Failte!

I'm excited to share my adventures with all of you! I want your first taste of my life in Ireland to be this poem that I wrote very late one night when I was a Junior in College. Its meaning seems eerily prophetic now. More than anything, I've created this blog to make the actualization of this life-long dream of mine visible to those I love: my friends who are my foundation, my endlessly supportive family, my mentors and co-workers who inspire me, and my former students who have given me enough satisfaction and fulfillment to last two lifetimes... Have the courage to believe that your wildest dreams can come true.

Is fhearr fheuchainn na bhith san duil, (It is better to try than to hope)

e
Mourn (A Seaside Peak in Southern Ireland)

The dark, earthen sod saturates her fair feet,
but briefly since she frolics fast in knee high
blades of greenest grass that blow dizzily in the Celtic-sea air.

Her wool skirt, stiffened by ware of evenings past
is splashed by cresting waves that break
against a beach blacker than her hair.
Those once stiffer fibers were loosed by nights upon nights
of hanging perfectly on his line before being wildly blown dry
by the crisp Hibernian salt air.

The pair sits to rest a while instead of dodging
breakers or skipping paler stones.

"Indian summer's here," he says softly,
but all of summer here feels like the edge
of autumn to her, even though she grins in agreement
as she dangles her pale, soft feet off Achilles' peak,
where Erin's vermillion-gold sky meets
an ocean that is grey with years.

She sleeps with her eyes closed tight most nights.
He asks her if she believes in Tier-Nan-Og,
and she asks him if he believes in anything eternal.
Outside the tide is rising, or it's receding—
She never can tell but for the strengthened smell of
salty freshness strained through his light, lace curtains.
She thinks to herself that he is like trying to hold the sea 
and she imagines the water running between her fingers--
clenched so tight.

And so, the night calls her out of her sleeping,
like daytime chides her into dreaming.
She slips her white fingers through the holes of an old loose scarf
that affords her more company than warmth
on these newborn autumn evenings. She is off-- 
Night clouds reflect emerald from land to sea,
And the tara that she never eyes from long hours of
staring too far into star blanketed skies,
feels cool against the thickening pads of her pallid feet.

Elisabeth Lewis (2005)

28 September 2011

Celebration Wednesday! Top 10 Things that made me happy today :)

Hump day is a hard day for me lately. You see, I have no class from Saturday-Wednesday, and then class from 9am to 7pm on Thursday so I start to feel a little anxious, especially since field work is in the morning, and that's probably what I have the LEAST natural talent for. [Picture a TA smoking and yelling at me for not being able to calculate the slope of a field or spout off a number of ways to use the Pythagorean Theorem to graph a football field in 10x10 meter squares. Sorry, the metric system is new to me, buddy!]

Anyway, today was an especially disdainful Wednesday because I had to go to Guarda at Burgh Quay on the River Liffey to get my Visa and registration card. My level of impatience borders on that of a 4 year old [my lovely students can attest to this]. Needless to say, I knew this day would be hard, so I decided to fill it with happy thoughts, so in my head today I made a Top 10 list of things that made me happy today, which resulted, not only in having a wonderful hump-day, but rather enjoying my quick 2 hour trip to The Garda. The beauty is in the mundane, my friends. And I really believe that happiness is all around you if you just look for it!

<3, e

10. Getting my Visa and Garda Registration Card [To add to my Student Card, Passport, license, Alcit card for Trinity, and Bus Pass? Everyone knows I need all of these things stapled to my body in order to keep up with them] As I said when I got home after this adventure, wielding my whiskey, "I am too legit to quit this CITY!" 

9. The Gorgeous Weather Today! 70 degrees, leaves falling. Perfection summed up in this picture of my campus  


8. On that note, going into campus and stopping by the office of the PhD candidate who assigned the Environmental Archaeology Reading I've been doing for my presentation in October. I was obviously nervous to ask him about the readings I hadn't been able to find online, but when I walked in and said, "Steve, I've done 7 of the ten readings for the presentation in 6 weeks, but I can't find the last 3" his response was, "You've done WHAT?!. shit. That's a lot more that I've done." He was obliged to send me the links to the other articles and seemed impressed with my GRAD SKOOL SKILLS, which put a little pep in my step down the K Hallway of The Newman Building.



7.  USED BOOK SALE ON CAMPUS!! So they were 3 for 5 euro, but I was so distraught over choosing just 3, that the Graduate Womens Society gave me 5 for 7. I told the old ladies that I missed my book collection in America very much, and though I probably wouldn't have extra reading time...the literature comforted me nonetheless. After my excited purchase, I told Candace that perhaps I too one day would be in the Graduate Womens Society. She pointed out that I would need to be 1,000 more years old to fit in.


Tuna sashimi with seaweed and Duck Rolls
6. SUSHI always = happiness. Today I had my favorite lunch. Figures the first thing I would do with my loan check is buy books and sushi, but they are my life-force.

5. A New View...and Friend? 
This is the view at Wood Quay on the way to Burgh Quay. I sort of just stumbled upon it. It's always nice to find a different perspective of the city you love and live in. Pictured [accidentally] is the drunk young man I met in my short squat on this hillside. I don't want to give the impression that I like being harassed, and I don't normally take compliments well, but there's something to be said for an Irishman telling you thrice that you're "lovely looking" when the sun is setting, and then shushing his possibly MORE inebriated friend with, "Shut up, Fionn. I'm giving compliments to the Amerrricannn, you knitwit." I like new views. And I guess as long as I'm lovely looking, I'll learn to like the compliments.

4. New Hair-Dos! I've been trying to do an acceptable fishtail, like my sister can do to my hair, but I've decide it looks more like a possum tail. This "milk-maid" do however, is simple and keeps the hair out of my face :)

Fishtail or Possum tail?
Milk Maid!
3. Happy Quotes at Pubs: Did you know Pub is short for "Publick House" [also one of my fav. places to go in Brookline]. Today I wandered North of my stomping grounds, into more touristy locals near the river. It was wonderful though, the life of it all. And I especially smiled at this one below...



2. My Sweet Candace with her standard Diet Coke and True Blood Obsession(s). This whole experience would not be complete, nor as satisfying without her here with me.


1. Jameson and Pizza. In the words of Matt, "Thanks for bringing home the Meat Feast, Lizzie." In the words of me, "Any. time."

*Disclaimer: Children, whiskey is only good if you are over 21 and in small doses, and if you're NOT DRIVING. Be smart.
Besos, Ms. Lewis

                            Everything in the Universe is within you. Ask all from Yourself.
For when Love first tasted the lips of being human, 
It started singing.  -Rumi

OH YEAH! #11 . Thanks for hanging out today around the city, Gavin! Reminded me of our times in Florence with the theme song to Tristan+Isolde :)

Presents from Ireland to the first person to send me their OWN TOP TEN HAPPY LIST!
Winner = DENVITA! XO

Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. Denva28 September, 2011 22:45

    This doesn't count cause I already get a prezzie. :)

    1. Baldung's Witches Sabbath (cause I love a good print from the Renaissance that finds women who hang out in groups disturbing).

    2. Being called schatz.

    3. Sending MY FIRST EVER IN EMAIL IN GERMAN.

    4. Looking at the mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore.

    5. My cute, yellow, black and blue dress from PinkyOtto.

    6. Reading Heidegger and understanding 40% of it.

    7. My kick ass roommates!

    8. My free washer and dryer.

    9. OKTOBERFEST!

    10. KAFFEESTUNDEN.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Denva28 September, 2011 22:46

    That should have been email in German....grrrr..

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)