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Author: Anne Cassidy

Pony Tales

Pony Tales

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My family has a long history of visiting Chincoteague. We brought Suzanne here before she was a year old, and the girls have visited at regular enough intervals that they have real memories of the place. One of them is a standing joke/question/riff: Are the famed ponies, popularized by Misty of Chincoteague, really wild? With today’s post I will answer this question once and for all.

They are wild, within boundaries.

OK, I know this is a cop-out — but it’s true. I walked five miles round trip yesterday to a section of the island where they roam free. “Once you cross that fence (there was a cattle guard), you’ll be in their territory,” the ranger told me.

Fenced wild ponies? An oxymoron, for sure. But I was close enough to feel their wildness, their utter disregard that I was there. I kept remembering the pamphlet warnings. “Wild ponies bite and kick.” So I didn’t approach or offer an outstretched hand for sniffing.

Instead, I observed. And soon after this mare walked past me she started to trot and then to canter. Her friends soon joined her, a posse of five. I held my breath as they galloped past, leaving a cloud of dust and flowing manes in their wake. They were alive and moving and free. They were as wild as any fenced creatures can be.

Knobbed Whelk

Knobbed Whelk

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I’ve been thinking about the impulse to label and categorize. Take this shell, for example. I picked it up today after promising myself I would collect no more. The big bag of shells yesterday should  have been enough. And since today’s walk was a much chillier one — stiff breeze blowing, long-sleeved shirt and sweatshirt — my hands would have been warmer stuffed in my pockets. Except they were too busy picking up whelk shells.

But the urge to acquire is often accompanied by the urge to name and arrange, so I stopped in at the Tom’s Cove Visitor’s Center and picked up a little handout on shells. There are two types of whelks, I learned: the knobbed whelk, which has little points on each whorl, and the channeled whelk, which has grooves instead of points.

Learning its name is a way to honor the shell and its former inhabitant. It helps me appreciate it, which isn’t hard given its beauty.

But there is much I still don’t know: how a snail created this shell, how its hue came to resemble a thousand sunsets; how the ocean buffeted and burnished it and the waves tossed it up on the shore for me to find — all of those things I’ll never understand.

Chincoteague!

Chincoteague!

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As soon as I carved out a week between jobs, I knew where I wanted to spend part of it.

I arrived at Chincoteague before noon and wasted no time pedaling to the beach.  The usual access trail was closed until three so I took the long way around.

No matter. It was a day for cycling — and shelling, sunning and walking on an almost-empty beach.

I strolled almost an hour north absorbing the sun, sand and sea, then turned south and made my back to the towel. The channeled whelks I collected filled a flimsy plastic bag and banged against my leg as I trudged along. I didn’t pick up this item, though I did take its picture.

It is, apparently, a channeled whelk egg case. Something I’ve never seen before.

The shells themselves are in the car, making it oh so aromatic for the drive home.

But that’s a couple days away. What I have now is a gift of time — and a place I love to spend it in.

Spring Break

Spring Break

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Into my life comes a welcome pause. A few days in between. And I’m starting them off on the deck.

It’s a perfect spring morning. Birds are flitting and nesting. Dogwood is blooming. The door is open to the living room. The air is a perfect 70 degrees.

This is not a time of year I usually take off, these precious days of spring. Why not? Oh, too busy, I guess.

Meanwhile, the miracle unfolds, unseen. And I’ve been all the poorer for it.

Last Day

Last Day

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The office is nearly cleared. Only a few more papers to sort, then a bit of electronic tidying. It’s time to end one chapter and begin another.

It’s a surreal feeling, one I’ve grown used to these last two years: the loss of something once integral. I’ve watched, fascinated and bemused, as the details of my work have evaporated and trailed off, so many ghost vapors.

I’m in a strange position — disconnecting from one place, not yet connected to another.

Isn’t that what we used to call freedom?

Wonder

Wonder

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The office is almost cleaned out. The farewells are almost said. My work at Georgetown Law is almost done. So I took the afternoon off to see the Wonder exhibit at the Renwick.

I saw shapes, materials and colors that delighted and amused. Insect art, for example:

Or a 150-year-old cedar, hollowed, re-imagined and reconstituted:

And light everywhere, light touching polyester thread to create an indoor rainbow:

For many years I was paid by the word, so “one picture is worth a thousand words” is not a phrase I like to use. But there are exceptions:

Leaving the Hood

Leaving the Hood

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I’m not just leaving a job on Friday; I’m leaving a neighborhood — a lively, jangling, grand and varied neighborhood. A neighborhood where the U. S. Capitol and the city’s  largest homeless shelter are both within strolling distance. A neighborhood of posh eateries and soup kitchens. It’s a place I’ve enjoyed getting to know, so walks to and from Metro are taking on a special poignancy these days.

I trudge up the escalator at Judiciary Square into a jostling, careening space. Crowds of workers move in and out of the courts building. A homeless woman smokes or naps on a stone bench. Express newspaper hawkers call out a cheery good morning.

Across the street is First Trinity Lutheran Church, with a sign advertising its Bible study. A few steps away are the trees and railings where scarves were draped last January 6. There is the light I always try to catch, the one crossing Third Street.

The bridge across the highway offers a sliver view of the Capitol Dome. And then there is the construction site, as workers continue to roof I-395 so they can build a neighborhood on top. I’ll miss seeing the completion of that project.

Soon I’m walking down the alley that leads to my office, a backdoor approach that’s always been my preference. I like slipping into places, like slipping out of them, too.

Slow Greening

Slow Greening

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When I returned here late Sunday from Lexington, I could tell that spring hadn’t gotten much further than it was when I left three days earlier. And no wonder: Virginia had the same cold rain and snow bursts over the weekend that Kentucky did.

Which means that spring is delightfully long this year. The trees, just greening, are paused at a precious and delicate moment. For some, too much cold now means no blooms later on. The hydrangea comes immediately to mind.

For others, though, the cooler temperatures mean a slower greening — a longer run of “spring green,” a Crayola color I remember from childhood. It’s a hue closer to yellow than to green. “Nature’s first green is gold,” Robert Frost said. “Its hardest hue to hold.”

Some years, that “hardest hue to hold” lasts only hours; other years it might linger for a few days. This year it’s going on a week — a slow greening that’s a long tease and a rare treat. It’s all I can do not to aim my camera at every leaf and tree.

Grand Landscapes

Grand Landscapes

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The drive home was through sun and shadow. The snow that was falling on Friday had stuck in the higher elevations and was still there on Sunday. It was a spring day with a feel of winter, a day to process what has happened and what lies ahead.

In this I was aided by landscape. What is it about a glimpse of long distances that airs out the brain?

There is one spot on the road we took yesterday, one that approaches the area from Maryland rather than Virginia, where the view must be 50 miles or more in either direction. From that vantage point, it’s easy to see how small we are, how busily self-important.

Spend enough time in the company of grand landscapes, and the trivial falls away.

Sweet Adelines

Sweet Adelines

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There are more physically demanding jobs, to be sure. Digging ditches comes immediately to mind. But going through Mom’s letters and papers and jewelry was a different kind of hard. And at the end of the day we were all in need of a stiff drink and a good meal.

It was snowing, sleeting, raining and hailing yesterday, but we went out anyway, into a hopping downtown Lexington Friday night. After the drinks, the appetizer and the entrees, we were …. serenaded.

Turns out we were sitting right next to dozen or so Sweet Adelines. When I heard the pitch pipe, I knew we were in for a treat. Don’t know the name of the song, but it was sublime four-part harmony, barbershop quartet-style, and delivered with a flourish. These ladies could sing! When they finished, the whole restaurant erupted in applause.

It was a cheerful reminder that life offers more than grief and duty. It offers joy, as well.

(The cat did not join us, but she has good taste in beer.)