Casabianca

Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck
trying to recite ‘The boy stood on
the burning deck.’ Love’s the son
stood stammering elocution
while the poor ship in flames went down.

Love’s the obstinate boy, the ship,
even the swimming sailors, who
would like a schoolroom platform, too,
or an excuse to stay
on deck. And love’s the burning boy.

Elizabeth Bishop

‘It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart, but the welcome I receive with every start.’ Mumford & Sons

My first Dublin residence this year

This week, two writers–Henri Nouwen and Paula Meehan–sparked a culmination of thoughts I have been facing since arriving back in the United States. For the past month, I have lived and worked with adults with learning disabilities in the Seattle chapter of the organization for which I also worked in Northern Ireland. After 9 months of travel, my homecoming was less than ordinary. Rather than returning to my hometown, floating on couches, searching Craigslist for entry-level jobs, I entered almost immediately into a community, a family, and I was given work and a social life.

This work in L’arche provides constant philosophical stimulation and raises endless questions for me. Each day can provoke something unexpected, making it difficult to maintain the reflective writing that sustains me.

But at a moment of discernment–when faced with the decision to stay at this L’Arche house for another 8 months or a year, something I had not intended to consider–the words of Henri Nouwen and Paula Meehan changed something in how I’d been viewing not only my decision, but the entire process, journey, that landed me to where I am at the moment.

In a poem of Meehan’s that I’ve read countless times, one line suddenly stood out. In a poem in which the speaker recalls a memory of her grandmother, she reflects on the prophecy her grandmother gave her. ‘…She tells me I am beautiful. / That I’ll never have children, but a song / for every child I might have had and none / got easy but writ in the blood of men / who’ve displeased me / She swears it’s true. No room  / of my own, until the grave.’

It was part of the last 2 lines that particularly struck me: ‘No room / of my own, until the grave.’ In the past 9 months, I’ve tried to believe and live out that belief that if there is any room of my own, it’s the one from which songs come, poems come, and those are the walls I must live inside.

But the literal facts of my drifting remain. As I made my way through Northern Ireland, Ireland, Scotland, France, the Czech Republic and Germany, I lived in a house owned by someone else. I was never a single renter with friends as I was in college. Rather, this time I lived alongside people in the place they called home. In many ways, I was constantly a guest. For a moment, that thought created a slight feeling of panic, when I remembered how it felt not to feel safe, confident, comfortable–the things people feel when ‘at home-’-to wander around the rooms of a place in which I was living. This concern ostensibly seemed to impinge on my my desire to feel at home, metaphysically, without relying on anyone else. My idea of home seemed to involve a feeling of independence. I wanted to be able to live by my own will, to not be arriving at another’s will. But such a panic overlooks notice of the welcome inherent in every one of my stays.

The view from a pub in Ostrava that Jo and I frequented. Lots of big discussions there.

At the end of the month, I will have spent 5 months in a L’Arche house this year. Out of any physical place to live, L’Arche is the most likely place to find an immediate sense of being at home, a feeling of acceptance, of welcome. But knowing how to accept that welcome involves comporting oneself in a manner of openness.

When I left for Northern Ireland in September, I imagined I was, in many ways, making the journey alone. No one from my life in San Francisco or Seattle would be accompanying me. Few people I’d known had done L’Arche, and at that point, I had no idea when I would return or see friends and family. I had committed to 8 months, but intended to stay longer, perhaps to settle in Northern Ireland after L’Arche.

Things did not go as expected, and I journeyed around the rest of my time abroad. But now that I have since returned to another L’Arche house, I have begun to realize that I did not go to Northern Ireland alone. I took with me, and lived in, many close friendships.

Before L’Arche, I read the works of Jean Vanier, the founder, but I had read nothing of Henri Nouwen, despite hearing his praises. In the epilogue of a journal from his time in France, his first extended stay in L’Arche, Nouwen talks of the importance of the fact that he did not go to France alone. A close friend accompanied him, someone who he came to think of as a ‘safe place in the midst of all the transitions and changes.’ Doing do, he said, prevented him from making the community the true center of his life.

For someone like Nouwen, an ivy-league educated man who deeply valued friendships in which he could engage intellectually with others, having such a friendship was centering, balancing. But, he says, by prioritizing what sort of friendship he wanted, he failed to see the perhaps simpler and more immediate friendships around him, the community around him. It was less glamorous–it didn’t involve the existential wondering and dialogue that was so comforting in his friendship with the man who accompanied him. But there it was, existence–without the audible questioning.

When Nouwen chose to say ‘yes’ to making L’Arche the center of his life, to move away from his friendship, he said no to many things assistants also turn down when they enter L’Arche: to choosing the people you want to live with, to spending time with people you feel very close to, to self-defined views of solitude and independence, to centering your life on a wonderful friendships with promise of commitment beyond the day before you.

In the past 9 months, I took many friendships with me along the way, and I maintained them sometimes through visits, but mostly through the oft-time letter, countless emails, skype–all the ways Henri Nouwen could not connect with his life at home while in a tiny French village. Much of the journey was painful, in part, because, like Nouwen, I could not choose the friendships that sustained me and my own defined terms of solitude or independence.

One such friend, around the corner from one of her former roofs.

So long as I viewed myself as a guest, under someone else’s roof, I could not fully enter into community. I often let others determine how close we could become, rather than standing, open, to what came.

One might ask, What risk is there in not making the community the center of life, rather than relying instead on chosen friendships?

The choice, Nouwen says, to center life in community,  brought on a ‘second loneliness,’ for him. It was not the loneliness of physical or emotional or mental isolation, but one bred from finding oneself purely existing, perhaps connection-less, perhaps not, depending on how one can eventually view the situation. It was a loneliness that turned into a truer independence.

There were times in Northern Ireland when emotional crises or the simple requirements of my job forced me to center my life around L’Arche, around a community that did not include hand-selected, favorite people (something we all sort of want our family to be).

And when I focused on L’Arche, I found myself existing in a more pure way. I faced the day before me, the minute before me. There was much uncertainty in which relationships would last, but I learned to see value in relationships not for their longevity or potential for future commitment, but rather for what they brought out on a daily basis. Viewing relationships this way allowed me to apply things I’d read from Gadamer and Nancy, about accepting the new person that is constantly created in relationship, about what it tangibly means to stand alongside one another.

Perhaps one of the most moving and profound things I have learned from L’Arche, but constantly forget and must be reminded, is how to redefine dependence and independence. For the past 9 months, I have depended, in many ways on the generosity of others, on the company of others I did not always choose. But I have appreciated that company, even if it was only for a few days, hours, one night. I think of a woman from my fiddle class in Belfast, my instructor for that class, the woman who made coffee in my local haunt, a homeless artist I met in Belfast, Fulbright scholars in Ostrava, fellow students in Berlin. And I am amazed how many people welcomed me into their life.

Common American culture and my own stubbornness makes me view dependence as an inherently negative thing. The true adult, we believe, must be independent, self-made. But when are we not in relationship to one another? When are we not relying on someone else for communication, eye contact, for them to ring up our bill or answer our calls? As Vanier and Nouwen have said, there is something about living with, along-side, people with disabilities, who show their dependence so evidently, that reminds us how dependent we are.

When I must chop up someone’s food just so that someone can eat, when I must assist someone to use the toilet, when I help someone to shower, I am reminded that though these adults are dependent on me, in some small way, for simple things that I take for granted, their dependency is not a weakness, with the negative connotation we give that word.

Their weaknesses show me all of my own. When I try to help someone in the shower and mess up the temperature of the water or forget soap, I am reminded how careless I can be in the simple acts of daily living. My concern for intellectual questions and my love of reading, which are gifts, can also make me vulnerable to missing out on what is before me. Sometimes I cannot initiate a friendship the way some of the core members I have lived with can. When a woman with Down Syndrome shows affection so easily and readily to me, I am reminded how difficult that once was for me.

Part of what allows for relationships to exist as they do in L’Arche is the acceptance that we are not entirely whole. One aspect of the role of an assistant involves helping core members show their best selves. That could involve gently talking to them when their misunderstanding of social situations leads to behavior that does not reflect well on who they truly are. It could also involve finding jobs and activities that bring out their gifts so that the greater community sees beyond labels of ‘disabled.’

As Nouwen says, this love for each other ‘is a love that grows by forgiving each other constantly for not yet being who we want to be for each other.’

One could say that L’Arche takes in guests, accepting that they too are in the midst of a process, a journey, toward becoming. But whether or not such people remain guests, or integrate into the community, is open to the traveller.

In the end of this discernment process, I decided that now is not the right time to say ‘yes’ to living in L’Arche. I value saying yes in a time of uncertainty, and I think L’Arche allows for that, but I have decided I would like to re-commit to life in L’Arche for an extended period when I am more confident in my decision.

For the time being, I am freelancing and exploring ways to stay connected to L’Arche, to keep these friendships I quickly made simply from living alongside other people, from sharing their roof.

Tonight, as I was heading out for a run, black hoodie on, rocking out to ‘I’mma Shine’ by YoungBloodz, I encountered the German Polizei and Feuer Department.  Turns out, they were busting someone in my apartment building for growing some extra special substances. We merely smiled at each other (a translation of the German nod) and I was on my way.

I currently live with two women who both studied law and work in the legal field, so our building’s little bust, perhaps all the funnier because we live in Prezlauer Berg, once the oasis of alternative artists and now the zipcode with the highest number of children in Europe, sparked a conversation about little legal matters–those seemingly small but important things you learn from living in another country.

No more Unionist flags in my neighborhood

So speaking of small but important things you learn from living in another country, here are my top 5, so far, for Germany. I have been remiss with blogging lately, but I have to start somewhere, and I think this list will get me into the meat (or tofu) of the matter.

1) If you would like to blend in as a German local and thus, have German spoken to you before you open your mouth, do not be born with red hair. If you are so unfortunate to have this happen to you, go to the nearest Apotheke and buy some red hair dye, as unnatural reds will help you blend in just fine.

2) If you would not like to stand out as an American, do not laugh loudly and publicly (especially on U or S-Bahn platforms), particularly when talking about the Wild Wild West. Compose yourself in public and please, no knee-slapping.

3) When at a club and handed red drink tokens as change for future drinks, do not be tricked into thinking this is a great deal. They are like monopoly money or U.S. Direct loans. Though they are there, you’re not dealing with concrete goods. By the end of the night, you will likely end up traipsing around a bar looking for other tokens, appearing as many of the street bottle collectors cruising the S-Bahn do here. So really, if you’re looking for a truly urban German experience and want to connect with your trade union roots, perhaps do rejoice at the sight of these red tokens.

4) Watch out for dog shit. Though one could operate on most street corners in Berlin, dog shit is not one substance people seem to worry about removing. And everyone knows you shouldn’t presume an Irish girl has shit on her boots. But sometimes it just happens.

5) Befriend your local baker. She will be your best friend and there is very little to mess up about, I would like a donut, especially if you are American and Roman Catholic.

That is all for now. In a few days, more on touring Berlin, German literature and the experiences of an American-Irish expat in Prenzlauer Berg.

Perhaps the best play structure yet--for adults or kids? Macht nichts.

It's a long way to Belfast City too, but public art is just as important in Berlin.

I realize it’s now rather fitting, as I came to love Jane Kenyon on those long Saturdays and days off I spent in Belfast, reading in the Linen Hall Library in the city centre of Belfast, when the sun set entirely at 4.30 p.m. Before those nights reading her, I had owned this book, and often read a poem, ‘Here.’

It starts:

You always belong here.

You were theirs, certain as a rock.

I’m the one who worries

if I fit into the furniture

and the landscape.

I’ve always related to this poem, and I even dog-eared the page. But across the page is the poem, ‘From Room to Room,’ which I read but to which I related less at the time. I think I partially entitled my blog this after a research paper on Virginia Woolf and John Donne that I wrote for a Donne research seminar last winter. I enjoyed the process of writing the paper (as much as one can enjoy sleepless nights, getting one’s car towed in the pursuit of research, and nearly turning down someone I later dated for the sake of my paper). But my roommate and I struggled through it, one night using Zen meditation at a Buddhist convent in Seattle as a stress-reducer, instead of our usual European ways (ie., sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and skinny jeans).

The paper was, at least somewhat, on the symbolic and philosophical use of rooms in the writings of Donne and Woolf, both of whom lived with different sorts of depression. And our house that year was a series of rooms upon rooms, with little continuity, self-enclosed, but through which many people and many tunes passed. So it all comes together.

(Sorry this formatting is terrible, but WordPress will not allow for copy-pasting that maintains my spacing. People good with technology, enlighten me if you can. But for those of you professors or aspiring professors who desire extra space for red marks, here you go!)

Jane Kenyon:

From Room to Room

Here is my reflection:

The first few weeks of L’Arche felt rather quiet. Previous L’Arche assistants, upon hearing this, might laugh a bit, given how loud they know The Ember to be most of the time. And that din came to be a comforting one for me.

But the first few weeks were quiet. I am generally a more introverted person, I was in a culture that was fairly foreign to me and I enjoy spending time reading and writing. Mostly, though what marked the real silence was the lack of perpetual buzzing and ringing from my mobile phone.

In Seattle, where I attended university and worked as a journalist, I became accustomed to my mobile’s alerts as a call to work. I often worked from home, the car, or on the run, waiting to hear back from people I wished to interview, checking facts on the go and checking in with other journalists at hours many people do not work. At times, I could come to dread voicemails, as these calls often interrupted time with friends, roommates and time I spent writing for myself. I loved being a journalist, but there are natural drawbacks.

When Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’ (my ringtone) did not mark a business call, I received constant texts from friends making jokes during class, inviting me to go get drinks or requesting a moment to talk.

It was thus fairly freeing, in one sense, to be so disconnected from my mobile when I was first in Belfast. I maintained a mobile phone almost entirely for emergency purposes and for texting a friend who was in Europe at the time. I kept in touch with others in Seattle and California (where I grew up) via email and Skype, but I appreciated that my life was a bit more silent than it used to be.

This act of disconnecting in the hope of re-connecting represents for me an important aspect of L’Arche. As friends of the L’Arche community know, life in L’Arche moves much more slowly than life outside of L’Arche. I’d like to think that in an ideal world, there can be more of a balance between the viewpoints held and lived out in L’Arche and in the outside community, but there is not always.

I went back to Seattle for a week in the midst of my time in Belfast and was shocked to see how much more quickly I used to live, how different the things were that I focused on—namely, my career, my time, what others thought of me.

Around that time, Scott told me that for many assistants, L’Arche can be a steady place where the volunteers who come and go, for relatively short times, and from far-reaching places, can find a deeper sense of self, community, strength and return with renewed energy to their previous life. Maria’s formations were often challenging for me, but they asked me to question: if I was not defined as a student, a journalist, a daughter, a girlfriend or a friend, who was I?

And oddly enough, without all those definitions, I think I settled on an answer.

I do not want the things that I learned in L’Arche, the memories I have and its way of being to be in complete conflict with the rest of my life. L’Arche frequently allowed and required that I find a balance between these two worlds. Working at the Allotment allowed me to have some more hands-on experience with philosophies of sustainability and deep ecology that I held dear before arriving in Belfast. Every time I told someone I met randomly in Belfast that I was from California, and yes chose to move to Belfast, and worked with people with learning disabilities, I experienced what it means to involve a L’Arche community in the local community. And living with Jill, Larry, May, Thomas and Matthew taught me to focus on the day that was before me, the present moment, in the company of friends. L’Arche taught me that living in a way that honors the importance of relationships is neither easy nor glamorous, but the returns of daily labor are worth the effort.

My previous writing instructors often told me to trust the process that they proposed for me—ways of getting into a poem or story, the process of re-drafting, the process of sharing with others.

L’Arche was also about trusting the process. And it paid off.

When Lucy asked me to write this reflection, it probably seemed natural to others that I would want to write it. I did, after all, often mention that I write frequently and in abundance. Journalistic habits dying hard, I set a word limit of 500 words, while instantly feeling as though 500 words, written only a month after I left L’Arche, would not suffice.

Silence did not seem as though it would suffice in this instance though. So here it is, four days before I head off to the Czech Republic, where I will stay for two weeks before 4 months of studying German and working in Germany on an organic farm.

To those at The Ember and The Ark, I think of you often and miss you. Hope all is well.

I have recently experienced things that have been hard for me to put into words for all the words they would require–my experience of L’Arche, the experience of meeting two of my favorite living poets in Dublin right before I left for California. It is easier for me to get at things through poetry or fiction, or better yet, for me to write about other people’s lives, as I could in journalism (to be clear, I don’t find this blog to be journalistic. But it is certainly not artistic either.)

So rather than saying things mediocrely or inadequately, thus doing the experiences and myself an injustice, I would currently like to share a poem that I have been thinking of while my REI three-day pack calls to me to be packed, four days before I am to leave for Europe. I will find a way to write about the things previously mentioned–more immediately, I have been asked to write a reflection for L’Arche Belfast’s blog, so that will be here shortly.

Some of my friends have, over the course of our friendship, asked to read things that I have written. I don’t intentionally hide things away for fear that you will suddenly discover that I am not yet writing anything worth of a Pulitzer or National Book Award. Rather, I need quite a lot of mental solitude to write, a lot of reflection and more formal practice. I would however, benefit from a few people willing to discuss drafts with me, with the understanding that drafts are an important, and incomplete, part of a process.

I used to paint, so I used to have the confidence that the initial sketches of a painting–or any other work of art–needn’t look like the final product. That did not bother me because much is gained in the process of painting, in taking the 5-foot test, in experimenting with different methods of applying paint. But for some reason, in my mind, that insight did not previously hold true with the process of writing. That is changing, and I think that once I am more settled at one address for at least a year, I would like to seek out a writing group.

For the time being though, Frost and Roethke.

TREE AT MY WINDOW

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

Robert Frost.

I would also like to share a musical interpretation of one of my favorite Roethke poems, ‘In a Dark Time,’ by Irish singer and songwriter Susan McKeown, who was introduced to me (musically, not personally) by a good friend.

For you faithful readers, gripping the edge of your laptops at the sudden realization that I have decided to once again share the magnificence of my quotidian life with you, some of you might know that I decided to leave my position at L’Arche Belfast, where I worked for four months this fall.

I harbor no ill-will against L’Arche–quite the opposite, as I hope you all know. For reasons danced around earlier, and others, I have carved out another course for myself. My blogging silence was partially due to the fact that I did not yet know which zip code I would inhabit for the next few months, and what’s a blogger without a zipcode?

As also mentioned before (a test of your reading comprehension and retention of past posts), I served as the PR representative for L’Arche, a position which left me uncertain on how to share my personal experience of Belfast, my workplace and my life in Northern Ireland while also representing a non-profit organization in a politically an religiously sensitive area. It was a new role for this journalist, and though there are various forms of writing to which I would like to commit in a more serious way in the future, I have missed journalism.

So…an attempt at journalistic prowess is back, if only for this blog.

And now, what you’d all anxiously been awaiting–my whereabouts and plans. I have been in California a little over a month, and have had just enough of this open highway, politically progressive, hill-hugging convertible and iced-tea driven nonsense to want to return to somewhere where I need long-underwear and gloves in bed, where people still think that Arnold is my governator. In mid-February, I will be leaving for a 4 month stay, primarily in Germany. I will spend two weeks in the Czech Republic with one Fulbright extraodinaire, one month in Berlin, studying my ass off for 4.5 hours a day, to improve my German and 3 months on an organic farm outside of Berlin.

I will be volunteering through WWOOF, a world-wide network of organic farmers, with the hope of immersing myself linguistically, culturally and…ecologically. It’s time that I rounded out the text-book knowledge of deep ecology that I gained in university, and well, dig a bit deeper, make Gary Snyder proud, earn my title of Northern Californian.

Someone one told someone who once told an audience I was in, that if you want to write a particular kind of poem, you should lead the life from which such a poem can spring. While I do not yet know entirely what ‘kind’ of poems I will write (if ‘kind’ is even a fair term), I hope that my immersion in a more rural setting will round out the somewhat fragmented experiences I have had with the environment and help me to express, with stronger images, the poems on which I have been working.

I am not sure what kind of poem one such as myself writes of her experience in Belfast–I think it would include some razor-wire, instant coffee, bike-locks and Sriracha sauce. And on an organic farm outside of Berlin where I might learn what felting actually entails?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

In preparation for my departure, I have been dragging my way through Der Vorleser, or The Reader. Given the vocabulary necessary for an understanding of how much of the novel I have currently read, I will be more than prepared should those around me wish to discuss vomit, Hepatitis (not of the sexual sort), buildings and buckets. If this trip is anything like my various experiences of L’Arche, those words might come in handy.

I’ve decided to cut short my time in Belfast. It’s hard to describe in such an impersonal medium (blogging) how I view this decision as a positive one, not as a response to L’Arche or Belfast directly. If anything, coming to Belfast and living in community at L’Arche has allowed me to see, more quickly than I expected, where I would like to be directing my life, however loosely.

Perhaps because I just finished ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ by Murakami, but for whatever reason, I’ve started to see little signs along this journey of mine that might have led to where I am right now. Those essential friendships I made in the first month here, (both of which have ended or will have to end because of travels), which were almost entirely conducted in broken English and relied more on something else.  The German classes I signed up for, partially to make use of the massive amounts of unstructured time I have here, and because I do regret never having become fluent in a language while in college. Days spent at The Allotment here. Nights walking home from my classes, the force of my confusion and thinking being the driving factor to make it up the hill to get home.

All these seemingly vague, unconnected things have led me to decide I will be trying to move somewhere else in Europe come January. (Well, I think I will be back in California in January to see my family.) I’m applying for and looking at jobs in Ireland, Germany and even the Czech Republic, considering hostel work, teaching English, and really, anything that will provide the independence I need to see a new city and write and read.

More and more, I am coming around to the idea of using WWOOF as a means of seeing Germany in a unique way.

I have a fairly hard time even explaining to my co-workers here that my decision is not actually a reflection of a problem I see in L’Arche itself, but more a problem I see in myself (that’s been there awhile) that L’Arche just brought out. For whatever reason, this decision feels right. I don’t doubt that L’Arche Belfast will again play a role in my future. I hope, and intend, to come back.

Well, that’s about all I can type since my hand hurts and I have German class.

I was initially struck with a high fever that left my lips blue and made me wish I’d been quicker about registering for national health insurance here. By the time I had worked my way through the best of Irish filmology from 2009 (‘The Eclipse’, ‘Ondine’ and ‘Once’ (okay, so older)), my fever was down, and it was off to Scotland for me.

I accompanied a friend of our community, a future core member, as we call the people with learning disabilities with which we live, and a support worker (the paid, non live-in version of me). I was more or less working the entire time, but it fortunately didn’t quite feel like work. I had a good amount of time alone, and I availed of every chance to walk on the beach in West Kilbride (I have no photos as my camera battery died), even though I hear the water is nuclear-active there.

My blogging silence came partly from these practicalities, partly from personal issues I am working through, and largely from the question of what affect my role as L’Arche PR girl has on my public voice (even when only three people are reading this blog…three people who already get personal emails and texts from me with far more lurid and spicy details).

I’m still not sure yet how much I feel comfortable writing about in a public space while also having committed to representing my work placement. But here are some interesting things I’ve decided I’d like to share:

1) I don’t really like Belfast. And I don’t know that it really matters much. Tonight, at dinner, one of my friends here, who’s not a native to the city but has lived here for quite awhile, said she doesn’t really like the city. But obviously something has kept her here.

2) My two feverish viewings of ‘Once’ and the attachment I’ve developed to Sinead (my violin, who, lemme tell ya, has been through about as much as I have while here. She’s been to the nice violin doctor a few times already, a middle aged man who makes me feel oddly at home) has led me to decide that it is now one of my life goals to become more like Marketa Irglova, without the Czech-ness (sorry Marketa) because I can’t steal that from Ms. Fulbright. But when I look down at what I am wearing and see nothing but odd combinations of boots, skirts and sweaters, and realize I haven’t washed my hair in awhile, I think that Marketa looked amazing in said attire, so why shouldn’t I think I do.

3) I rely heavily on finger-less gloves here. Two pairs: one, the classic heavy wool kind and another, thinner pair, that are purple and have black stripes. After hearing from my artic mate about the bike ride he endures to work every morning and realizing I am far too impatient to walk everywhere in Belfast (and too poor to take the bus all the time), I decided I had to conquer my fear of biking on the wrong side of the road without a bike that shifts out of the highest gear (lowest? the toughest one to pedal?) and bike, rain or shine (mostly torrential rain.) Fingerless gloves really aid in these endeavors.

4) I keep thinking in Spanish lately. In German class, for the few phrases and words I know, I try, though prematurely, maybe, to forgo the process of translation in my head and just think the German word first. But Spanish comes out, not English. My Spanish vocabulary is now rather limited, so mostly the thoughts go, ‘Si, yo tengo un deseo viajar…?’ And the sentence construction ain’t really Pablo Neruda. So I’m thinking at a high school level in Spanish and listening to Belfast-isms (‘Oh aye’ for ‘yes,’ ‘So it could,’ added to the end of every statement for seemingly no reason, and ‘wee’ in front of everything not related to urine). Needless to say, I relish the moments when I sit down to write my own creative work and just have my English voice come through.

5) I have committed to reading long books the way that people often commit to relationships. I admit, that English lit major extraordinaire that I was, something about me used to have a hesitation when tackling large novels. I’ve read my fair share, I suppose, but perhaps my love of poetry and short stories just made me wonder why the hell 500-600 pages were necessary for saying…well, anything. Reading ‘The First Circle’ largely helped to change my view of long novels and my desperation at the reading material provided at public libraries here (it’s grim. I think Jane Austen is only made available because every UK romantic comedy steals from Austen.) has led me to seek out long novels in Waterstones, the nicer bookstore here.

I have to work tomorrow, so I should probably go to bed. I am likely making breakfast in bed for one of my favorite core members here whose birthday it is tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to cook sausages now that I’ve more or less committed to going vegetarian.

(Last year, an Irishman in Cork laughed at my use of the term, ‘creative writing,’ for he said, ‘sure, ain’t it all creative?’ Fair point.)

I suppose the solitude is working–I am writing quite a bit, or at the very least, am existing longer in the place from which I write. That mental place might perhaps be more important than actual production, at this early point.

This song really says more what I am thinking about, hoping for, wondering where the healing begins, comes from. Excuse the corny photography in the video, but the sound is pretty good for YouTube.