Welcome to my new blog! It’s said that a good start is half the work. When I was younger, I gave it a reasonably good start. But then, life happened.
In the mid 90s, I was working as a graphic designer and I had a particular interest in independent publishing. After a couple years studying Irish, I started a project with my teacher and fellow Gaeilgeoirí to produce an “American journal of Gaelic culture.” It was called An Doras. Here’s an excerpt from the first issue, a graphic poem I composed about “the Yankee dream.”
I see a fairy road when I close my eyes
where my car falls into a magic slumber
near a field of sundrenched grass.
I sit and wait…
hoping for a little silver boat
that would break the bright yellow horizon,
listening for a heedless gust of wind
that would bear me west over the farmers’ houses…
amidst the lazy ditchweed,
a complete drunken changeling…
in Kansas.
As I said, life happened — marriage, a family, a “proper” job. I did a lot of adulting! To tell the truth, we have a very blessed life. At the same time, I gave up my commitment to the language. During the pandemic, while struggling with the strange sadness of those years, it dawned on me just how important Irish was (and is) to me.
It is still a doorway to my dreams.
Issue 1, 1996
