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Author: Anne Cassidy

Walking New Jersey

Walking New Jersey

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Wednesdays are good for lunch walks, and yesterday’s stroll was prime. It started on New Jersey Avenue. There’s a block there in front of the hotel, under a canopy of trees, the capitol up ahead, that never fails to buoy me.

I parse the feelings I have when pounding that stretch of pavement. There is the tree cover, which makes me feel protected, secure. There are the taxis and limousines pulling in and out of the hotel’s circular drive, which suggest adventure, the hustle bustle of business being plied. There are people everywhere: tourists wandering guidebooks in hand; office workers scurrying away from the deli on the corner, taking lunch back to their desks.

Everywhere there is movement and energy. I’m walking faster, stretching my legs, opening my eyes after a long morning of close work and frayed nerves. A faint breeze stirs the tree tops. Life moves on. It has to.


(Almost, but not quite, the view from New Jersey Avenue.)

Fog and Memory

Fog and Memory

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Clouds have come to earth — or maybe they’ve risen from the earth, ground exhaling deeply now the snow is gone.

Driving to Metro this morning, I passed through great swaths of fog. It was like coming down from the mountain in the days we lived on top of one.

Petit Jean Mountain in Arkansas is 1,000 feet above sea level, and the switchback road to get there moves you into and out of the clouds.

Sometimes the fog there is so dense that it keeps you in place. But other times, the playful wisps hang in the sky like the ribbons from some forgotten banner waving.

Battle Weary

Battle Weary

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Walking past piles of dirty snow yesterday, I felt like I was in a construction zone.

There were mechanical teeth marks in the snow, the signs of big-shovel scraping and the variegated curve that comes from a bulldozer shoving. There were salt crystals from the ice storm and sand grit from the snowstorm. There was gravel embedded in the snow mounds beside the road.

But right nearby was green grass showing, icy ponds melting, warm sun shining. 

A big battle has been waged. Winter is on the wane — and spring, we think, is winning.

One Hour

One Hour

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One hour is a pebble in the shoe, the insignificant that will not be silenced. Put in perspective it is nothing, this shift of time. With all the great world’s spinning, how could it be important? It is only a matter of accounting, right? A shift from one column to another.

But so exquisitely tuned are we, so finely adapted to familiar segments of darkness and light, that one hour brings a yelp of pain or a cry of joy. Sandpaper-eyed mornings, loose-limbed evenings. A stark jump to the cold days of early spring.

The black ice on the driveway and the snow on the deck makes it hard to take this hour seriously. This hour will not catapult us to spring. It is the alarm set too early, tugging us to ragged wakefulness in the middle of the night.

Bird Noticer

Bird Noticer

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I’ve always loved birds but have never wanted to be a bird watcher, someone in sensible shorts
with binoculars around the neck. As I’ve learned more about Ira Gabrielson and the extensive bird lists he kept throughout his life, though, I’ve begun jotting down the birds I see at the winter feeder.

It’s easy to spot the cardinals, bluebirds and jays, and the Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds has helped me identify the others. The black-and-white-striped bird with a red-streaked head, the one that clings expertly to the deck pilaster, is a hairy woodpecker. But wait, there’s another, smaller bird, quite similar but without the red streak. I consult the bible. Ah, I see, it’s a female hairy woodpecker.

There was another bird that had me stumped until yesterday. A sweet little thing with a gray body and white breast that enjoys both the thistle and the other feed. At first I thought nuthatch, then a vireo. Yesterday, with the bible’s help, I solved the mystery. It’s a junco. Of course. I had identified juncos a couple years ago but had forgotten some key details.

I’m a long way from scientific. Will never spend hours in the muck waiting for a glimpse of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. But I am starting to pay closer attention to our feathered friends. Am I a bird watcher yet? I hope not. Just call me a bird noticer.


(Bluebird enjoying the suet block.)

Of Birds and Words

Of Birds and Words

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The office is closed, magazine proofs stuffed in my bag. For now it’s just me and the laptop and the words that won’t come. It’s so easy to sidle over to the kitchen for another cup of tea. Or watch the birds fight over suet. Just now a pair of young bluejays sparring in the air.

But the empty page won’t go away, so I come back, pull the words from wherever it is they like to hide. They are fickle and stubborn. They won’t be willed into existence.

The thing is, sometimes they hang out with the birds or the cup of tea. That’s where they hide when they should be on the page.

Nothing to do but find them and bring them home.

Promise of Greening

Promise of Greening

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Day before yesterday I stole an hour at lunchtime to walk the Cross-County Trail. I hadn’t been on it in months. This was the stretch closest to my house, less than 10 minutes away. I wasn’t sure it would be cleared of ice, and when it was, my feet flew!

The snow was piled high beside the path and rivulets of meltwater ran across the pavement. The sun was warm on my face and the Chieftains loud in my ears. From time to time a bird call or two broke through the music.

I wasn’t the only one out. There were dog walkers and solo wanderers and a group of three that took up the whole path.

“Passing on the left,” said a runner as he sped past by. “It’s good to be out today, isn’t it?” And it was. A hint of spring in the air and in our steps. The greening well hidden — but the promise of it all around us.

My Kingdom For …

My Kingdom For …

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Downton Abby’s fifth season ended Sunday night with a Christmas celebration at the Earl of Grantham’s manor house. Lords and ladies, cooks and valets — everyone joined in the holiday spirit. And that’s been the theme of this season — everyone joining in, boundaries dissolving.

The likely departure for America of Tom Branson, the chauffeur who married Lady Sybil and is raising their daughter after his wife died in childbirth, is being mourned by the family even though they once could hardly stand to have him at their table.

The cook’s assistant Daisy is filled with book learning and Mr. Molesly the footman enjoys sharing his love of history with the girl. We continue to hope for a happily ever after for Anna and John Bates — if the couple can stay out of prison long enough to find it. And finally, Carson the butler has made his feelings known to Mrs. Hughes the housekeeper. And she said yes!

I know it’s a soap opera, but it’s a wonderfully done one. I turn off the set each Sunday night wishing I had a ladies maid to untangle my necklace and a footman to serve the sweets and savories that the cook, in some magical, other-side-of-the-rainbow kitchen, has lovingly prepared.

Eleven months till Season Six!

Rise To Shine

Rise To Shine

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Yesterday’s freezing rain coated each twig and bough with a quarter inch of ice, and I awoke to a glittering world. It’s too slippery to walk outside but I throw open the window and snap this scene.

Everything is covered — from the mailbox flag to the leftover leaves of last summer’s climbing rose. Everything is covered — and everything is gleaming.

What this photo does not capture is the drip-drop-plop of all that ice melting. It sounds like rain, only it isn’t. It is, instead, the sound of beauty fading.

Visiting the Past

Visiting the Past

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I’ve lately spent a few hours in the cool, quiet recesses of the Smithsonian Archives. While this conjures up images of dusty stacks, in reality the building is new, open and sunny. Researchers sit in a glass walled room where archivists can keep a watchful eye. No pens, no purses, no coats or scarves. We stow our belongings in lockers and bring only pencils, paper, laptops and cameras.

What emerges is time and space for the quiet pursuit. The here-and-now drops away; the long-since-past emerges. It’s a nice place to spend some time, the long-since-past. I read about the 1918 flu and Model Ts and old roads on the prairie, two tire tracks amid waving grass. It was a place where you could buy an acre of land in Falls Church for $125 and build a house in ten days.

I leave the archives with my mind spinning. Once I walk out of that glass room, I’m not in the past anymore. But I’m not quite in the present either.