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Author: Anne Cassidy

A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It

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A family wedding brought us to Montana, so yesterday we gathered on the banks of the Gallatin River (of A River Runs Through It fame) to celebrate the bride and groom as they begin their life together. The vows were handwritten and heartfelt. I’ve known the bride since she was born, and her parents since before they were married.

Later, in a tent under the vast northern sky, we ate and drank and danced until the band stopped playing. The bride had hauled her couch down to the meadow for photographs, and the sight of that familiar piece (I’ve seen it in Indianapolis and Missoula and now here, in Big Sky) and the bride’s father’s toast likening marriage to a river brought all the circle-of-life feelings to an intense and memorable pitch.

The professional photographer didn’t want us snapping many shots of our own, but I couldn’t not take this picture. To me, it says it all.

Looking Closer

Looking Closer

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Yesterday I met a wee Scotswoman who has lived in the western United States for more than 40 years but still has a lovely brogue’ish lilt to her speech. She lost her husband almost a year ago and since then, she said, has found great comfort in walking. “It’s when I think,” she said.

She lives in Spokane and strolls through neighborhoods, but putting her comment together with the spectacular mountain scenery we hiked through yesterday made me ponder what it would be like to have the Rockies at your disposal as a walking/thinking landscape.

At first it would distract. Hard to ponder anything in the face of such beauty. Hard to do much of anything but marvel. But in time, I suppose, even great beauty becomes ordinary. And then one’s eye would wander from the grand vistas to the small beauties: a swath of fog wrapped around a hillside in the morning chill or a stand of lupine beside a weathered tree stump. In time, these would be the prompts of productive ambling; these little things, small and lovely.

Drinking It In

Drinking It In

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Yesterday I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Today I have at least 25 photos of the same vista. It was the photographic equivalent of drinking it in. I couldn’t sit and absorb the beauty then and there so I snapped shot after shot to do it later.

Today, I’m in the midst of great scenery but with the chance to hike into it. But before taking off I had to download the photographs, look at them and conjure up the sights we saw yesterday. The Grand Tetons, some of the youngest mountains on the continent; jagged, snow-topped peaks. Alpine meadows for contrast, easy on the eye. A cold, clear lake.

What to say? Only that sometimes it’s enough just to know such splendor exists.

Road to Big Sky

Road to Big Sky

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Yesterday I was in three time zones, two airplanes, two cars, one bus and the tail end of a tropical storm. I landed in God’s country.

Tall firs reaching to heaven. A mountain pass that made my ears pop. Blue, blue skies. Motorists that allow safe following distances. And, at the end of the road, the town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The air was delicious, the scenery divine.  We thought we’d walk to town to stay awake. How long, I asked the desk clerk. Twenty minutes, she chirped.

You know how this story goes. It was double that. But with the good luck that can sometimes befall the hapless traveler, we found a free shuttle bus that brought us home.

We had ice cream for dinner. We haven’t eaten a real meal in 40 hours. But we are here, on the road to Montana. Next stop, Big Sky!

Montana Bound

Montana Bound

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Starting today I’ll be trading tree canopy for big sky, hot and humid for crisp and cool, Eastern Daylight for Mountain Time.

It’s been a while since I’ve been out west, and sitting in my living room now, with still some packing left to do, it hardly seems possible I’ll be there this time tomorrow.

But I’m already seeing the vast expanses, buttes in the distance, red rocks and sage. I’m already tasting the air out there, and feeling the altitude in my lungs and head.

The walking may be slower but the views go on forever.

High Bar

High Bar

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Some walks have a higher bar than others, more is asked of them. This is not because of anything they’ve done wrong. They just have the bad luck to come after a restless night or a crazy morning.

Such was yesterday’s stroll around the Capitol. I left the office a little shell shocked, wanting just to escape, that’s all, the pavement beneath my feet, locomotion.

And that, at first, is what revived me. The rhythm, the pace of the walk. Step begets step, movement triggers movement. Soon you are blocks away from where you started, which is the whole idea, of course. You are strolling by the hotel with its sweeping driveway and its busy taxis pulling in and out, and then by a green park with a bell tower.

The people I passed — and there were many, this is high tourist season in the District — had faces to read and scrutinize, had snippets of conversation to offer, words in the wind. The humidity bore down on us, slowed us and held us up.

I saw a bomb-sniffing dog and a troop of high school students on a field trip. I saw a bounty of day lilies in front of the grotto. A Chinese lady motioned for my help, pointed to the Capitol and asked if it was the Library of Congress. That was one question I could answer. “Look for the fountain,” I said, pointing behind the scaffolded dome.

Wending my way back to the office, I passed a sandwich shop, tried to remember what I’d brought for lunch. Nothing special. But it didn’t matter. I was already full.

Outside In

Outside In

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I missed National Trails Day (June 6) but am not too late for Great Outdoors Month (all of June). The idea behind  these celebrations is to get people outside. No problem for a walker in the suburbs. I’m outside as often as possible.

But Great Outdoors Month is a good time to ponder the great divide between outside and in, between natural light and its artificial cousin, between the elements and our shelter from them.

Thinking back to Benin,  open doors, the colorful cloths hung where screens would be. There the line between outside and in is far more blurred than it is here. There people sleep on their little verandas in the hot season. They cook outside, eat outside and often wash their clothes outside, too. They do not need a Great Outdoors Month. 

Not to romanticize this, though. The Beninese are in a constant battle to keep their houses clean and dust-free, not an easy proposition with unpaved roads and meager sidewalks. They live with a degree of discomfort most of us cannot imagine.

Still, in so many ways, including this one, they remind me of simple truths we seem to have forgotten. One of them is this: That before we became creatures of climate-controlled comfort, we lived in tune with the wind and the rain and the sun. We belonged to our world in a way we don’t anymore. And it’s good to remember that.

The Market Walk

The Market Walk

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It was my first market walk of the season, visiting Reston’s farmer’s market before 9 so I could be fast-walking before 10. The paths are pleasant around Lake Anne, and homes are easy to fantasize about. Lake views, kayaks at the ready, dining and shopping within strolling distance.

But the best part was first milling around the market before the walk, choosing strawberries, zucchini and tomatoes; eying cherries, cabbages and asparagus. Taking the fruit and vegetables to the car and then trotting off down the cool, shady sidewalk.

A quarter-mile down the road I dodged off into the woods, where the path skirts the lake and runs alongside tall marsh grasses. Up a hill, down a hill. Looping back to the plaza and the market, which was in much fuller swing an hour later. All the while thinking of the tomatoes for lunch, the zucchini for dinner and the strawberries for breakfast.

Attention Deficit

Attention Deficit

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We interrupt our normal blogging schedule to bring you … summer!

All other post ideas disappeared from my brain this morning as I stepped out into the humid morning, already beading up the outside of the glass before 8 a.m. Yes, it will be almost 100 today, and I finally turned on the air-conditioning. But it’s time.

So I left the house early, walked quickly and found myself striding on a paved path through a meadow, tall grasses waving, not a breeze to stir them except the one I made in passing.

Later, almost home, I pushed through more tall grasses, daisies, Virginia creeper, weeds with minds of their own. The low grass was wet from the morning dew. The climbing roses have climbed another half foot. The day lilies are ready to pop.

How hard it is to sit still on a day like this. One wants to always be moving, pulling weeds, airing linens, scrubbing the sink. But sit I must. So I compromise with a rocking chair. Today, I’ll rock and write.

The days are long, the attention span is short.

On Top of Tap

On Top of Tap

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For months I’ve felt lost at tap class. The steps have been complicated and I’ve been slow to learn them. “The thing is,” I’ve admitted to my teacher, Candy, “I tend to think of a foot as a foot — not a toe, ball and heel.”

“Oh, that’s not good for tap,” Candy said.

For some reason though, I was on last night. I did back-ups and push-backs and even mastered a bit of the not-so-aptly named Happy Warmup.

I can explain my sudden improvement. This was the last class for several weeks. Our annual break is coming up. My feet obviously knew this. They were putting on a show, the final volley of fireworks, throwing it all up in the air before taking a well-earned rest.