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Author: Anne Cassidy

Tree with a Story

Tree with a Story

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Still thinking trees from yesterday, I snapped a few shots of them on my run. This one has a story.

As I was lining up the picture, I noticed a man making his way to the curb with a small bag of trash. He paused, waited for me to finish before moving forward. It was like we were at the Washington Monument or something.

When I thanked him, he smiled and said: “Do you know what kind of tree that is?”

I admitted that I did not.

“It’s a pumpkin ash. Way out of its range but somehow it survives. It’s called pumpkin ash because of its shape. Probably several hundred years old. Lost a big branch in the ice storm but it’s still here.”

A tree with a story. How many trees have them? More than we think, I bet.

Old Guard

Old Guard

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The Bluegrass region of Kentucky is a natural savannah land, and trees here are in short supply. The old oaks, the ones that have been here 100 years or more, are gnarled and magnificent.

They stand sentinel in fields. They rise handily above young maples or pines. 

Because trees are scarce here, I notice them more. To come upon one now is to see what a tree can be.

Stretching

Stretching

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Packages are unwrapped. Christmas leftovers are dwindling. Must be time for New Year’s resolutions.

One of mine is stretching.

I usually carve just enough time out of the day to walk or run. No extra minutes for cooling down. 

I’m trying to change that. To come inside, keep the music in my ears and give my muscles time to soften and pull back into place.

There’s only one problem. I walk to think, too, and if the ideas have been bubbling, I need to jot them down before they slip away. So the other day I came up with a solution: writing and stretching at the same time. Sounds crazy, but it works.

Stretching the body, stretching the mind.

Deep Currents

Deep Currents

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Temperature extremes of the last week have us reeling. I walk in shorts and t-shirt one day, in sweat shirt and jacket the next.

A few days ago, in a t-shirt, I walked through air as changeable as water, as strange to the touch as those warm and cool spots you swim through in a spring-fed lake.

It occurred to me then that not only was the air like the water, but the weather was, too. Alternating puddles of days, as mysterious in their origins as those deep currents.

Appreciation

Appreciation

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Our
old house has seen better days. The siding is dented, the walkway is
cracked, the yard is muddy and tracked with Copper’s paw prints. Inside
is one of the fullest and most aromatic trees we’ve ever chopped down.
Cards line the mantel, the fridge is so full it takes ten minutes to
find the cream cheese. Which is to say we are as ready as we will ever
be. The family is gathering. I need to make one more trip to the grocery
store.

This morning I thought about a scene from one of my
favorite Christmas movies, one I hope we’ll have time to watch in the
next few days. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart has just
learned he faces bank fraud and prison, and as he comes home beside
himself with worry, he grabs the knob of the bannister in his old house — and it comes off in his hand. He is exasperated at this; it seems to represent his failures and shortcomings.

By
the end of the movie, after he’s been visited by an angel, after his
family and friends have rallied around him in an unprecedented way,
after he’s had a chance to see what the world would have been like
without him — he grabs the bannister knob again. And once again, it
comes off in his hand. But this time, he kisses it. The house is still
cold and drafty and in need of repair. But it has been sanctified by
friendship and love and solidarity.

Christmas doesn’t take away
our problems. But it counters them with joy. It reminds us to appreciate
the humble, familiar things that surround us every day, and to draw
strength from the people we love. And surely there is a bit of the
miraculous in that.

Photo: Flow TV

This is a re-post from December 24, 2011. Merry Christmas!
Cards on the Mantel

Cards on the Mantel

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As snail mail becomes extinct, the handwritten, hand-addressed Christmas card becomes evermore precious.

For years, maybe since we’ve lived in this house, I’ve displayed them on the mantel. They are a crucial part of my holiday decor.

Every year different, every year the same. Reds and greens. Birds and trees. Stables and stars. Snowmen and wise men. They warm up the hearth and dress up the house.

What they do best is remind me of the people who sent them — family and friends near and far.

It’s a Wrap!

It’s a Wrap!

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Gift wrapping can be a meditative experience. Last night as I was cutting and taping and smoothing edges, I thought about my
system, that it’s a little like painting. I spend as much time prepping as I do
actually wrapping.

Prepping means finding the items, removing their price tags,
matching them with their gift receipts, swaddling them in tissue paper and arranging them in a box. Only then can the wrapping begin. Of course there are
items that need no boxes. Books are good for this. Or other things (can’t be too specific here or I would spoil some surprises) that come already boxed. God bless ’em.

And then there are gift bags. I’ve been late
to jump aboard the gift bag train. Seems like cheating to me. But when it’s 11 p.m. and the back is hurting from bending over the bed (which is how I always
wrap gifts and probably always will), the gift bags and the perky colored
tissue paper start to look pretty good.

I finished a lot of wrap-prep and even some
wrapping last night. Enough to tell me how much more buying I have to do. So now – yes, I know, I know – I will have even more
wrapping to do tonight. What can I say? ‘Tis the season.

Checking It Twice

Checking It Twice

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This year, for the first time, my Christmas list is electronic. I’m using the “notes” feature of my smart phone.

It has worked surprisingly well — with one exception. There’s no easy way to “check off” the purchased items. I’m making do by typing an asterisk beside each one.

How I wish I could draw a thick black line or make a decisive “X” through the gifts I’ve bought. I suppose I could just delete them, but that’s no fun.

Makes me realize that a list is not just about what I have to do; it’s about what I’ve already done. Checking off the finished tasks makes me feel competent and efficient — which at this time of year I most decidedly am not! All the more reason to crave the illusion.

It’s a pathetic little revelation, but a revelation just the same!

Where We Are

Where We Are

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Lights strung along rooftops, wound around tree trunks and lampposts. Nets of lights on shrubs and hedges. Spotlights on wreathed front doors.

At the far end of my neighborhood is a house with a backyard that dips down into the woods. I never know where the yard ends and the woods begin. Except this time of year.

We light our lives to taunt the darkness. But along the way we outline them too.

The lights tell us where we are.

Christmas Itself

Christmas Itself

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A week till the big day, and there is still much to do. Gifts that need buying. Cookies that need baking. Cards that need mailing. Packages that need wrapping.

It’s easy to get caught up in seasonal hysteria.

But then I look at our tree and remember how pleasant it was to trim it this year. I think of dear ones here and far away. I see the dog biscuit the UPS man has left on top of the packages by our door, a funny peace offering to the canine who drives him crazy.

I take my time on the cookies, the notes, the ribbons and bows.

These aren’t way stations on the road to Christmas. They are Christmas itself.