My Back Yard

Whole clams.

I couldn’t believe that whole clams adorned my white clam pizza at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. Yum yum. You can watch a Roadfood video about the pizzeria.

Some other highlights of our day trip to New Haven:
* Hearing a couple of (Yale Glee Club member) singers harmonizing under a university building’s dome with great acoustics so they sounded like an entire choir
* Exhibit of watercolors by David Cox, “Sun, Wind, and Rain,” at the Yale Center for British Art
* Sterling Library’s cathedral-like architecture, with an indoor gargoyle reading a book saying “U R A JOKE”
* Feeding some local squirrels
* Eating biscotti and other treats fromLibby’s Italian Pastry Shop, just down the street from Frank Pepe

Iggy and I enjoyed a recent trip to Philadelphia.

“James Castle: A Retrospective” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art fascinated both of us. The self-trained artist relied on soot, spit, and water to create most of his paintings. Castle was deaf, which may have contributed to his powerful visual observations and his unusual twist on word-based art.

Another good artsy stop: Khmer Art Gallery.

We ate well, which is always important. Enjoyed:
* Italian food at Novita Bistro, which has been open only two weeks
* Eclectic vegetarian food from all around the world at Mi Lah Vegetarian, also open only two weeks
* Belgian beer and frites at Eulogy
* Breakfast sandwiches at Mugshots

Iggy pulled onto the shoulder of the road. “Keep going,” he yelled at me. “I’m fixing my chain. I’ll catch up with you. You can go on to the ice cream stand, if you want.”

We were biking uphill and Iggy knows I don’t like losing my momentum. So I kept on going until the crest of the hill. I pulled over to wait. Iggy’s still mad at me for the time I left him behind on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, so I wasn’t going to do that again. Anyway, what if Great Brook Farm with its made-on-the-premises ice cream wasn’t as close as he thought or if I overshot the entrance?

The ground was uneven, so I held my bike upright, figuring Iggy would join me in minutes. And within minutes I heard a bike clattering, then stop.

I looked down the hill to see a flash of neon yellow Lycra–Iggy pulling over to tinker again. I laid my bike down and then plopped myself on a grassy spot to wait. This was going to take longer than I’d hoped. Ten minutes passed. His bike’s derailleur was shot. It was time to pass my bike to Iggy so he could ride back to the car since I couldn’t remember where it was and I’m not as fast as him.

I crossed the street so I could wait on broad shoulder where Iggy would have plenty of room to pull over safely upon his return. Plus, a waist-high stone wall offered a flat surface where I could wait in relative comfort.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” said Iggy, as he wheeled away. I hopped up on the wall and looked around. A white house sat at the end of wall with a flourish of orange day lilies nearby. Elsewhere, everything was green.

Except, what was that? Something fluttered on the bag fastened around my waist. A fiery orange and black butterfly.

It flew away, but lit on the lip of my insulated water bottle. Maybe it was thirsty. But it stayed there no longer than it had on my waist, moving quickly to the yellow-taped ends of Iggy’s handlebars close to my feet.

Its wings pulsed back and forth as if they moved with every breath. Then its wings closed tightly for several seconds. It looked as if it had disappeared, replaced by a dried out oak leaf on its edge. Then it opened and walked higher on the yellow tape. Then it twirled clockwise, reminding me of the whirling dervishes I’d seen in Turkey. It moved in tiny steps on legs the same thickness as its wiry antennae. I was fascinated.

Doing research later on the Massachusetts Audubon’s “Find a Butterfly” page, the creature most closely resembled an Eastern Comma.

Anyway, time passed much faster than I expected. Iggy also made better time on my bike, returning in just 45 minutes. He loaded the bike onto his car, and then I got my cone at Great Brook Farm after all.

I enjoyed sitting on a plane recently because I:
* Didn’t clean the house, wash my clothes, update my files or engage in similarly necessary but unfulfilling actions
* Lacked Internet access to suck up my time while yielding no measurable results
* Could read the newspaper and magazines without feeling that I ought to be doing something else

Iggy and I enjoyed a 28.6 mile ride from East Providence to Bristol, RI and back on the East Bay Trail. I kept up with Iggy the whole way. But things might change once we tackle rides that aren’t flat.

We saw and heard lots of birds. Ducks, Canadian geese, robins, sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, a blue jay, and a small bird with a long upturned tail.

Enjoyed dinner on Federal Hill at Casa Christine and yummy brownies–especially the chocolate peanut butter brownie–from Pastiche.

I’d never seen a bus like it before. A retractable microphone hung from a track that ran the length of the ceiling. I didn’t notice it until the foreign student director pulled it to her mouth, saying, “Let’s sing songs.” I was on an excursion for foreign graduate students and their advisors at a Japanese university.

I’d been warned back in the states about the Japanese propensity for song. Japan is the birthplace of karaoke, singing to a voiceless soundtrack. You’ve got to sing no matter how bad you sound.

No matter how bad? I remember when my high school music teacher asked each of us to sing a few lines, so he could decide who should audition for chorus.

“I don’t know if I’m good enough for chorus,” said the girl behind me. She sang bell-like tones.

“Try out,” boomed the teacher. “You’re good.”

Then came my turn. I sang softly, hoping to minimize my humiliation.

“Louder, please,” said the teacher.

I complied, looking down at “Lynn loves Billy” inked into my desktop. I wished that I could disappear into the wood grain.

“Cathy, you’re next.” My ordeal was over. I wasn’t a chorus contender.

Most of the other nerdy girls like me joined the chorus, which rehearsed during the first lunch period, leaving me friendless in the cafeteria.

Many years later, the year before I moved to Japan, I confided in Melanie, my folk-singing friend. She made me her pet project. “Sing along,” she’d say as she strummed her guitar in the second floor walk-up we shared with two other students. For months, I listened silently. Eventually, my reserve broke down enough to chime in on “if I had a hammer,” that great folk classic, or “Charlie on the MTA,” a local song popularized by the Kingston Trio. Only at the end of the school year did I croak through a song or two as a soloist. And that happened only when no one besides Melanie was in the apartment.

I couldn’t visualize myself performing in Japan. As the quietest gaijin (foreigner) ever to hit my Tokyo University’s graduate history seminar, I rarely spoke in class. Even after six years of Japanese language classes, I struggled to understand native speakers’ ordinary speech, let alone their analyses of historical documents. And I lived in horror of making a mistake in my use of the complex language that has different levels of formality and politeness, which are two different things.

But underneath my silence, I yearned to connect with my Japanese classmates. So I felt jealous when Roger joined us and immediately outtalked me. He didn’t know any more about history than me, so he didn’t say much during class either. But he talked up a storm as soon as class ended, gabbing about little bits of nothing.

Technically speaking, I could have put into words just about anything that Roger said. However, emotionally I was frozen. I couldn’t take risks. I was my own worst enemy and I knew it. I couldn’t unlock my reserve.

So when the foreign student advisor rolled the mic to Roger’s seat, saying “Roger, how about a song?” I felt resigned. Roger would outperform me once again.

“No, no. I can’t sing,” Could I believe my ears? Was Roger demurring?

The crazy thought crossed my mind. For once, I could beat Roger at his game. No matter that the competition existed solely in my mind and was purely a matter of my shyness. If only I could sing.

I listened as students sounded out tunes in Japanese and English, most of the latter were local favorites such as Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Could I do it? Could I sing a song? My pulse raced. I wish I could say I waved the mic over to make Melanie proud of me, to reward her patience in coaxing me, but I did it to show up Roger.

I put a historical spin on my choice, to try to please my professor. “This is a song of American election reform,” I said, proud that I knew the term senkyo shukusei for election reform because it was an important theme in my research. Then I launched into “Charlie on the MTA.” Not just one verse, but all three. I wanted to suck in the limelight as long as possible. It sure felt good.

“But will he ever return? No, he never returned,” went the chorus. I wish I could say that song changed my life. That was the extent of my Japanese singing career. My one and only public song.
——

I welcome any suggestions on how to improve this essay. What’s missing? What needs more (or less) explanation? What should I delete?

A pristine restroom. Free snacks, wireless internet, and power outlet. A friendly attendant who’d scramble under tables to plug in a rider’s laptop.

These things made riding to the LimoLiner bus from Boston to New York City a pleasure. Much better than Greyhound.

I didn’t want to go to the beach.

I’d planned an extra day on a business trip to Florida to visit a relative. An emergency drew her away. My nonrefundable ticket kept me there.

The pressures of the week tempted me to stay by my laptop in the Holiday Inn. But it seemed like a shame to be in in Florida yet not see it.

So, armed with a map from the desk clerk, I set off for the beach. My route took me along a residential street planted with banyans, trees with aerial prop roots that seem to threaten to strangle the life out of their parent. So different from the sedate maples, oaks, and pines of my suburban north.

In most of the yards, tropical exotica reigned. But I recognized the long, leggy impatiens pushing up. Back home, it’s too early to plant anything. There’s another month for frost to visit.

Fifteen minutes brought me to a public beach, its half-dozen palapas already claimed by beach chairs and towels, but few bodies. I sat in the shade of one body-less palapa, figuring I’d be gone before the owner could take offense.

The damp sand stuck to the long pants shielding my pale winter skins. Not very comfortable. So I got up for a walk along the ocean’s edge. The deep pink interior of a seashell claimed my eye. Lots of frilled little shells dotted in the sand. I plucked a few as a souvenir for Iggy.

A family of four looked down at beach that had been washed by waves just minutes earlier. The grandmother snapped a photo. Then the boy in floral surfing shorts digs his hand under a live sand dollar and scoops it up to deposit it in the water.

Ten yards off shore, a fin cuts across the waves. Must be a dolphin. Something I’d never spot at a northern beach.

A black duck wears a red face mask that darts around its golden eyes with black irises before meeting at the back of its head. A black feather Mohawk escapes atop. “Don’t feed ‘em or you’ll have ‘em crapping all over the place,” says a potbellied man as the duck waddles across the floor next to the beachside concession stand. A bicycle mirror is clipped to his eyeglasses–the man’s, not the duck’s.

Batter-fried clams,
lobsters dunked in butter.
Summer on Maine beach.

I couldn’t push food out of my mind when I brainstormed “regional poetry” for Totally Optional Prompts. The fried clams at Ken’s Place in Scarborough, Maine, are the best in the world. Far better than breaded clams. At least, in my opinion.

Somebody I know fell in love with a tropical fish in Seattle. A fish that looked like a floating potato.

Look at its photo. Do you see the resemblance to a potato?

It’s probably a Guinea Fowl Puffer.