Sushi Prayers Redux

It's still being answered, apparently, this sushi prayer of mine.

My Japanese neighbor, Hoshi, was sweeping away the bamboo leaves on his driveway early this morning. I was headed off to the Fairway market in Manhattan with my list of sushi ingredients. While Hoshi and I agree that leaf blowers stink, we have rarely stopped to talk.

Hoshi and his wife, Kumiko, however, stand out in this town of tall blonds. I distinctly recall the day last year when I saw this petite Japanese couple, with their shocking salt-n-pepper hair, first at Balducci's, then again at Whole Foods, and then, surprisingly, unpacking their groceries as I rounded the corner to my home.

It was just too much for my sense of "Now how do you like that?!" and I stopped to introduce myself.

This morning I decide to ask Hoshi where to go for sushi ingredients. I know Fairway will have some of them, but Mitsuwa market, the large Japanese superstore that used to sit across the Hudson from Fairway, has closed. Hoshi tells me to visit Fujimart, and gives me directions just a few exits away. And he invites me to "Come over any time" because his wife is an expert sushi roller.

Of course, I learned the basics from Jan last weekend, but the thought of having an expert Japanese sushi roller show me how is wonderful. And being invited into my neighbors' home is very wonderful. But even as I thank him cheerfully and agree that I will come, I start feeling a little shy because what, exactly, does "Come over any time" mean in a Japanese home? Hoshi must see this because he emphasizes "Really, come over any time. Just come." And points up his steps.

At Fairway I pick up toasted nori leaves, a small bottle of rice vinegar, and, among the arborio, jasmine, and basmati rices, a small bag of sushi rice. But I am missing the ginger, wasabi, and bamboo sushi roller, and will need to make the trip to Fujimart.

When I get home from Fairway, Hoshi and Kumiko are hauling bamboo stalks into the back of their black SUV to bring to the town dump. I decide to test the waters with Kumiko and so I stop and show Hoshi the toasted nori leaves. Again he tells me that Kumiko is an expert at rolling sushi and I should come by any time and let her show me. Now it's Kumiko who looks a little worried, and maybe a little overwhelmed in her big garden gloves and a car full of tree cuttings.

And while I thank him kindly and agree that I will come, I also decide it won't be today since Kumiko clearly has her hands full. Kumiko's English is not great, and I speak no Japanese, so this may be stressful for her despite anyone's best intentions. And I wonder if she is lonely, isolated as she is by language and culture.

Instead, I board the ferry and spend the afternoon on Great Captain's Island.

There is a spot on this quiet island that I have found luxurious and fairly isolated in the past, so as the other ferry passengers bear left along the sandy path to the BBQ sites, I go right, threading along the high water line of stones and seaweed.

The sun is bright, the wind lively. There is a trio of deeply tanned older women gathering shells in the crook of the beach ahead of me and so I stop and spread out my towel. It's actually not a towel, I suppose. It's one of the hand woven lunghis sold in government shops in south India. Gandhi, in his exploration of simplicity, urged people to weave their own lunghis, and this particular design speaks to that aesthetic.

Shall I keep going, and tell you about the Oregon woman and the kildeer nest? It was all part of such a lovely day.

I know it was a kildeer fussing at me the last time I sat in this spot because she made such a racket, and was so obviously unhappy with me, that I went home and pulled out a bird book.

Today another woman walks by the shell hunters and heads towards me on the beach. As she passes, she stops to show me a spotted rock in her hand. She tells me it's about the color and size of a kildeer egg. The last time she was in this area, walking along the stones, she looked down to see three large spotted eggs that looked just like the rocks they were sitting among.

It's funny, I also combed the rocks the last time I walked along that beach, but what I saw and collected was lots of beach glass. This woman saw the kildeer nest.

She's hoping to find that nest again if she can, and I'm quietly hoping I didn't step on them. We talk for a few minutes, I tell her about the kildeer momma and my assumption that she would have nested in the grass. She tells me how she watched the bird climb back onto the eggs. And she tells me she's from Oregon. I notice in our bikinis, that we share the choppy tans of women who mostly stay out of the sun.

And with a large smile, she wanders off again looking for the nest.

A few minutes later the Oregon woman is standing at the end of the island, shouting. I round the corner with her and follow her to a tidal pool where she points out for me the kildeer and three baby kildeers racing back and forth along on the mud. She laughs and says she feels somehow connected to this little family.

And so we part. And in the deepening afternoon of the ferry ride home I wonder if I should have added a spotted stone to my beach glass collection, and then I wonder how many reminders I need to stop collecting things.

Tomorrow I will go see Kumiko.