Journal of a Sabbatical

thunder and lightning

16th century Japan, mosquito bites, tile, and poetry victims

May 5, 1998

Previous Entry Journal Index	x	x	n	rain part 1 I started the day by getting soaked crossing the street to the Butler's Pantry for coffee before therapy. It was not raining when I got out of my car, although it had been when I got up this morning. In the middle of the street, the heavens opened up. I was soaked to the skin before I got across the street, never mind safely into the Butler's Pantry. They handed me a mass of paper towels to dry off before I poured my coffee. By the time I left there and got to my therapist's office in the next block, the rain had totally stopped again. Little did I know the whole day was going to be like that. 16th century Japan After therapy, I got a combo plate at the Earth Food store and walked over to Starbucks for a latte. I didn't expect to run into any of the coffee buddies today but right in the window at the front table I spotted Tom and Dick and QI. QI just got back from Japan a day or two ago - from his semester long sabbatical to research 16th century explorer/missionary Jao Rodrigues. Two and a half hours flew by while he told us of visiting the Oki islands, finding the Rodrigues museum only to discover it wasn't much help for his research (he had better luck at the public library), meeting Augustinian priests from the US who have lived in Japan for so long they don't want to come back here when they retire. We compared notes on our experiences with Mister Donut employees. QI didn't know they get their training from the cleaning cult. I had read about that long after I got back this winter. But his impressions of them were quite similar to mine. I don't think I got as far as transcribing that part of my trip journal yet. I sort of got sidetracked from the trip journal by the IDRI web page and the virtual forest proposal. Gotta get to that or my musings on Mister Donut employees across Japan will make no sense to readers of this space. I felt like I'd already had a full and rich day when I glanced at my watch and realized I didn't have much time to go home to get a dry shirt before meeting the kids at the bus. As I was leaving, Tom gave me a pile of clippings on subjects of interest to me: Antarctica, Iceland and Greenland, Rhode Island real estate, King Philip's War... I went home loaded down and piled high with reading material. tile, the andovers, and poetry victims tile I had intended to work on a poem I've been writing for an anthology of new work by Andover poets (now that I've been accepted as an Andover poet even though I live in North Andover - more about which later), but all I had time to do was change my shirt and hit the road. I brought along my notebook and The Coast by Joseph J. Thorndike, which I started reading last summer and picked up again when I finished The Name of War on Sunday night. Just in case the kids wanted to ignore me, I'd have something to do. Despite leaving late, I got there early. Philip (uncle to the kids - husband of their mother's sister) was in the bathroom installing the tile with his friend and assistant, Bob. Philip introduced me to Bob and informed me that Bob was from Andover. Philip: People from Andover don't speak to people from North Andover, right? AJ: Yup. It goes back to the witch trials. The weird thing is, there's a grain of truth in that. North Andover and Andover used to be one town 350+ years ago, but the north parish split off and they've been separate towns ever since. But when I tell people I live in North Andover, they assume it's part of Andover. That is, people who don't live in either of the two towns. It gets carried to ridiculous lengths. the andovers At the Thresholds event at Memorial Hall Library, Ned and Tom read their poems on the thresholds theme. Patrick and I were in the audience but had not submitted poems for this event. At the reception afterward (besides introducing me to his mother) Ned convinced me to sign the list the Andover poets had out there to recruit other poets - other Andover poets - poets who live or work in Andover. Patrick signed up too, but he lives in Andover and goes to Phillips Academy so he qualifies on both counts. I live in the dreaded North Andover (that darn north minister had to go and speak out about those darn witch trials) and don't "work" in the sense they meant, so I scribbled a note in the margin explaining that I write in Andover. I do. I sit at the counter in Starbucks and write. As I get to know more and more people there, I get interrupted more and write less, but I do still write there. So, Christine from the Andover poets called me to ask what I meant and why I signed the list. It was a bizarre conversation. The gist of which was that I should hook up with some North Andover poets (and there was only one other North Andover poet signed up on the list anyway). I was embarrassed when she asked me "don't you know any poets in North Andover?" and I had to answer that despite living here for 20 years I know very few people in town. I know more people in Andover. Heck, I know more people in Groton than in North Andover. It's a good thing she couldn't see my face turn red with shame that I hadn't become part of the community. It doesn't matter that downtown Andover is closer to my house than downtown North Andover. I'm consigned by my zip code not to be an Andover poet. I ended up saying things like "Ned made me do it" and other nonsensical excuses. Anyway, there wasn't going to be any "next event" and the group isn't really a group so why did I feel left out? But wait, there's more. The upshot of our conversation was that the "next thing" is an anthology of Andover poets to be published in The Bridge: Merrimack Valley Culture. To which I said: "Oh, Paul Marion's thing". Suddenly, I transcended living in North Andover and became worth talking to again as in "how do you know Paul?" Gee, I wasn't trying to name-drop (is that a verb?), I was just reminded of my long promised piping plover essay and my encounter with Paul and Tom and Julie at the Kerouac festival. We left it that if I really really wanted to be in the anthology, I should call Paul and beg him to redefine Andover to include North Andover. The night of this conversation, I suffered a huge crisis of confidence, deciding that not only my poetry, but all my writing, and even my photography basically sucks and I am not in the same league as any of the Andover poets. Therefore, I wanted no part of the anthology and was not going to bother submitting my piping plover essay either. So there. I was so [expletive deleted] about the whole thing that I didn't even write about it in my journal (until now). But wait, there's more. About a week after the bizarre phone conversation with Christine, I got another call from her informing me that she had spoken to Paul and it was going to be an anthology of The Andovers after all and that Mark Schorr would be sending out the guidelines to everybody on the list - including poets from North Andover. I could barely keep myself from laughing. This is just too funny. But wait, there's more. I got the guidelines in the mail from Mark Schorr along with the entire list of poets. Guess what. Lots of them are from North Andover. I am not the only one or one of two misguided North Andover people. This is just too funny. poetry victims Turns out the hippie in the bathroom (who is actually working upstairs on the closet next to the old computer room while Philip and the guy from Andover are installing the tile) is also a poet. Kevin told him that I am a writer. He asked if I he could show me some of his writing. Awhile later, after the Barbie wedding, he brought a poem and read it to me. I liked it. Andrea asked if I could put Peter's (that's his name) poem on my web page. I asked Peter, he said OK. So herewith, Peter's poem: They'd been lying there on the woodpile that would not fit inside the shed I'd built, in the driveway under the blue green roll up wooden screen that Nils found somewhere that was itself discarded They were turning brown these things but they still smelled like xmas, so dry that I didn't want to push them into the trash barrel with my hands. So I pushed all four of them down with the up turned lid and into the trash they went. But not easily Halfway to the dump a bag I'd left untied started to undulate and out danced a piece of trash that shimmied into the distance and disappeared down over a hill I stopped after pulling over to tie the bag. the trash barrel was on it's side now and out wafted that Christmas smell again. I really thought about that smell now They'd really gotten my attention. As I drove I looked in the rearview and there was one of them trying to get out. It was waving a few fingers out, parched,brown but still not wanting it's demise. So I pulled over again and found some paper and wrote this down. They're still going to the dump. But it's amazing and sad, how how some don't want to let go of that seasonal mirth and glow, no matter how passe and gone they are. Do the dead envy the living? No I'm just playing with my imagination. again. reprinted with permission of Peter Moller Peter calls his audience "poetry victims". I like it. I'm thinking of calling myself a zip code victim. the Barbie wedding Barbie married Aladdin in a double ring ceremony on the front porch. The bride wore a lovely white gown with elegant beading and carried a bouquet of yellow roses. She was attended by maid of honor Pocahontas and bridesmaids Barbie and Barbie. Reverend Ken officiated at the footstool altar. Music was provided by Santa Claus on pinano. The horse also attended. The bride and groom exchanged rings of yellow twist ties. The reception was held in a Gateway 2000 box in the living room. The Coast While Lizzy was trying to do her long division homework, I was reading The Coast. I had thought Andrea was amusing herself on her own, but she wanted to know what I was reading. She asked who the main characters were and what it was about. I tried to tell her there were no main characters, but there have to be in a book... so she asked me to read some of it to her. The chapter about historic preservation on Nantucket was a little confusing and uninteresting to her, but her ears perked up when I read about whaling and about New Bedford. How do you fit a half-scale model of a whaling ship in a museum? Is it half a ship? Even more interesting were the list of exotic places that New Bedford residents came from in Melville's day - Fiji and Tonga - and in more recent times - Portugal, the Azores, Cape Verde. Andrea found Fiji and Tonga on the map and figured out routes to New Bedford from there. It was a bit easier to find the Azores and Cape Verde and figure out the routes because the Azoreans and the Cape Verdeans only had to cross the Atlantic. They didn't have to go around Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. We played at this finding how the whalers and fishermen got to New Bedford game until Kevin got home from the soccer meeting and it was past Andrea's bed time. thunder and lightning It wasn't raining when I left Kevin's house, but once I got onto 495 the heavens once again opened up. This time they unleashed their full fury. Driving home in blinding rain with lightning flashing all around and listening to the Red Sox game on the radio is distinctly summer-like - and this is only May. It was a tense drive in places because I really couldn't see the road, but I got home alive and the Red Sox won thanks to good pitching, good defense, and timely hitting. The thunder and lightning continued intermittently well into the night. Today's starting pitcher: Tim Wakefield Oh, yeah, I left out that I came home with several mosquito bites, my first of the season.
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