My husband's aunt and uncle have llamas out in Utah, as I've mentioned. They are fascinating, beautiful, funny creatures. Most of their llamas are excellent packers, and a real treat on hikes.
I think most folks could easily develop an obsession with scratching those long, elegant necks. Watching them gambol once they're released into the pasture on the other side of the creek is one of the sweetest things I've seen.
Our trio Tethera will be performing at the Pennsylvania Celtic Fling on June 28 and 29, and we'd love to see you there. The festival is on the grounds of the Pennsylvania Renn Fest, outside of Lancaster, PA. That makes it an easy day trip from DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Delaware--you get the point. There are great bands playing all weekend long, dancers, crafters and vendors, sheep trials, falconry, and good food and drink. If you're interested in coming out, please let me know so I can be on the lookout for you. If it looks like a lot of knitters and spinners are going to show up, we can even circle up and play with fiber.
So much to say in so little time . . .
Most importantly, our bardic trio Tethera performed at the Potomac Celtic Festival on Saturday and had a great time. I don't know if I can explain how great it feels to have people appreciate our work. We were lucky enough to have some dear friends come to the show, including my former PCF co-conspirator and our great emcee Dana Henry, Mike and Tara, Jinann, Mary and Máiréad (who then demanded we visit their booth and do an encore--I love them), Lynn . . . I'm sure I'm forgetting someone . . . some of whom had never seen us sing or tell, so that was doubly great. If you want to come out and see us when next we perform, come to the Pennsylvania Celtic Fling on June 28th and 29th. We spent the rest of the day doing living history demos and talks with our tribe, watching great bands and dancers, and oogling our friends' merchant booths. But I had to stay frugal because on Sunday we . . .
Bought a used 2005 Toyota Sienna, and got a great deal on it. I can't tell you how excited I am about it. My truck was really starting to wear on me, and Kayo's advancing age made his jumps in and out of it increasingly dicey, and my crunchy knees and oft unstable hip were rebelling against the clutch in the very bad DC traffic, so it was time. The van is really swanky and in great shape, so I hope to have it for at least the next decade. It's making me think bad things about looms and upright basses, but things like that will need to wait a while. It will absolutely make camping and road trips much easier, and that's going to be fantastic.
Other than that, I've been reclaiming my studio from the remodel (almost done), plotting some new historical garments for Scott and our friend Morag, knitting socks, planning sock bag color combos, reading, and watching John Adams.
The Tain, translated by Ciarán Carson.
When I came across an actual copy of this book during my visit to Chicago, I was almost afraid to buy it. I had to buy it, of course--it's not often I find real evidence of Celtic Studies works showing up in bookstores, and when I do find titles that fit the bill, I always buy them. Bookstores need to be supported and congratulated for stocking things that are outside of the mainstream.
I was afraid to read the book because I was convinced that Thomas Kinsella's translation, graced by Louis le Brocquy's genius illustrations, was the only translation I could ever love. I'm a huge fan of Carson's, so I really wanted his work to shine. Moreover, a few years ago I had a fraught, life-affirming conversation with Carson about translation and poetry and voice where he convinced me with just a few words that I should keep up my own attempts at poetry in translation. So I needed his version of this great work to be wonderful.
I needn't have worried. Carson opens the book with an introduction explaining just how hesitant he was to publish a translation of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, in light of Kinsella's masterful work. Carson even calls his translation an homage to Kinsella. Like Kinsella, Carson used Recension I. Carson chose not to include the remscéla, or fore-tales, which are some of my favorite bits, but which aren't physically included in Lebor na hUidre or The Yellow Book of Lecan, the two texts in which The Tain survives.
Carson is a wonderful translator. He's fluent in modern Irish, and he's a musician as well as a poet and writer, and I think those skills combine to enrich his translation. He is clearly intrigued by the true characters of Cú Chulainn, Medb, Ailill, and Fergus, and by the mores surrounding sex, violence, honor, ownership, land, family--all the big ones. Having read his and compared it to Kinsella's, I don't think I can read one without the other again. Both convince me to keep struggling through language and myth that is so distant from my daily life.
I commute to DC for work, and most of my commute is on Metro, DC's subway system. I don't like working so far from home (23.6 miles, 9 of them in a car, with a river in the way during the subway trip). I am generally happy that I can do most of my commute via public transit, which allows me to read or knit rather than drive the whole way in DC's horrid rush hour.
Well, the last week or so has been a bad week for Metro riders. Last week, the endless storms in DC brought trees and power lines down on the tracks, and Metro staff and local police were completely overwhelmed, and many of us were stranded around the DC for hours and hours trying to get home. To make matters worse, the throngs of people trying to board the very few shuttle busses available showed Washingtonians at their worse. Neighbor, in case no one has told you, it is never ok to push a person's wheelchair away from the entrance of a bus so you can board before said wheel-chair bound person. Never. I lucked into a shared cab ride back to my station, so it only took me 3 1/2 hours to get home that afternoon. Today, a derailment blocked service again, but I lucked into a spot on one of the first shuttles and it only took me 2 1/2 hours to get home. And when I got home, some crazy woman (i.e. me) demanded I paint some more blasted trim in our house, because our remodel still isn't entirely finished.
That said, you'll understand my need to go to a happy place. Thankfully, Scott and I just reminded ourselves a few weeks ago that there are places outside of the DC area, and some of those places are fantastic. So rather than complaining anymore than I already have about my horrid commute and how much I hate painting trim, (and also the new Typepad because it makes it a huge pain to align photos the way I like), I give you a random assortment of llama photos, triumphantly rescued from a misbehaving memory stick.
I'm pretty obviously jumping the gun on the ABC along, but I'll come back to the Ls with some actual description and more photos. Some day soon, I will even show you knitting.
If I go out of my way to do anything, it's to travel with and to see friends, particularly if it means we'll be together away from television and computers and work and all of those things that get in the way of people really looking each other in the eye and hearing each other speak.
A few weeks ago I was at John the Farrier's with my tribe, celebrating Beltaine and welcoming home one of our members who had been far too far away in far too dangerous a place for a year.
Before that I was in Chicago, dancing and listening to tunes with friends who I can normally only reach over wires.
Last weekend, I was with some of my favorite women in the world on the Potomac Delta, watching Osprey hunt, and singing, and laughing hysterically for hours on end.
In a few days, Scott and I are flying to Utah to see his family, their dogs, and the llamas-in-law.
In all cases, I stay away from screens and electronics as much as I can. I always chastise myself for
forgetting to take pictures, or treating photography and journaling as homework or chores when I'm on these trips. But in the moment, a lens on a gadget, or a pen and a book just seem like they distance me from the people I'm trying to be with. So I could post a photo I don't think captures what I'm trying to say to you, but I won't. I'll try to remember to take just the right photo out west, and if I get close I'll paste it in later. If I don't, you'll have to settle for my words this time.
In the meantime, I'll be scrambling to set up a couple of gigs with Tethera and our annual group trip to Celtic summer camp, while simultaneously trying to dig out from the remodel and maybe paint a couple of walls in my sleep. The next time I complain about being too busy, please remind me that the busy spells precede and follow journeys, and that it's all for the best.
The guys laid the last of the floor yesterday afternoon and are taking a break from us to go work on some strangers' floor for a little while. In the interim, we're going to try to get some more painting done and to get things back in order. I'm also going to try to get rid of at least half of our property.
So, here is proof of our toil, and our willingness to paint with real, saturated color. The library is a lovely, deep orange. The curtains aren't going in until I paint the windows and closet doors, but they're the same deep blue linen drapes we've had for a long time, and I think they'll look wonderful against those saturated walls.
I did some measurements, and we're still short of shelf space. I've managed to winnow out six books. It nearly made me have a panic attack. I'll try again in a few days. We are making space in the shelves in the living room by finally letting go of our CD cases, but we'll still be short of shelving space in all of the rooms. How do people handle this? Random book collection decimation?
Next, I give you the completed bath, and the tile I love like none other.
The white tub, tile, and trim make me very very happy, as does the double shower rod--I use this bathroom most of the time and it's also our guest bath, and there were never enough places to hang towels before. On the right, you can see the great stain match Mike got between the bamboo floors and the new pine closet doors. The hallway wall isn't showing its true color there--the green is a bit richer and deeper, but not dark. It will also be going on most of the living room walls.
This doesn't really show the wall color accurately either, but it does demonstrate how well we matched the woods to the dog. Kayo is glad that the nail gun has left the building. He is opposed to nailing, and nails, and people who are doing things other than playing with him. And he thinks cameras are stupid as soon as he remembers they don't dispense treats.
Now look at the stairs with the floor. Just look at that! How did he do that? He matched 40 year old oak stair treads to brand new bamboo. How? The mind boggles (ignore the ugliness of the risers--they'll turn pretty soon).
The rooms upstairs are further from completion. Everything from both rooms is stuffed into one side of the bedroom. We still need to pick a paint color for the bedroom and the stairwell. I want it all to be blue. I also might want my studio to be blue, at least in part. 
Have I mentioned I'm almost as bad about blue as I am about green? I realized a couple of days ago that I have apparently been plotting this whole color scheme of this remodel around my own and Scott's coloring, what with the blue-eye blues and green-eye green and the dark brown and the deep orange (I have freckles and an orangey-brown nevis in one eye--not jaundice). That may be the most narcissistic thing I have ever done, but at least it started out as an accident. I'm going to try not to focus on that though, and just work on convincing Scott that blue and green paints are good paints. Because, really, what other colors do people paint things? I already used orange and yellow, and a deep red stairwell is not going to feel safe to me.
I clearly need a nap. I'm heading to our annual women's beach trip this weekend. Maybe one of my artsy pals can snap me out of the blue and green thing before I buy more paint.
I've been studying Ireland in particular and the Celtic world in general--from Paleolithic to Present--for almost as long as I remember. I'm sure I've dedicated more hours to my subject than the average medical or law student has to theirs. And yet I can't really explain why. I'm often asked to. There aren't many people immersed in the sort of cultural studies I undertake, particularly when said studies pay less than a penny on the hour, all told, and when they've been misrepresented and cheated so often by American pop culture. To many people, Ireland is no more than green beer and fake accents in bad commercials. They put it on like a bad Halloween costume, and discard it again as carelessly.
There are the answers I give people at cocktail parties--I fell in love with the mythology, and then the music, and then the literature and language and history and archeology, and haven't looked back since. Which is all true, but far from the whole truth.
When I'm being honest--which I think most of us are trying to at least play at with our blogs--I say that studying Ireland, at least at first, felt like some sort of replacement for the side of the family that abandoned us. I can't have and really don't want a relationship with my actual father. But I want some connection to that missing half of my family, and I guess it feels safer to build a bridge to a long dead ancestor than to an aunt or uncle who just never bothered to try to hold on. Some strange sense of pride or betrayal made my paternal grandfather try to take our name from my brother and me when my Mom left my father, and I've clung tightly to that surname and some birthright I thought it entailed. Later, that grandfather tried to reconnect with us once he realized how destructive his eldest son was and how right my Mother was to leave him, for us. But theirs will never be my family reunions. I see my name attached to some genetic relative now and again--all of the people in the US with my name are direct relatives--and just once had the chance to talk to a distant cousin who had no knowledge of my personal family's sundering. It was strange and exciting, and it happened because my name was in a program at a Celtic Festival where I was performing.
And then, studying Celtic cultures is something I can share with my step-father, he who regularly insists that I picked the wrong country to focus on. He is the child of a Scottish immigrant, and he introduced us to the festival scene that ended up entangling me so fully. We picked different eras to study, and my obsession with music isn't something he can truly share, but bridies and bagpipes would be glue enough to connect us as friends even without our shared love for our family.
On some level, I've always felt like a traitor for focusing so much of my energy on the culture I wasn't exposed to by my Mother's family, whom I have always known and loved as my own and only. Why isn't "I" for Italy in my mind? Why didn't German culture appeal? It don't think the stain of WWII stopped me from focusing more on either, because my Mom's family was all here at the beginning of the 20th century and railed against the the modern countries that wrought that horrifying war. Maybe it's a Jungian response--a desperate grab at some collective unconscious I've been sequestered from. I do worry sometimes that I'll outgrow it, and then feel a fool when someone asks me what my MA is in . . . many many people already react to my resume as if it says "BA in artsy-fartsy with a side of teaching, MA in cliches and boredom." But no--my obsession carries on.
Because, whyever and however I fell for Eireann, I fell hard, and my love abides. The tunes and language and literature feel like home as they rattle around in my skull. The history--even after all these years of study--enthralls me, and appalls me, and sends me from worried insomnia to ecstatic reverie as I study it. I own it. I need it. I lived there, and swam in those waters, and ate food from Ireland's soil, and hope to do so again and again. I toy with the idea of seeking dual citizenship, despite the fact that doing so would bar me from a fairly large percentage of the jobs that are available to me here in my current home.
In short, Is leor don dreoilín a nead, agus Níl aon sceal eile orm.
