Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Waiting for Sandy

Waiting for Sandy

Comments 0 Comment

I grew up in the middle of the country, not right in tornado alley but close enough. So hurricanes are not part of my birthright. They are, however, something I’ve gotten used to living on the East Coast. What sets them apart for me is not the strong winds (those were worse with the derecho we had in June) or the copious rain, but the fact that you know they’re coming.

Tornadoes catch you unaware. A sultry spring afternoon, a strange light in the sky, and before you know it you’re huddling in a stairwell while your roof is blown off.

Hurricanes are charted and observed. We woke up today to this photograph in the Washington Post. As I write I think of what we still need to do: fill up the cars; charge the phones, laptop and iPod (heck, even the toothbrush); secure the deck furniture.

Time to prepare — and also time to worry.  I remind myself that — all talk of hybrid cyclones aside, headlines that call this the storm of the century — at the end of the day there’s often more hype than hurricane.



What will these waves look like a few hours from now?

Eyes Closed

Eyes Closed

Comments 0 Comment

–>

It’s a minor complaint, the doctor said, and the best way to treat it is
with warm compresses to the eyes. He told me this a year ago and I didn’t
listen. This time he had my attention.

My new resolution, then, is to spend 15 minutes a day with my eyes closed, a
warm washcloth spread across them, hopping up every five minutes or so to
reheat the cloth.  This is my new meditation time.

It’s strangely relaxing. The warmth of the compress, the blotting out of the
world, my mind wandering, me trying, trying to keep it empty but largely
failing. Still, it’s a beginning, an earnest attempt to spend a few minutes a
day in the mental equivalent of a warm bath.

When the compress cools, I re-enter the world reluctantly. Lights seem too
bright, noises too loud. My eyes are still sore;  healing them will take time. But my
mind is starting to crave its quiet time.

Autumn Angles

Autumn Angles

Comments 0 Comment

The last few days, Venus has brightened my dark drive to Metro. It’s been there for a while, but I notice it more now.

I notice, too, the low sun as it shines through trees on the mornings I’m here to see its rising, how it separates and illuminates the foliage.

Autumn placements. Angles of refraction.  So much to notice this time of year.
 

Leaves and Sky

Leaves and Sky

Comments 0 Comment

Afternoon quickly turns to evening these days, and if I walk a little later than usual, the moon is my companion. It was so yesterday, a pale half, and beside it in the sky, a tangle of contrails.

The balmy air, the early evening and the usual group of dog walkers and fishermen out in Franklin Farm Meadow. But someone else, too. A woman with a camera stood by the pond and aimed her lens at the sky.

I followed her glance upward, and saw the clouds and contrails mingle in the afterglow. The sky continued to redden as I made my way home. By the time I reached Folkstone, it was a radiant pink. Not unlike the maple leaves that are almost, not quite, at their peak.

A Birthday in Benin

A Birthday in Benin

Comments 0 Comment

We were on the road to Toura when the phone went dead —  not literally, of course, but in our
conversation. Suzanne was telling me about the dust and the mud and the red
soil — and I was walking there with her.


She had warned me her phone was low on charge and not to worry if it went dead. We ought to have stopped talking then. But instead we chatted
minutes longer, then suddenly she was gone — and the great yawning space
between us opened even wider and I willed myself into her small African
village, along the red and rutted road, into her walled concession, past the
guinea fowl that live there too, through her humble door and into her life.

I couldn’t do any of that in real life, of course, but how I wish I could — especially today, her birthday.

Suzanne’s present came four months ago when she landed in Africa. My gift is knowing how very happy she is. 

Photo by Suzanne Capehart


October 22

October 22

Comments 1 comment

I write this morning of a boy and girl who met in college. The boy called the girl on a campus phone that served an entire wing of a crowded freshman dorm. Would she like to go a dance that weekend?

The girls’ friends who had overheard the call (which wasn’t hard to do) said the boy was nice, and so the girl said yes even though she didn’t know the boy. (It was that kind of time and that kind of school.)

When the boy came to pick up the girl, she was delighted to find that he owned a car and that before the dance they would be going into town for an orangeade. So they had the drink and they went to the dance and they kissed good night in front of the dorm. (Again, it was that kind of time and that kind of school.)

Now if this was a fairy tale, the next line would be “They started talking that night and never stopped.”

But this is not a fairy tale. The girl and boy fell in love, yes, but later they broke up and dated other people and broke up with those people and dated still other people. They moved from the Midwest to the east coast and back again.

They never forgot each other, though, and even before they married, even when they lived hundreds of miles apart, they never forgot the date they went to the dance and sipped the orangeade and learned each others stories. It was October 22.

EZ Pass?

EZ Pass?

Comments 0 Comment

Our newspaper today was wrapped in a advertisement for Virginia’s new 495 Express Lanes. The construction of these lanes has tied up traffic for years, and now it’s time to enjoy the benefits. But first we have to figure out how to use them.

So into our already harried suburban lives come new complications. To use the lanes you need an EZ Pass transponder. You can use your old transponder if you don’t plan to use the lanes with three or more people in the car. If you do, then you need a new EZ Pass Flex transponder.

To use the lanes you must be able to read, drive and count at the same time. If your truck has two axles, you’re in. If it has more, you’re out. If your car has three people, you’re free; if it has one or two, it’s, well, you’re not sure how much it is because the price depends upon the time of day and the traffic conditions. Prices are posted on a display board that you must read while driving.

Do I sound pessimistic? You betcha. I’m remembering one of my favorite New Yorker covers. It ran around Thanksgiving, a holiday which is becoming known less for giving thanks and carving turkey than for the sitting in traffic on the way to the feast. The cartoon, titled “To Grandmother’s House We Go,” showed a bunch of cars proceeding through the EZ Pass toll gates. Then it showed another group of cars flying above them. They were using the EZR Pass lanes.

Until those are installed, I think I’ll stick with my crowded old tried-and-true routes.

(This is the cover by Bruce McCall; it ran December 9, 2002.)

Forest Fire

Forest Fire

Comments 0 Comment

In summer the forest is dark and cool; ferns stir slightly, like ancient fans, and the ripple of a distant spring promises relief from the sizzling pavement.

In winter and spring the woods are open and bare but still not what you would call bright. The trees are pale sentinels and what greenery there is keeps its head to the ground.

But in autumn —ah, in autumn — the woods are all lit up from the inside, and entering them feels like walking into a party that has been going on for some time. The forest makes its own light this time of year. Each tree is an engine; the leaves are its fire.

Walking in the woods on a bright afternoon, the light is all around me. I don’t want to let it go.

Midway

Midway

Comments 0 Comment

Midway through October, gold outweighs green, leaves sift slowly earthward through the canopy.

Walnuts drop beside the road, their pungent green shell eroding, revealing the hard black fruit inside.

Leaves are falling but have not yet become the enemy. That will happen soon.

Until then, I see not the perils of fall — but the poetry.

Mall Walk

Mall Walk

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s mall walk: Brisk wind, hands stuffed in my sleeves and looking, always looking. The mall belongs to
everyone and holds everyone and when you walk through it on a clear fall day, it’s the people you notice first. They stroll, they stare, they move slowly. Sometimes they stop, right in front
of you. And then you (or at least I) roll my eyes and stride impatiently
around them. But the place is for them and of them and they make it sing, they
make it make sense.
Usually they come in groups. Families with toddlers who careen
down the broad gravel walkway. Tired mothers with purses worn across their
chest to leave their hands free for pushing a stroller or wiping a nose. Groups
of school kids with backpacks and more energy than seems possible. Tourists were everywhere yesterday — forming
lines at the Capitol, taking a break at the carousel, buying
hot dogs and ice cream in front of the Smithsonian Castle. 

And there I was, a reluctant
resident of our nation’s capital, someone who  routinely disparages the
traffic and the lack of place — until I take a walk on the Mall.
Until I see the people. And not just the tourists but people like me, office-dwellers with keys around their necks and tennis shoes on their
feet, all of us out for some air on a sunny afternoon. Runners and footballers and Frisbee throwers and people sitting quietly on a
park bench munching a sandwich and folks
strolling through the Botanical Gardens, learning to recognize the
switch grass from the blue stem. 
I know it’s probably just the endorphins from the walk, but these people, all of these people, the tourists and the residents, all of them seem glad to be alive on
this day and in this place. It’s easy to be one of them.