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Author: Anne Cassidy

PIcking Up Sticks

PIcking Up Sticks

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Here in the leafy suburbs, when a storm whips through it leaves a trail of sticks behind. This is in addition to crushed roofs, smashed cars and downed trees. Compared with these, of course, twigs and leaf clumps mean little to nothing. Think of them as the comic relief of cleanup. What you do after you’ve drug the large limbs out of the garden.

And yet, once I started picking up sticks, I found I could do little else. There is the Zen-like rhythm of bending and grabbing and stuffing them in a bag. There is the way that spotting them trains one’s eye on what’s just ahead, nothing more, nothing less.

But there is also, yes, the obsessiveness of the hunt. I no sooner rid the yard of sticks of one diameter than I notice the next largest sort. Before long I realize that I’m grabbing what usually lies undisturbed in our yard, that I have long since rid our lawn of anything that could clog a mower. That I have, in short, become a bit compulsive about the task.

That’s when I stop dutifully bundling and tying the sticks with twine, or stashing them in recycling bags — and instead dump them in the trash with the rest of the garbage. It’s my own little clean-up rebellion.

It’s Called a Derecho…

It’s Called a Derecho…

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But I didn’t know that late last night when I heard the wind roar and the boughs and acorns clatter against the side of our (newly resided) house and one very large thud which I realize now was a tree hitting our neighbor’s roof. It didn’t take long for the lights to flicker and go off, and it also didn’t take long to realize that this was no ordinary storm.

It wasn’t until recently, after 16 hours without power, that I was able to fire up the computer, check the Washington Post website and learn what hit us. A derecho (de REY cho) is a long-lived, widespread wind storm that rides along a line of thunderstorms. It’s capable of tornado-like destruction, and one of its claims to fame is that it can hold itself together over hundreds of miles.

The derecho that hit us last night formed in Chicago and raced eastward, fed on the record-breaking heat (it was 104 on Friday). The wind was clocked at 80 miles an hour here last night, and the storm left three million people without power.

Like any blizzard, tornado or major weather event,  this one made me  realize how slender are the threads that connect us to the routine, modern life we live. We were lucky. We lost one tree and a large hunk of another, but neither hit our house or cars. Our gas stove meant I could make a cup of tea this morning, too. But with no power, little communication (phone service was disrupted),  downed power lines making driving difficult, and 100 degree heat barreling down on us once again, the day took on a survivalist tone.

I sit now in the stillness after the derecho, thrilling to the sound of the refrigerator’s hum.

Home Alone

Home Alone

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The house at rest. Counter tops are clear; cups, plates, books, important envelopes that need to be mailed — they all remain where I put them.

I fall into the quiet slowly. Silence becomes a place I long for. Because it’s not really silence. Like the color black that is all colors, it is the presence of all sounds.

Our raucous family dinners on the deck; they are there. And so is last Thursday evening, when Suzanne and I  talked at the kitchen table as the room darkened around us. The girls’ younger selves are there, too, flitting around like house sprites, keeping me company.

I’m home alone.

Or am I?

Meanwhile, in My Other Life

Meanwhile, in My Other Life

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Today is the day. At 10 a.m., the Supreme Court justices will file into the Court and hand down their decision on the Affordable Care Act. For the last few weeks many of us here in our nation’s capital, especially those of us who work in a law school whose professors have been  involved in analyzing the legislation, have been waiting impatiently for this moment.

Will the justices uphold the act or strike it down? Will they banish only the individual mandate, the part that tells us we must buy health insurance or pay a fine? And if they do that, how will the rest of the act stand (the so called “severability question”)?  And what of the Medicaid part of the ruling? How will that play out?

This time last summer I was reporting and writing an article on this topic.  So I’ve followed the challenge through the lower courts and now to this ultimate one. Like much of official Washington, I was riveted by the oral arguments in March. The constitutionalism of health care legislation is not a specialty of
mine, but after spending a month interviewing experts and writing about it, I learned  enough to understand and appreciate the issues.

Which makes me wish I had time to write about every major issue facing this nation. The more you learn, I think, the more you care.

Outdoor Performance

Outdoor Performance

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A summer evening at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. Spreading a blanket on the lawn, sharing wine and conversation as the sun slants through the trees. Birds in the rafters, fireflies  in the air.

For all good suburbanites the experience begins with the drive there, and this one was better than average. Crowell, Brown’s Mill, Beulah — back roads that made me feel like I was out in the country, which Wolf Trap once was.

Outdoor performance has a character of its own, the crowds diffused by the presence of grass and trees and the high steady murmur of the wind. At a certain point in the experience you almost forget what you’re there for. But then the curtain rises, the lights come up, and the performance begins. It’s then that you remember you’re there for the dance, the music, the play. (Last night it was Ballet Hispanico, a beautiful and improbable blend of ballet, modern and Latin dance.)  It’s then that the illusion and the reality merge.

Photo: Wolf Trap

Channeling Mr. McGregor

Channeling Mr. McGregor

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One sign that you have grown up: When you start identifying not with Peter Rabbit, but with Mr. McGregor. If it’s been a while since you read  Beatrix Potter, this is the man whose garden Peter plunders, who chases Peter with a hoe after the errant rabbit sneaks under the fence and snarfs down lettuce, radishes and French beans.

When I read this book to the children, we identified with Peter, of course. Mr. McGregor was the villain, even though it was his garden that Peter ransacked. Peter, on the other hand, was devilish but brave. Willing to take on the world. And definitely a locavore.

It’s not a rabbit but deer that have turned me into Mr. McGregor. The herd of deer who have watched and waited until our day lily buds are full to bursting and then moved in for the kill. The deer who have eluded the stinky Invisible Fence that we’ve doused our flowers with.

Now I know how Mr. McGregor feels. We looked forward to the day lilies all spring long.  We transplanted, fertilized and nurtured them. And then, just when we were preparing to enjoy them, the deer snapped them up.

It’s not just disappointment I feel. It’s humiliation: Deer 1, Anne 0.

Photo: Project Gutenberg

Benin Bound

Benin Bound

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When we moved to Virginia, Suzanne was a six-month old baby. Today she flies to Benin, West Africa, to begin two-plus years of Peace Corps service. The room into which she’s crammed two decades worth of books and photos, dreams and plans — that room is preternaturally tidy now.

I made myself go in it late yesterday, though I would just as soon have left the door closed. But as she begins her adventure overseas, we begin the adventure of living without her.

It’s what you do as a parent and as a human being, learn to live without the ones you love.  This time the sadness has a fullness to it, though, a sense of life renewing itself. And that makes me grateful for it, in the same way that I’m glad for much-needed rain or the first crisp days of fall.

I don’t know where Suzanne will be stationed in this strange new country. Will it be in the south, near the water, or in the north, near the Sahel? More likely somewhere in the middle.

All I know is that the map of Benin that Suzanne studied for months is now in my possession. I’m the one studying its towns and rivers; I’m the one dreaming about the day when I can visit this faraway place.

 

The Walking Self

The Walking Self

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A cloudy, humid morning, the air a warm bath, out early before the day, and the thunderstorms, catch up with us. I spy a woman I’ve only seen walking — but this time she’s in front of her house. I have to look twice to be sure that it’s her. She looks far less jaunty pushing a lawnmower than she does striding along the street.

Which makes me wonder: Do we have a walking self? More confident and sure, a creature of motion not of pause.

I think that we do.

And if we walk far enough, and long enough, maybe the two selves merge.

Longest Day

Longest Day

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Tom and Celia head to Montana today, which means their longest day will be even longer. And which means that last night was the last time in a long time that we’ll all be together.

We sat on the deck until well past 10, picking at what was left of the quiche I made for dinner, lighting candles, discussing everything from ESPN to circular time. At one point we stopped talking to check on Copper, who was tangling with some wild creature (a fox?) in the back of our yard. Our little dog can always be counted on for comic relief.

Eventually the conversation came around to Africa, to the trips we’ll make there and what we’ll do when we arrive. It was a good topic on which to land. It is the optimistic approach, the sunny approach, what you think about on the longest day.

Find a Place

Find a Place

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… I watch them, the creatures of a city I have dreamed, the flowering
of an ache to be at home …

These lines are from a poem called “The Flowering” by Glenn Shea, from a collection called Find a Place That Could Pass for Home, featured on today’s “Writer’s Almanac.”  The poem caught my eye because it’s about home and about London, where I’ve always felt at home.

I think of a city I have dreamed, and I see the canyons of Lower Manhattan, the hidden mews of the Village, the broad swath of Amsterdam heading north, the green lawns of Central Park, front yard of a nation.

I remember the grass there, its outcroppings of rock, the aroma of a summer subway, clanging of metal against metal, a fresh breeze from the river flowing across our roof. The haze of a summer Sunday, heading back to my little apartment, knowing I could never live in the city forever, that this place I loved would never be my home.