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Author: Anne Cassidy

Sunrise Photography

Sunrise Photography

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Vienna Metro, 7 a.m.

A train lumbers into the station and a swarm of thickly clad Northern Virginians scampers to board it. It’s 25 degrees outside; our breath makes clouds in the morning air.

I take a seat on the right hand side just in time for the big show — the winter sunrise. Clouds pile up and fan out, a medley of pinks and blues. On the horizon, a gash of gold.

The photo I take is grainy, a blurry likeness through smeared glass, with train lights reflected back at me. An imperfect replica, captured with a click (since I forgot to switch my phone to silent).

Two minutes later, the man in front of me takes out his smartphone, snaps his own sunrise shot.

If I do nothing else today I will take comfort in this — that someone else noticed the day unfolding and took the time to make it his own.

How a Trip Becomes a Story

How a Trip Becomes a Story

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Our bus trip took 12 hours, then we took a bush taxi. We saw elephants, hippos, baboons, a cheetah. The beach was deserted, and the hotel looked like an antebellum mansion, complete with Spanish moss.

After a while, a trip becomes the stories we tell about it. What we say, what we omit. What we remember, what we forget.

Here are the cotton fields, the market, the red striped cathedral, the old bridge and the pigs rooting beside it.

What was once a place alive and breathing, filled with wood smoke and goat bleats, is now a sheaf of digital images — and the stories I tell about them.

Music and Memories

Music and Memories

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My little iPod is a treasure. The size of a large postage stamp, it clips onto a sweatshirt or slips into a pocket. It holds most of my collection and keeps a charge for hours.

But the music it provides is nameless, faceless. It arrives via iTunes or a thumb drive. A bit comes from CDs but none of it, absolutely none, from vinyl. I have records, scores of them, and at one time I had a gizmo that would translate them to digital files. But even that music becomes anonymous once it’s assimilated.

One doesn’t sit and listen to music while staring at a CD cover or the tiny image of one I see on my iPod screen. What will never be the same again is the visual dimension of music, the way the album’s cover art became a part of the listening experience — became part of the music itself.

I’m taking these and other albums from Dad’s collection home with me. Not just for the music — but for the memories.

What’s On Our Minds

What’s On Our Minds

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On the radio. On the television. On weather websites.

 At home and at the office, too.

It’s what we talk about, think about, speculate about.

Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won’t.

I’m leaning toward the latter these days.

Step Lively

Step Lively

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When bitter winds howl in from the west, when temperatures dip into the teens, when the sidewalk harbors little patches of black ice and there’s a quarter-mile of pavement between me and the next warm building, this is what I do. Step lively.

It’s what some Metro conductors suggest. “Step lively,” they say. “Doors closing.”

It’s what race-walkers do, with a bounce in their gait and a swivel of their hips.

Step lively, with its whiff of the nautical, its sprightliness and energy and pep.

Step lively. It’s more hop than saunter, more snap than sizzle. It’s quaint and practical and fun.

Step lively. It’s a good way to get through winter.

Chutes, No Ladders

Chutes, No Ladders

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Metro delays this morning, temperature in the teens.  Time for a virtual vacation. Today’s trip is to  Tanougou Falls, which the locals (and all French-speaking, I believe) call chutes.

We pulled up tired, dusty, minds still reeling from Parc Pendjari and the close-up view of baboons, elephants and what turns out to have been a young cheetah. Our van was almost snagged on the rutted, rocky road to the small restaurant and souvenir stand that guards the entrance to the falls.

We were immediately surrounded by a staff of willing guides. It was a short walk to the first falls, picturesque but small. Many eager hands to lead the way. But no, said the guides, this was just the beginning. There’s another chute ahead, up and over those boulders.

One of our party said no go, her knees were sore. I waited a bit, sized up the endeavor. There was a scramble over rocks that were under water, but the more I looked the more I thought I could do it. “Tres facile,” said one guide. “Be careful,” said another.

When I nodded yes, Mr. “Tres Facile” took one hand and Mr. “Be Careful” took another. It was perfect. The push toward adventure, cautiously approached. Each step was carefully chosen and pointed out: “Ici … ici … tres facile … be careful.”

And before long we were there, Tanougou Falls. A perfect bowl of a setting, water deep enough to swim in. Gorgeous chute, angling, spilling, gleaming. Idyllic, except for one problem — I had to get back.

But I did, of course, thanks to Mr. Tres Facile and Mr. Be Careful, who were rightly rewarded for their toil.

Suburban Still Life

Suburban Still Life

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It could have been an easier office re-entry day. Twenty-seven degrees, snow falling. Schools closed and the parking lot half empty. I realized too late that I left my Metro card at home, and after buying a paper card to get me through the day, I rushed down the escalator only to find a train just closing its doors.

No matter. The world is white and still, a study in snow and steel. I pretend to be a tourist, take photos of Tysons Corner out the window.

It looks almost picturesque. The cars aligned and tracked, the sky mottled and gray. Remove the blue Honda sign — or keep it, if you like, it adds a spot of color. A suburban still life.

It’s almost like I’m on vacation.

Almost. Not quite.

Big House

Big House

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Suburban roads and American cars aren’t the only things looking big to me these days. There’s the house. With Celia back in college the place has grown overnight.

As the youngest and last child in residence — and in love with clothes and shoes — she had spilled out of her bedroom and turned her sister’s room into a big walk-in closet. So two rooms are emptied, not just one.

And then there was her habit of falling asleep in the office — enough so that I would automatically tiptoe when I came downstairs early in the morning.

In other words, she was here, even when she wasn’t (which was often). But now she is most assuredly not here. No music pulsing out of the bathroom as she gets ready for work. No Chanel perfume trailing in her wake.

She’s fine, she’s happy, she’s where she should be.

The house is too big. That’s all.

Altered Eyes

Altered Eyes

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Yesterday, when the late light was slanting and the air was still, I went out for a quick stroll. We passed the steep driveway, the signpost Copper always has to sniff.  We turned left, toward Fox Mill Road. I had barely reached the corner when the differences overwhelmed me.

The roads are wide, the cars have too few passengers. All around me is space, order. There is no trash, no fine red dust between my toes. No woodsmoke, no hazy sun low on the horizon.

Instead there is this world I know. At once the same and different — because I see with altered eyes.

Speechless

Speechless

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For the third day in a row I woke up with no voice. Not just hoarse and croaking. No voice.

I’ve been making do with whispers and gestures. I say very little. People answer me with whispers, too. It’s a silent world I’m inhabiting, full of cotton batting.

It’s a strange time to be voiceless. Here I am with all these stories to tell and no way to tell them. I could, of course, write them down. And the magical-thinking part of me, which was heightened in Africa, says but of course.

Returning home after a long trip abroad is a time to set goals, resolutions. Saying less and writing more is certainly a good one.

So maybe being speechless has a purpose. C’est bon! I feel better already.