Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Peepers

Peepers

Comments 0 Comment

I heard them last night, the tiny, vocal frogs we know as spring peepers. Their chorus is a sure sign of spring.

They’re late this year, the little guys. Waiting for warmth, I imagine. We all are.

But who among us makes such music of our contentment?

If I read about peepers (and I think I did long ago) I would learn that their sounds are mating calls — not some existential expression of delight.

Still, after a long winter, in the just-dark of a warm spring evening, existential delight is what I hear.

Yes, They Can!

Yes, They Can!

Comments 0 Comment

I think the daffodils heard me. I wasn’t at home in the light to photograph
them. But here’s what their brethren downtown are doing.

And elsewhere in the District, things are popping out all over:

Let’s just see winter try to make a comeback now!

Come On! You Can Do It!

Come On! You Can Do It!

Comments 0 Comment

Is it any wonder that shy spring flowers are timid after this winter? Even as late as Sunday they were being pelted with snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Somehow — the angle of the light, the lengthening days — the world is still preparing itself for the new season. There’s that promising pink haze at the top of the tall trees, the way buds look 80 feet away. And there are green shoots and flowers pushing up all over town. Rumor even has it that the cherry blossoms are primping for their big show.

But here on the shady side of morning, the daffodils are looking less than sure of themselves. Yesterday I bent low, snapped a few shots, and gave them a pep talk. “Come on, guys. You can do it!”

They had nothing to say for themselves; only hung their heads a little lower. But I have confidence in them. Sixty-degree temperatures are forecast again for today. It’s only a matter of time …

The Grieving Season

The Grieving Season

Comments 0 Comment

It’s a day of pranks and foolery, only I don’t feel like laughing. Used to be people wore black armbands, heavy crepe. There was a period of mourning, a time set aside for grief.

But we live in a 24-hour news cycle. The days pass in a flurry, blur one into another. Emotions are fluid. We go back to work, we soldier on.

Grief lingers, though. It is with me in the morning, when the house is quiet. It is with me at night, when I wake up hours before the alarm. It shows up in the work day, too, sometimes when I least expect it.

It’s not an efficient emotion, not something that can be rushed through or even measured. And it has no short-cuts. Perhaps because it concerns itself with eternity.

So I guess it’s up to each of us now, to give ourselves the time we need. To give grief its due.

When Walking Was King

When Walking Was King

Comments 0 Comment

I had another blog topic rattling around in my head this morning, something about March coming in and going out like a lion, when I read an op-ed in today’s Washington Post. It’s the opening of baseball season, America’s national pastime, wrote Matthew Algeo, but long ago, fans gathered to watch another sport, competitive walking.

It was called pedestrianism, and it involved people walking around a dirt track for six days at a time. The races lasted for 144 hours (with participants napping on cots), included heavy wagering and winners (the celebrity athletes of their day) could take home as much as $425, 000 (in today’s currency).

At first, I checked my calendar. Could this be an April
Fools joke? But no, it’s still March. And yes, pedestrianism was a genuine phenomenon.

The author’s point was cautionary: Pedestrianism was in part done in by doping scandals. At one time in our nation’s history no one could have predicted that it wouldn’t have remained the nation’s pastime forever.

But I take something different from the piece. For a walker in the suburbs, it’s funny proof of how once walking was king.


(Wikipedia: An 1836 illustration of a “Walking Wager”, from Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, by Anonymous, Philadelphia.)

The Power of Play

The Power of Play

Comments 2 comments

Last night I stayed up late to watch one of the craziest, most fast-paced and ultimately satisfying basketball games I’ve seen in years. (Of course, I seldom watch more than half a dozen games a season!)

It was the University of Kentucky Wildcats (Go, Big Blue!) versus the University of Louisville Cardinals in the “Sweet Sixteen” round of the NCAA basketball tourney.

As you might expect with teams that are 80 miles apart and a coach who left one team and ended up at the other, the rivalry is intense.

At first, the UK starters, all freshman (Kentucky Coach Calipari having no problem with “one and done”), seemed nervous, out-of-sync. But by halftime the Cats had closed to within a few points of the Cards. From then on, they were on Louisville’s tail, trailing by a point or three but seeming like  thoroughbreds patiently biding their time on the rail so they can let it all out in the home stretch.

Kentucky led for less than two minutes, but they were the right two minutes. When the buzzer sounded it was 74-69, UK.

The last time I watched the Wildcats beat U of L was December 28. That night I watched with Dad. Last night I watched for him.

(No basketball photos but here’s a street scene from downtown Lexington, where there is much jubilation today.)

Walking West

Walking West

Comments 0 Comment

Long day at the office and the best way to unwind: walking an extra mile to Metro through the streets of D.C.

I’d stayed so long that I strode right into the setting sun. E Street was a swath of light, and the faces of the people marching toward me were shadowed spheres.

It was a strange way to see the world, as if my direction were the only direction. I thought briefly of skipping a block north, finding another route, but quickly realized the sun angle would be the same.

I was walking west, going home. It was the only way to go.

Seven to Eight

Seven to Eight

Comments 0 Comment

The return to routine. A dull knife, the kind that doesn’t cut. A balm perhaps? We’ll see. At this point it’s drudgery on top of sorrow. But it’s early yet.

And speaking of early, I’ve taken to watching the clock, waiting for 7:08 a.m., the exact moment of Dad’s passing. It’s become magical to me, a time of movement from one world to the next.

In fact, the whole hour is that way, the hour from seven to eight a.m. It’s permeable now, bridging the now with the hereafter.

And so, because I’m in that hour now, and for Dad’s sake, I take some deep breaths, I square my shoulders, I move on with the day.

Snow Flowers

Snow Flowers

Comments 1 comment

Spring is trying, really it is. Green shoots shove through the half-frozen earth. Maples redden with buds.

But the snow keeps falling, and the colds winds keep blowing and the temperatures keep dropping.

In Virginia and throughout much of the country, in the landscape of the body and the landscape of the soul, it’s the winter that won’t go away.

Of Friends and Flowers

Of Friends and Flowers

Comments 0 Comment

They came in the evening and they came in the morning. Good friends, coffee buddies, nieces, nephews, cousins, neighbors.

They came bearing photos and family trees, casseroles and sandwiches. You have to eat, and you have to talk, and the physical comfort of friends and food eases the grieving. Doesn’t banish it, of course, but softens it.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of calls, visits and rituals. Of looking through photo albums and sorting through papers.

It’s better not to stop too long.