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Author: Anne Cassidy

The Coverup

The Coverup

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Few activities in life bring as much simple pleasure as covering up the ones we love.

Swaddling a newborn.

Finding the beloved blankie for a toddler in footie pajamas.

Tucking in a child after the fifteenth reading (that night!) of Goodnight Moon.

Pulling a jacket over the sleepy, sullen high-schooler you’re driving to school after she missed the bus.

Covering the teenager who came home late from the party and crashed on the couch.

And, when there is no one else around, tucking in this character.
 

Molting Season

Molting Season

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To have two parakeets in a cage that hangs from the ceiling is to have a complicated relationship with feathers.

Feathers are, of course, beautiful to look at, whether on or off the bird. They come in iridescent yellows, blues and greens — hues that might be garish elsewhere but seem perfectly natural on a bird. And feathers are fun to collect and hold: the sharp peak of the long flight feather and the soft fuzz of the white down.

But when birds molt and feathers fly, well, then you have a lot of cleaning to do. It was while cleaning after a recent molt that I began to wonder:  How would it feel to live with feathers, to fluff them and preen them, to see them piled on the cage floor?  How would it feel to lose them, one by one?

Would we be lightened? Would we be freed? And when new growth appeared, would we know then what it means to begin again?

Winter Musical

Winter Musical

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First, the dripping, a melodic plunking, a tune of winter’s making. Not the insect hum of summer, but slower and lower-pitched.

Inside, on the radio, the music of Mozart in honor of his birthday. Trilling clarinets, swelling strings — melodies that transcend the seasons but which take on a wintry tone today.

And finally, as noon approaches and the west wind roars into action, the sound of branches tapping against the house, of breezes sighing around corners and through branches that bend in their wake.

The sounds of late January. A winter musical.

Warm in the Morning

Warm in the Morning

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The temperature this morning is 37 degrees, the warmest it’s been in a week. It’s all downhill from here. Tonight a wave of arctic air rolls into town just in time for another frigid Tuesday morning.

But today is a better story. Today reverses the normal winter order of things: It will be warm in the morning, colder later on. That’s a relative “warm,” you understand. Two layers instead of three. A run at 9 instead of noon.

Still, today’s thaw is a reminder that we will not always have winter, that the ground will soften and slender green shoots will emerge.

Even thinking about this sends my internal temperature up a couple of degrees!

Twin Contrails

Twin Contrails

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Gray skies today but last Monday, on a warmish morning (40s instead of teens), I took my cup of tea out on the deck, wrapped up in a blanket and watched the birds at the feeder.

There was a softness to the air, and I could hear the sound of traffic from a busy road miles away. As the day warmed and brightened, I looked to my left. And there, emerging through the trees, twin contrails.

I bet they’re around most every morning. The 7 a.m. flights out of Dulles. I let my eye follow those white streaks as they emerged from behind the trees. I imagined I was aboard one of those jets, looking down at the rolling Virginia countryside, heading west.

Hesitation

Hesitation

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These are cold days in Northern Virginia (emphasis on Northern)! A person (or a dog) might have every reason to bound out the door, trot across the deck but then screech to a full stop at the top of the stairs.

Hesitation is in season.

“Do I really want to go out in this?”is what I imagine Copper is thinking.

Which is similar to my thoughts this morning:  It’s 6 a.m., 4 degrees F. — and, of course, it’s dark. “Do I really want to go out in this?”

And the answer, for both of us, for different reasons, is yes!

High Fidelity

High Fidelity

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It’s been years since the turntable was hitched up to a stereo receiver. But it is again, and for the last few days I’ve been playing records I haven’t heard in years.

John Klemmer’s Touch. The Antiphonal Brass Music of Giovanni Gabrieli. Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Switched on Bach.

Time capsules, all of them. I remember who I was when I listened to these albums — and what I thought about when I played them.

And then there are those timeless movements I’d almost forgotten: slipping the records from their sleeves, holding them by the edges with flat palms, lowering the arm so the needle glides gently onto  vinyl. Slow, careful, mechanical motions.

The music that emanates (at least from my down-on-its-heels collection) is not an audiophile’s delight. It’s snap, crackle and pop. Scratchy. A sound that’s known better days.

High fidelity? Not really. Except this: It’s music the way I remember it best.

Tale of Two Railings

Tale of Two Railings

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Yesterday’s snow meant business. Right from the start, the flakes flying only briefly before they touched and stuck. And unlike recent, more iffy snows, this one light, dry, easier to shovel and scrape.

It piled up slowly but inexorably, and by late afternoon, snow on the deck railing looked about three to four inches. After several more hours of steady precipitation (minus a little from the blowing), this morning’s total looks closer to six. And if today’s temperature is any indication (3 degrees F), it will be with us for a few days.

Gee, I guess it’s winter or something. It hasn’t been for a years, so we’re out of practice.

Company Town: Closed

Company Town: Closed

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Living in a company town produces some funny situations. Like today. The federal government is closed and so is my university. No complaints there, although deadlines being deadlines, I’ll be working anyway.

The funny thing is the unanimity of opinion. And the reliance on experts, in this case meteorologists. There’s not a flake of snow flying but we’re all hunkered down. The reason, of course, is traffic. In the last few years late-breaking snow storms have produced jams of biblical proportions, people arriving home seven, eight hours after they left for what they thought would be an hour-long commute.

So we’re taking no chances. We’re playing it safe. We’re grinding the wheels of government and commerce to a halt. We’re calling it a snow day.

Now all we need is the snow!

Bluebirds!

Bluebirds!

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They visited us on Saturday, several of them, including a persistent pair that hung out on the deck railing, the feeder or nearby branches. At the slightest sound (especially when I opened the window to take their picture), they would flutter away.  But I waited — and they returned.

Maybe they were driven here by the northwest wind. Or more likely the suet — a high-calorie treat to fuel their winter rambles. I hope they checked out the real estate while they were here: there are a couple of dandy bluebird houses in the neighborhood, and this time of year they’re open for takers.

Mostly I wondered where they had come from and where they were going. I’d like to think they were the proverbial bluebirds of happiness, come to pay us a visit on this cold midwinter day.