%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Enga mellom fjella: where from across the meadow, poems sing from mountains and molehills. |
|
Enga mellom Fjella  Sentinel Marked as if you own me I bow before the Bitterroots and just like you my rocky soil, my withered grass lays prey to the empty sky. © Kåre Enga 2007 "Sentinel"   Reader's Choice of Poems: "Zmitri" "In the midst of silence" "Waterlily" "La Bella Vita" "Koan on an October sky" Reader's Choice of blog entries from my old blog "L'aura del Campo" :"Death of Jeannie New Moon" "Winter: 18 Mas'il (December 29)" "When is it proper to tell someone you love them?" "Half-naked dreams? 'Getting the stain out of genes!" "Czernina (Dirk's-blood-soup?) and Murv Jacob's mural" FACES     PLACES            Kåre  Enga~ until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go. ~ Elizabeth Bishop The Fish |
| The horizon sits behind lazy clouds. Cool, partly sunny. The kind of day that begs me take a blanket, put it under a tree and fall asleep in green shade. I'm trying to stay vertical as I cross the bridge. So much to do on the other side. Illness merely gets in the way. I've posted photos of Poland in spite of my eyes hurting. Stayed at the center during bingo in spite of a headache. Walked across that bridge in spite of swelling feet. The grass beckons. My chair beckons. I could sit and watch a movie I think. I could lay down... But I don't. My head is fuzzy and my walk unsteady but there's much to be done. I'm just trying, trying to stay vertical on a horizontal day. ME: Not getting much done. Ate a plate of rice and fish. Drank milk and bread. My mouth aches too... tooth and gum. The coffee isn't helping with its usual buzz. I did edit and post 30 photos of Gdansk on a cloudy rainy evening, the 12th of May. I want to get those photos taken on the 13th through 15th done first. Then Portugal and Spain. I wish I had the energy to read but even the thought of watching a movie annoys me. Can't focus. So I'll do something. Maybe look at flights to Costa Rica again. That's frustrating enough. Costs have gone up to where it'd be just as cheap to re-visit Europe. But I have friends in Costa Rica I desperately want to visit in July. Life is okay. But as I thought today: "We all die but my dying needn't be a burden on others". Grim thought but apropo. Time to sign off before I get even whinier. 51.188 |
| ME: It's cool and sunny in the morning this June. Love it. The dry skin caresses my skin and I think of the moisturizing cream I bought before I left. I love the cool that warms up to a pleasant 20 something degrees in the afternoon. Ah... June. The hills are still green...ish despite the dry spell. The river is running high from the snow-melt. We had lots of snow. There's enough moisture in the air to smell the iris and other flowers. My favorite month is May... this is just late-May. Long Springs in Western Montana. Where I grew up Spring came late and then spent one month catching up in a rush. Then Summer heat and humidity. Here it gets hot. Goes over 40 in July. Still 10 to 15 most nights though. Dry semi-desert. No humidity despite having a river run though it. Summer here only bothers me when we have fires. The ash in the air makes me choke. But today it's cool and sunny and ab-fab wonderful. Cool and sunny... like my father was... like a good friend still is... |
| I think we've all been there. That feeling that the love isn't there no more. The sense of abandonment. Oh well... ME: I'm fine! Well, not quite. The leg swells up and after the scare last year with deep vein thrombosis after a long flight I'm trying to be careful. Plus... No, really, I'm fine! Missoula is such a small town for a city. Easy to re-connect as I see people everywhere I walk. It's as if I haven't left. Well, almost. The new bathrooms are open and usable in the Senior Center and looking good. Nice to have missed most of the construction. One week of hammering was more than enough. Back to $3 lunches. Back to buying a pair of shoes for $3. I left the worn out ones in Voss in Norway. They had served me well. Back to $1.35 coffee at Bernice's; $1 at Butterfly Herbs; $1 at Liquid Planet on Sundays. $1 = 6 kroner (coffee costs at least 15 kr in Norway) or 3 zlotych or 75 euro-cents. Anyway, I can afford it here. I've made phone calls, sorted out receipts, washed my travel underwear... Catching up. The first couple days were hectic and I was exhausted from the trip back. So why do I feel neglected? I don't...  But my blogs does.  29 days without blogging? Ouch. I'll be back to writing and blogging now that I'm back for a short while. A trip back to Costa Rica beckons and well... I'll try to not neglect my poor blog for such a long time again. |
| 50.800 and change.. That's how many views this blog has gotten over the years, but it has been languishing for a couple years now. I cannot complain. Just do not have the energy i once had. Yesterday i stressed over arranging details of my trip to Poland. Got out very late. Went for a walk but did not see much. At night, i watched Eurovision. I thought the winner, Conchita of Austria, did quite well. Controversy around her appearance may have helped but the song and delivery were great. So up very late. I did eat breakfast, but now it is 11 and i must leave or accomplish little... again. Until then... peace. |
| ...Lillihammer. I managed to get on the train at the airport and arrived okay. Goofed up on how I did my reservation, but that was fixed. Then I overslept and missed breakfast. That's a definite no no in Norway. Wandered around town and was really charmed by the outdoors museum, Maihaugen. Tomorrow I might take a look at the sites from the '94 Olympics. My room is quite nice but I feel isolated as people seem to keep to themselves. This can be a real problem in Scandinavia. I've experienced this before. Sent a postcard off but card and postage cost about $4.50 so I won't be sending many. Cheaper by far to call. Lefse and lompe are both soft flat breads. Lompe is potato based. With my odd combination of shrimpsalad, chicken wings and goatcheese.... I will survive. |
| All of a sudden I didn't want to open my email inbox. There's no recent reason for this fear. It's an echo from trauma long ago. Interesting though. I didn't expect it. It does seem part of an old pattern. I have seldom wanted to engage in communication when the message is negative towards me. I suspect this goes back to childhod. I KNOW this goes back to childhood. I could ask my mother but we don't talk about things like this. Avoid, avoid, avoid. I am much more confident when I'm doing the talking. Like last night. I got to read three of my poems for Freek from Belgium. He writes plays. Unfortunately for me... in Dutch. Today I really need to visit Belem and then focus on the next part of my trip. I leave tomorrow for Norway. I dare not avoid what needs to be done. No time for past traumas. |
| ...so I called my mother. Me... I'm in Lisboa. Bus trip yesterday was short and uneventful. €12,50. Not hard to catch the local bus either, though I missed one; they run every 15 minutes on Sundays. I'm back at The Independente, €39/4 nights. Got my lower bunk and went out for sushi and set in the miradouro overlooking the city at sunset. Helped an Australian from Sydney find his phone ...first like at facebook? Linda from Queensland. LOL. Mondays are a slow start to the week here. Museums are closed. So I must visit Alfama and get lost in the narrow streets. Day started out with breakfast and a chat with a young writer from Belgium. Dia da Mãe... yesterday the 4th in Portugal, next Sunday the 11th in the U.S., the 7th in our family. My mother will be 92. |
| ...haven't met any yet... in Évora, that is. However, in Lagos... ME: I'm off to the cemetary today and want to visit the bone chapel (not same place). Carrying two cameras and my tablet. Pics! I had snails yesterday and the night before pork and clams (porco à alentejana; it was wonderful). Coffee and a sheep cheese and greens sandwich was lunch. Relaxing. Not pushing it. 1:40 in the afternoon and I'm ready, get set, go. |
| I sneeze. I drink coffee. Breakfast by the beach. My goal is to do little, almost nothing. I've booked 4 days in Lagos in Algarve, the southern coast of Portugal. East of here one finds tourists and summer condos. West is Sagres and the legacy of Henry the Navigator whose school lead to the trade routes around Africa to Asia. I will mostly relax. I left A Coruña for the frontier of Spain/Portugal to break up the long trip south. I stayed in Tui, Galicia, Spain, a very old town that history has abandoned as have the modern residents. Interesting old buildings on the Portuguese route to Santiago de Compostela. The Albergue Villa San Clemente only costs €10. The place was dark and quiet at night, by day the garden is magnificent. The manager is a gem. I spent two nights there after a 3 hour train trip. It's possible to get in and out of Tui... just not easy to find out how. I needed the extra time to walk to Valença in Portugal to figure out how. Easy-peasy... just hop on train in Tui, pay conductor (no ticket), leave from Valença to Porto, switch to train to Lisboa. Very easy once one knows how. I spent a couple hours in Valença before heading across the old bridge. Ate lampreia (lamprey) as it's seasonal then walked around walled, fortified old town.Valença is maintained and touristy. Tui? Vibrant but partially abandoned. Stone endures quite a bit of neglect. Must go back. San Telmo day is the 28th of April this year... 8 days after Easter... next year? Plus, I didn't have time for tour of old cathedral. The downtown is vibrant enough to hang out in. Revisiting Valença wouldn't hurt my feelings either. Train to Lisboa... over 6 hours total. Walked to hostel... a bit of a mistake. Did see some of the festivities though for Liberty Day. The hostel was packed and loud, punctuated by a crash of glass as a window broke. Everyone was okay. I was stressed as there was no room the next night and the place I wanted to stay in Évora had no bed either. So... where in the Algarve? Decided on Lagos. The Independente in Lisboa serves a great breakfast. So, after little sleep on the top bunk of three I caught the bus that stops in front of the hostel to get to the bus station. EVA has a top notch bus, even had a stewardess and on board food and coffee. I was impressed. No problem arriving in Lagos and no problem finding the hostel. The manager, Filipa Ferreiz is wonderful. So... today will be catching up on laundry, shaving, walking around town, planning on doing something tomorrow. After Lagos I'll go to Évora, then back to Lisboa. Then? NORWAY. |
| ...everywhere I go. Today it was the receptionist at the hotel, the woman at the café, a fellow traveler from México, a man at the bus station... and so on and so forth... I find something to interest me as well... every day. Wandering around A Coruña was a very good idea. Found the beach, the harbor, the old town, the glassed balconies, a lovely park. Ate a salmon-orange tosta, a potato tortilla. And coffee. For 25€ I have my own private room tonight. More than I normally choose to afford but I'll deal with it. I think I'm just going to hang around town tomorrow, maybe find a real store and buy food rather than just eat out. Maybe wash some clothes? |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
