Summer Songs

You need to listen to this song. And I'm so sorry it's just a Spotify link, it's the only place I could find the original recording which is much better than the easy-to-find revival one.

I was singing this song to myself as I rode home the other day and it made me so happy. It's from Pacific Overtures, which is a musical about the opening of Japan. My little brother and I used to perform it in various settings (most memorably in a birch forest in Maine) when we were small. I love the idea of trading poems on a journey. Whatever illusions I had about ever composing poetry in Japanese have evaporated; it's eyeball-meltingly difficult.*

New York is changing me. More and more I feel like a wearing a dress and putting my face on is natural, not a costume. I ride more slowly, and curse at things in the bike lanes (why are there so many things in Brooklyn bike lanes that are not bikes? Cars, trucks, crates of bananas, babies, tire piles, trash piles, dumpsters, dump trucks, porta-potties...)

This guy is kinda sanctimonious, but he has a point.

I have my favorite bagel shop and pizza place, my preferred routs and subways. I have finally won over the elderly Caribbean lady next door. I haven't got lost in the subway since I got a wisdom tooth pulled and somehow fetched up in Bay Ridge and had exciting conversations with some squirrels.

It's a bit galling that I'm heading halfway around the world in a bit over a month. In fact, all the settling down instincts I never thought I had are choosing to kick in now. I keep telling myself that this will be a grand adventure and I can put down roots when I get home, but it's really like staring into a subway tunnel with no idea what subway is going to come roaring up. It doesn't help that my school doesn't tell anyone anything about anything ever.

So I go to work in the slightly dazed state that I fall under in the summer, and I sing to myself on the road and memorize beautiful Kana and forget them again.

I haven't even started Kanji yet. This is for 4th graders! I am so screwed...

Most weekends my patient gentleman and I flaneur around the city- to galleries and museums and gardens and shores. There's always something new to look at and have opinions about, and dreamy and vague as I may feel these days I don't think I have completely relaxed in weeks. I know I thrive best on variety and challenges and this city delivers that by the bucketload. Still, it's good to go back to Philadelphia once in a while and sleep deeply and be calm. I think my squalling, meeping cat who goes berserk and 4 AM every time my gentleman visits might have something to do with that.

Here's another song I like to sing while I ride. YES I KNOW IT IS PROBLEMATIC! But so good:

The whole album is great.

Man, as soon as I get to Tokyo my blog posts will be 400% more interesting.

--Isis

*THAT SAID. I'm bad at languages. Japanese is a lot simpler and more logical than my beloved English,  but my brain is just not wired to pick it up as easily as it does some other things. This is remarkably frustrating.