dimecres, de juliol 27, 2005

L'esprit de Brocéliande (Welsh / Breton / Spanish / Cornish / French / English)

Skrivañ don 'neus ar poatr youank, hag ar mignon idalek ivez. Neped nivez peb deiz gans ar mignoned. Nivezoù mat marteze...

Dwi ddim yn gwybod beth i feddwl am y dynion hyn - ond trwy fod yng Nghymru fach, rwyf yn teimlo'n well o lawer. Wn i ddim yn wir pam mae gan Gymru'r fath hon o swyn. Cyrhaeddais i yma, ac roeddwn yn teimlo mor ddiflas, mor ddigalonnid o'u herwydd. Fydda i fyth yn deall pam mae cymaint o boen yn dod gyda phleser, ond dyna sut mae o'r olwg.

Pero de todos modos, me siento bien - contento, tengo un paz que siempre me viene aquí aunque no tiene ningun sentido.

Yma Kembre avel bennath Dyw, avel hunros tek a wra kemeres pup tristans gans wolkomm bras ha gul an henna yn lowender.

Wales is a strange land indeed! C'est vraiment l'esprit de Brocéliande, une terre enchanteuse où on peut se perdre facilement dans le rêve...

dilluns, de juliol 25, 2005

Rainbow Tour 2005 Update (English / French / Cornish / Welsh)

I'm about 18 days into the Rainbow Tour. A little like Eva, I'm beginning to flag a bit, but two and half weeks of travel will do that to you. Starting Friday is a round of evening concerts and daytime activities at the Eisteddfod which will probably keep me hopping day in and day out, even if Barbara and Kelvin fail to appear. This week too is full of concerts here in Caernarfon where I'm staying, and I'm hoping to actually get to the top of yr Wyddfa (by train, isn't Wales a nice country to put a rail line up one side of their highest mountain? hehe) on a sunny day, but they have gotten rather scarce. Even when it's sunny down here, it can be cloudy and foggy at the summit, however, when the skies are clear, the views are fantastic, at least so they seem to be on television!!

Beyond that, I'm keeping taps on my little blogger pals when I hit a computer, and things appear quiet on the homefront...

Peut-être trop tranquilles... alors j'avais le présentiment d'aller perdre quelque chose en faisant ce voyage. Ce présentiment est toujours là et il y a quand même des indices croyables que, lors mon voyage,les petits noeuds de confort personnel à côté de chez moi se pourrissent un peu. Mon absence, si facilement rendu complète par des autres sans doute... après tout les affaires du corps et du coeur sont des affaires du marché aux puces, facilement vendue à prix bas, autrement échangé. Les trucs d'occasion et de très peu de valeur sont facilement et vite remplacés. C'est dingue quand même, mais je refuse d'être esclave aux désirs variablement pétillants et plats des mes camrades-en-armes. Soit je trouverai une solaz, soit je reste torturé et perdu, toujours en cherchant un amour invisible, soit je rénie pourtant au grand-jamais la quête! De toute façon il faut prendre un chemin et le prendre, je ne peux plus vasciler comme ça.

Nyns eus, nyns eus neges aral a'n mab yowynk, nag a'n caryor Eidalek, ha yma'n un aral wosa kanvos den noweth dhe hwari ganso...

Tra bo'r gath i ffwrdd...

diumenge, de juliol 17, 2005

Dateline: Hamburg (English / Cornish / German / Breton)

Mat ar jeu? E Hambourg on o vizskrivañ hag o evañ kafe e-barzh ranndi ma mignonez Dörthe...

At this point I'm sitting quietly and sipping coffee at my friend Dörthe's apartment on Hartwig-Hesse Strasse in Hamburg, after an intense, but all too short a week in Rennes studying Breton. When I get back home I will write in more detail about what I learned in Brittany beyond just the language. The trip so far has been extremely profitable in the French sense of the word, and today is really my first quiet day.

It was great yesterday seeing D again for the first time in a couple years. We went to college together at East Stroudsburg, and often times, she from Germany, and I from Pennsylvania, were the only two non-native speakers in our Spanish classes. I arrived here by Nachtzug from Paris early gestern Morgen. Dann haben wir die ganze Tag zusammen passiert. Später im Abend, wir sind Spazieren um dem Altsee gegangen, und dann in Sala Thai, ein sehr gutes und schones Restaurant, gegessen. Heute arbeitet Dörthe und mache ich fast nichts denn habe ich zu viel schon gemacht! LOL

I have to wonder though, what is happening on the homefront. Are my "business" plans going through according to plan? I've had no word from my attorney, mortgage broker or real estate agent, and I would like to think no news is good news. They all have my international cell-phone number, so there's no reason for them not to call of there were a problem.

I've come to be of two minds now about buying the second house to rent. Sure, it would be nice to have the extra income and the investment, but it also translates into extra work, and it does seem like I have enough to keep me busy. Whether the deal goes through or not, I think it will be a bittersweet moment.

At times like these it makes me think that it would be nice to have a life-partner just to share some of this kind of work as well. Oh well, a life lived not just following one's own path, but instead actuallz taking out the machete and hacking through the brush to make one's own does have its price.

Ha pandra rak an den yowynk a re dos dhymm cyns? Ev a re anvon negesow testun dhymm war an pellgows an dydh a dheus omma, mes lemmyn, netra, nyns eus an un ger ahano. Hwari hwariow bighan a wra, evel pub mab bighan. Nyns eus nowethow ena...

dimarts, de juliol 05, 2005

Last Little Poem before the Rainbow Tour 2005 (English)

Carriage return
tap tap tap tap
bing

back to the margin
write another line
maybe a new line
damn poem
just keeps saying the same thing over and over again

Still, dammit, I'm the one writing it
maybe I should write something new
stop writing a poem
begin a novel

Oh yes, a novel, dark and stormy nights
Miss Buttercup in the kitchen with a daubière...
nope too trite
over done
my life's a cliché, no reason that all my writing be one too

Shit shit shit
same old line different day
damn damn damn
outworn patterns
the letters just show up the page now

Alas, yes something new
a change is a good as a rest they say
so now to run-away for a respit
The Welsh mountain air
The inland breezes of Brittany
The fog of Niedersachsen
The stones of Salisbury

32 days to run and play
32 days to forget a little bit
32 days to renew plodding spirits
32 days to be someone new
32 days to figure who the hell I would like to be...

dilluns, de juliol 04, 2005

Beaj (English / Cornish)

Well Damn, here it is July already, and me with no new post. Actually, I suspect July will be rather slim pickins, 'cos I'm going over the pond. My now nearly yearly jaunt over the Atlantic begins in a mere three days.

First I will arrive in London on July 7, around 8PM local time. I will collect my hired car and drive to Shepperton where I will stay in "The Ship" hotel for the night. The following morning I will get up at a modest hour, and enjoy a full English. Then I will drive an hour and a half westward to Stonehenge. At least twice before I have been in the proximity of Stonehenge and have not managed to stop. Since I have a whole day's delay in England, I decided to make a point of seeing it, even if the weather is foul. After I've had enough of Stonehenge and its world heritage site, I will drive about an hour and half south to Southampton, where I will stay overnight and leave the next afternoon for Rennes in Brittany.

Rennes, or Roazhon as it's known in Breton, is now the regional capital of the modern Brittany. It's traditional capital, Nantes or Naoned lays in another region called Loire Atlantique much to the chagrin of Breton Nationalists. During my week in Brittany, I'm planning on taking the oulpan course in Breton language, and at the same time I'm hoping to meet some people who are involved in the language movement there. I have not been successful in meeting activists in Brittany, eventhough I have been there on three previous occasions. The people whom I met, while lovely and extremely kind and giving, were not the rowdy activist sort.

After Brittany, I will leave for Hamburg to visit my old friend Dörthe Brißke. Dörthe and I met at East Stroudsburg University while we were both undergrads and both studying Spanish. In many of our classes, she and I were the only two non-native speakers, and we made fast friends. We've kept in touch over the years, and she has been here to visit the States a few times, and likewise I have been to see her; this will make my third visit to see her in Germany.

After Hamburg, I will travel to Manchester by plane, and then drive to Wales to spend a week visiting with Mary Jones and surveying the curiosities of the countryside. My final week will be during the Eisteddfod, and since it's only a few miles away from Tai'n Lôn this year, I will be attending it more frequently than I have in the past. Hopefully both Barbara Martin from New Orleans and my old friend Kelvin will be back in Wales as well during my stay, so that even if I don't spend much time with them at the Eisteddfod, I will still get to visit with them for a short while.

Mes wosa henna, my yu trist dhe vos dhe Europ an hav-ma drefen yth eosov vy ow predery rak an den noweth a re dhos dhymm. Ev yu pur hweg ha hir y gos, ha yowynk, ha yma ev ow leverel traow pur hweg dhymm. Nyns esov vy ow kodhvos py eus kerensa wir ona lemmyn, mes martesen eus. Yndella ny won yn-fas rak mos an hav-ma. Martesen yma kerensa ow kortos dhymm, ha vy a vydh bell a-ves...