (mostly) trained. There are scads of to-dos on my list. But on this quiet Sunday morning, I sip my tea, make a list — and turn to words.

Bus Warrior

Bus Warrior

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A new job, a new routine, a new commute. After a couple of long, miserable slogs on Metro, I tried a bus that whisks me from a parking lot in Reston to a stop five minutes from my new office. It will be a godsend — if I can figure out the parking.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about D.C. traffic and commuting, it’s that every shortcut has already been found, every new route tried. It hasn’t been designated the second worst traffic city in the nation (bested only by L.A., I believe) for nothing!

But so far I can say this: the bus is a fundamentally different way to travel. It moves you through space above ground, for one thing. I see the white stones of Arlington in military precision. I see the Washington monument looming in the distance when we stop at the Pentagon.

Connections are clearer, the way road leads to road. It’s a good way to begin a new chapter, seeing more clearly, perched high above the fray. Not road warrior but bus warrior.

 

Brackish

Brackish

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Brackish waters belong to both the sea and the land, and Chincoteague is surrounded by them, by  estuaries and lagoons. In fact (I read on Wikipedia, just checking my terms), the Chesapeake Bay, which surrounds these tidal lowlands, is the largest estuary in the U.S. It’s “the drowned river valley of the Susquehanna” — something I never knew but will remember, due to its poetic turn of phrase.

But the word and concept of “brackish” sets the mind to spinning. How often do we run into situations that are a little of this and a little of that; that would be, if transferred into salinity equations, brackish?

Most of the time, I’d say. And that makes the brackish beautiful, which it most certainly is. So even though one is tempted to turn up one’s nose at brackish water, to think of it as sluggish and unhealthy, I warmed to it at Chincoteague: the mud flats, the marshy reeds, the waters shining in the late-day sun.

Night into Day

Night into Day

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A walk early this morning, a walk from night into day.  The road inky black beneath my feet to start, I rely on memory for the dips and bumps to step around along the way.

No music this morning. I wanted to hear the birds wake up — and I did.

But what I hadn’t reckoned on was catching the first crickets of the season. A chorus of them at Harvest Glen Court. They were chirping their little hearts out, glad to be alive on this muggy morning.

I listened to them, thrilled to them, took note.

Routine Change

Routine Change

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Ten days after my last day at Georgetown Law came my first day at Winrock International. A welcome sign, a tour, a lunch and a meet-and-greet all made me feel at home. As did lots of friendly people.

Now I just have to remember the new names, learn a new line of work and adjust to a new routine.

Ah, change! Can’t live with it; can’t live without it.

But of course we all live with it. Every day we grow a little older, a little bit different than we were yesterday. Those of us with children need no reminder that life moves on. But no one can avoid the truth entirely.

A change in routine merely makes more obvious what is true all the time.

Bumper Crop

Bumper Crop

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I’ve never seen as many violets as I have this spring, and in this I can’t help but see Mom’s hand. Not that she is any position to command the growth cycles of plants. (If she is, I’ll ask her to help our lawn!) But we both loved violets, and I feel her spirit in every one of these pretty flowers.

And then there is our balky lilac bush. Lilacs were another flower Mom loved. In fact, she wanted to carry white lilacs on her wedding day but was told they were out of season so she settled for stephanotis.

Our lilac has suddenly got the hang of blooming after two decades in the ground. Last year it sprouted a tiny cluster of flowers, and this year has more than doubled its blooms. With sunlight streaming into the yard as it does now, it will be no time before the bush is hanging its head with the weight of its sweet, fragrant flowers.

Or at least that’s what I’m hoping. So it’s not exactly a bumper crop, not yet. But someday…

Spring Green

Spring Green

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While I was gone the azaleas popped and trees reached a critical leafing point. Now when I look out the back windows, I see green.

I didn’t see green at the beach. I saw light blue skies and delicate, cream-colored sea foam. I saw pale brown eel grass dried and husky. I saw the occasional flash of scarlet from cardinals and red-winged blackbirds. But in general the beach palette was decidedly pastel.

Today’s still rain-drenched backyard is anything but. In fact, it’s edging toward primary color intensity. What a nice view to come home to!

Marsh Sunrise

Marsh Sunrise

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I was out early this morning for a bike ride around the refuge and a walk on the beach. The sun was rising, and though I missed its first rays on the strand I caught them on the marsh. It was more stunning, if that is possible.

I came to the beach for a few days to clear my head and punctuate what came before from what comes next. In that I was moderately successful. A lot has come before, after all.

But I came, most of all, for the place, for its beauty and rhythms and peacefulness. I’ve tried to capture it in words and photographs and mindset. And now, I’ll do my best to take it back.