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Author: Anne Cassidy

My Kingdom for a Gardener

My Kingdom for a Gardener

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The backyard is weedy, the hedges need trimming and the garden lacks vision. It’s about this time of year that I always wish we had a gardener. For most household tasks, I appreciate the doing as well as the getting done — polishing the furniture, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor. But as much as I love being outside, I find the outdoor tasks more daunting. The gap between the cottage garden of my dreams and the real, hodgepodge yard we have is too great to bridge.
Luckily, I know this stage will pass. Once the grass is mown and the summer perennials bloom, I will once again accept our yard for what it is. But until then…my kingdom for a gardener!

This Old House

This Old House

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Twenty-one years ago, when we were house-hunting in northern Virginia, we told our real estate agent that we wanted an “older house.” So she brought us here, to a 13-year-old (at the time) center-hall colonial with a big backyard. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, but the older houses were closer in, smaller and more than we could afford.

Fast forward two decades. The house that once seemed new and polished is sagging and fraying. The floors creak, the windows stick and the walls, oh, they could tell you stories. We’ve finally found our “older house” in northern Virginia. It’s our own.

Deadlines

Deadlines

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It’s April 15, so deadlines are on my mind. Not just today’s filing deadline, but deadlines in general. My life is built around them, and has been forever, it seems. When I was a student there were tests and papers looming regularly on the horizon. Ditto for the few years after college when I was a teacher. Then I became a journalist, a business with deadlines built into its DNA.
Through the years I’ve come to think of deadlines as my friends. While I rail about them, especially as they’re drawing near, they keep me on task, they keep me honest — and they keep me sane. My major problem is taking on too many of them. But yesterday, I turned down a freelance assignment because I knew I couldn’t finish it in time. Is this wisdom? Is this folly? I’m not sure. But it’s certainly proof of the power of deadlines.

The Way West

The Way West

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This is for Drew and Brenda, who are heading west the day after tomorrow. “We’ll be living a hard day’s drive from Denver,” said Drew. And knowing my brother, he’ll make that drive. Often.
I don’t know if my parents planned it this way, but when you pack four kids in a station wagon and drive them across the country a few times at young and impressionable ages, at least a couple of them will end up with incurable wanderlust. In my family, Drew has it the worst. That he will soon be living in a city known as the “Gateway to the West” is very appropriate. I have a feeling that he will be using that gateway often. And who can blame him?

Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes

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Last week my work computer starting acting strange. Messages popped up telling me I was under attack, that my files had been corrupted. Ben, our helpful computer guy, took a look. “You have a virus,” he said. “You should turn off your computer.”
I frantically tried to save files. I rushed to complete a project. I wondered why and how this happened. Most of all, I thought about how we personify mechanical malaise and call it a virus. As if my computer has a fever and an upset tummy. Or a rash and a headache.
The urge to personify is supremely solipsistic, but it’s understandable. We see the world through human eyes, so a weeping willow is a grandmother with long, stringy hair and a drainage tunnel is a pair of snake eyes. Computer viruses aside, personification makes the world a warmer, friendlier place.

The Happiness Project

The Happiness Project

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I’ve just finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, a book I heard about a couple years ago when I interviewed the author for a Woman’s Day story. Before the Happiness Project book, there was (and still is) a Happiness Project blog. It’s chock full of tips both practical and philosophical and I highly recommend it and the book.

As for my own “happiness project,” this blog is part of it. A New Year’s resolution come true (unlike the earnest but vague “worry less” sort of resolution I usually make) this one is forcing me out of my comfort zone. The sneaky truth about this resolution, and an underlying premise of Rubin’s book, is that happiness takes work. It requires speaking up and shutting up, list making and list shredding, risk-taking and even failure. But it’s all worth it. It is joyful toil.

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Just What the Doctor Ordered

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Prescribe walking to a walker in the suburbs and she will put in the miles. Yesterday I took two walks, a short one in the morning and a long one in the afternoon.
The short one, which happened on the way home from the post office, meandered through Horsepen Run Stream Valley Park, across a stream, under a road (through a tunnel) and up along a rise on the other side. It was still chilly and the air was crisp and clear. Morning walks are full of promise.
The long walk took me from my house all the way to the Reston Trails and back. I took my camera and snapped this photo of the small farm in the neighborhood behind us. Every time I walk there I marvel at what a treasure it is. There are five-acre parcels for folks who like horses, and if you use your imagination a little, you could be a hundred miles away. It was just what the doctor ordered for a soft spring day.

The Tug of Time

The Tug of Time

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Yesterday I had the first of several procedures to tame the varicose veins that I’ve had for two decades. It wasn’t too bad, and it’s something I’ve been meant to do for years. I bring it up in this blog because, for one thing, the doctor prescribed walking to speed recovery. This is just the kind of prescription a walker in the suburbs wants to hear, of course.
But the procedure brings up the more general topic of aging and how one goes about it. I don’t think I’d ever have a tummy tuck or a face lift. But being able to wear shorts or skirts again in public would be nice. Following the same moderate philosophy, I try to eat right and exercise. But I keep in mind that I’m not in my 20s or 30s anymore and can only expend so much time and effort fighting time and gravity. Is this copping out or aging gracefully? How hard should we fight against the aches and pains, the pull of mortality? How much of our life should this consume?

The Violet

The Violet

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“A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky.”
William Wordsworth

This violet is not by a mossy stone; it’s in our weedy backyard. But a violet is never degraded by the environment in which it finds itself. It always has about it an air of quiet beauty. Maybe it’s the color combination of flower and leaf, the vividness of the purple, the way it’s grounded by the green. Or maybe it’s the way it clusters with its own, as if waiting to be gathered into a bouquet. In the general boisterousness that is spring, the violet is shy and unassuming; it hugs the ground and skirts the edge of woodland trails.
Violets are part of my emotional-horticultural heritage. My mother has always loved them and her mother, my grandmother and namesake, always loved them, too. I have very few of my grandmother’s possessions, but I do have her violet-patterned china cup and saucer set, and I treasure it.
In the universal language that is flowers, the rose stands for love, the daisy stands for innocence, and the violet — for me the violet stands for tenderness and pride. It is the beauty of new life before the world gets to it.

The Car Ahead

The Car Ahead

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Articles on stress reduction often present this scenario: You’re driving to work and someone is tailgating you. Instead of getting angry, imagine that the fast driver is late for an important job interview or his wife is about to have a baby.
For me, the opposite is true. I am the impatient driver; for me the story has to explain why the car ahead of me is going so slowly. Maybe it’s a newly licensed driver on her own for the first time, I tell myself. Or an old man, clinging to his license because it gives him the freedom to live on his own.
This morning, I had a chance to study the slow driver when I pulled up next to him at a light. He was a middle aged guy wearing a loud print shirt. Next to him was a prim older lady. As soon as I saw them, I had my explanation. He was taking her to Fairfax Hospital for outpatient surgery. She was nervous, so he was driving way below the speed limit. Suddenly my impatience was beside the point. I was embarking on a normal day; for them, this day might change their lives forever. Of course, for all I know they may have been dashing out for a gallon of milk. But it doesn’t matter. I drove more slowly after that.