Lost and Found

I just read Nutty Gnome's post on "Réunion" and thought about old friends, and listened to The Kinks "Lost and Found"...
Sometimes it is like that: you lose sight of each other - then, suddenly, you try to find them again - and when you meet it is as if you just enter a room that you've left a minute ago (though it might have been many years).
Sometimes Life's circumstances develop in such a different way - one gets children, the other tries to build a career, and both don't talk of anything else, and each one thinks "One more mentioning of baby food < - > statistics - and I'll go mad!" And then, like Piglet, both have "very particular morning things" to do or move to another town. Silence for a couple of years.
Then one day you flip through old letters and think: "What might she be doing?" and look into Facebook or Stayfriends - and if you are lucky you find her again.
Often there is a Happy End.
And sometimes not: I laughed very much at IG's comment to Nutty Gnome:

I went on an exchange visit with a toerag named Eric Tossi. I believe I blogged about him once! I'm glad your relationship has lasted. Eric and I failed to connect, although I do wish, with hindsight, I'd beaten him senseless!

Yes, IG - I remember that post :-)
And I remember that I still feel a bit guilty about my pen pal Michel. Of course French - our French teacher had given us the adresses to enhance our French. As I did.
Such a lovely exchange of letters!
Then he announced he wanted to visit me. And sent me a photograph.
I do hope that I have become more mature nowadays, I really do! (I'm sure: skin-deep I have :-).
Because - you guess what happened?
Being a very superficial young lady at that time - one glance at the photo - -
and I remembered that I had something very important to do:

"...a very particular morning thing, that has to be done in the morning, and, if possible between the hours of - What would you say the time was?" "About twelve" (...)
"Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and twelve five. So, really, (...) if you'll excuse me -".  

Change?

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. 

W.Somerset Maugham 

Yesterday I tried something new in 'my' Blogland - some of you may have noticed it: I changed my template to the new Dynamic Version - Mosaic - as I have already done in "Gardening in Highheels" and "Britta's Happiness of the Day." 

I loved the result. So non-committing. So optional. So "new". 

See: I love change. 

Then I tried to write a new post - this one - on my other computer, a  Mac - where I have all my "old" photographs from Hamburg, like the one above. 

But I could not get at my homepage there, so I changed the template back. 

Now my question to you: 

 

Which template do you like more? 

(To see the new one you have to look at www.burstingwithhappiness.blogspot.com to compare). 

And another question: 

How do you notice when I have written a new post? 

I take all of your blogs on my blog list - one glance at the left side of my template and I see who has written something new. But those who chose to show only a selection of blogs on their bloglist: how do you notice a new post of mine? You write comments, so there must be a way. 

Please tell me - and if you prefer the new version, I'll find a way to change it. 

Stuck

Do you know this feeling? It comes out of the blue. Nothing dramatically has happened (thank God). Maybe it is just this feeling that nothing happens. 
Feeling stuck. Rien ne va plus. 
Everyone and everything seems to squat on its old place without moving a jota. The radio plays the same old songs. I’m captivated by a time warp, cotton between me and the world outside. Listlessly I drink a tea. While English people say “Just wait and see!” Germans advise “Wait and drink tea!” So I do. Sip another cup of Lady Grey and stare into the fine drizzle outside. 
Of course I know what ‘happened’. Yin and Yang. What goes up must come down. And vice versa.  
So I tell myself to take a rest, allow myself to do nothing. (I’m not good at that). Usually I start a new project before I finish another. This time I don’t know which of my new projects is really worth that my heart glows for it. I feel distracted. A bit subdued. 
Which of course is utterly unfair: one glimpse into my Gratitude Journal would show me that.  
Stubbornly I refuse to have a look.  
Maybe I just want to sit here doing nothing? For a day at least: not doing anything but let it happen, as the New Agers say? Charge the batteries, as an engineer would say? I can relax: Life will move on in its own wonderful way.  
So I’ll just have a walk without an aim (but an umbrella). Or take a pencil and draw instead of taking quick pictures with my camera.  
I’ll be looking carefully, be silent (as good as I can, with that monkeymind), try to forget the ‘World of the Tenthousand Things’, just comfort the body - then mind and soul will follow. 
As Scarlett O’Hara put it so nicely: 
"After all, tomorrow is another day."

A very special Easter Egg

I’m so proud! 

The book “Leon. Backen. Herzhaft&Süß” is now published by DuMont on the German market – and I translated it. 

Written by Claire Ptak and Henry Dimbleby the book was such a joy to translate. 

Lovely pictures inspire, 

the recipes are easy to bake - as some of you will remember: I 'tried and tested' them, and are often done with a lot of wholesome though delicious ingredients. 

 A real treat!  

I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY EASTER!  

Coming to my Senses

This time I joined: as I told you last year, my kin give up something during Lent: Son (smoking and alcohol) and Husband (alcohol, he does not smoke).

Basically I think that is a good idea, and so I said: “OK, until Easter no sweets, no alcohol for me either!”

Not that I need to lose weight or drink too much, but I wanted to test willpower and discipline.

At the beginning I thought sometimes of delicious dark Belgian chocolate – and now, when the sun comes out and people sit outside the cafés and drink Chablis from glasses that so nicely mist up, I sigh and say to myself: “Easter comes soon.” But it is not such a strong temptation that I have to follow Oscar Wilde "and yield to it to get rid of it” - I soon forget it, unlike the monk in the well-known Zen story: 

Two monks were traveling together. When they came to a wild river, a beautiful woman asked if they could help her.

The one monk carried this woman on his shoulder over the river and let her down on the other bank. The other monk was very angry, but said nothing.

After they both had walked about an hour in silence, the first monk enquired “Is something the matter, you seem so upset?” The other answered, “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?” The other replied, “I left the woman a long time ago at the bank, however, you seem to be carrying her still.” 

But one thing I know: though I will continue my ‘fast’ now, I will not repeat it next year.

Why should I?

I knew before that I have a strong will, if necessary – so no need to test that again. Normally I do as I please - who knows how often in life one can enjoy the beautiful things that God/the Tao/ a Higher Being created for us and gives us as a present to savour it? And Joey Adam's funny warning: “Do not worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older it will avoid you" might have a morsel of truth in it :-) 

So on Easter you will see this woman happily say “Cheers!”

Occupy 'Switch to Summer Time'!

"Ever since summer time had been inaugurated a few years before, it had been one of the chronic dispensions of Tilling. Miss Mapp, Diva and the Padre flatly refused to recognize it, except when they were going by train or tram, when principle must necessarily go to the wall, or they would never have succeeded in getting anywhere, while Miss Mapp, with the halo of martyrdom round her head, had once arrived at a summer-time party an hour late, in order to bear witness to the truth, and in consequence, had got only dregs of tea and the last faint strawberries. But the Major and Captain Puffin used the tram so often, that they had fallen into the degrading habit of dislocating their clocks and watches on the first of May, and dislocating them again in the autumn, when they were forced into uniformity with properly-minded people. Irene was flippant on the subject, and said that any old time would do for her. The Poppits followed convention, and Mrs. Poppit, in naming the hour for a party to the stalwarts, wrote "4:30 (your 3.30)." The King, after all, had invited her to be decorated at a particular hour, summer time, and what was good enough for the King was good enough for Mrs. Poppit.
The sermon was quite uncompromising. There was summer and winter, by Divine ordinance, but there was nothing said about summer time and winter time. There was but one Time, (...)
The doctrine was so much to her mind that Miss Mapp gave a shilling to the offectory instead of her usual sixpence, (...) The Padre, it is true, had changed the hour of services to suit the heresy of the majority, and this for a moment made her hand falter. But the hope, after this convincing sermon, that next year morning service would be at the hour falsely called twelve decided her not to withdraw this handsome contribution.

E.F.Benson  Miss Mapp

Lost in Translation

I saw this film together with my son in London – and though I was well entertained I have forgotten the whole story. But the title fascinates me, because it is such a wonderful description of what can happens by translation.

And I am NOT speaking of the hilarious grotesque translations by Google or other ‘computer translation’ machines (when son was younger we gave in a long part of “Freude, schöner Götterfunken” – the machine translated it into a sort of English-muddle – funny! – then we let it be translated back by the machine to a sort of – er – German? Viking language? – hilarious!! – and then we put it into the ‘translator’ again – after that you could not identify a single word!

I am not able to read Swedish, so I let the Google translator ‘translate’ one blog for me – it is almost unreadable! (I will give you a piece of that nonsense on a rainy day - to amuse you).

That’s why I translate my own texts myself – knowing well that I stumble through your vocabulary and grammar like a fool – and no translator in his/her right mind will translate into another language than his mother tongue. I only do it here quite unprofessionally because I hope you will wipe the tears of laughter away and understand what I wanted to say – at least and hopefully better than Google would babble it for me.

But this time I want to show you something else.

Susan from’Prufrock’s Dilemma’ showed us the wonderful poems of Wislawa Szymborska – and off went Yours Truly to buy a German book of Szymborska’s poems.

When I read them, I was shocked. The melody, the poetic tenderness, even a bit of the content of Czeslaw Milosz’ great translation seemed to be gone or distorted in the German translation. Lost in translation.

I will do something now that I hope will not be misunderstood.

I translate the German version of a poem one by one – to show you how a BAD translation can destroy a poem. A bad translator even might use a correct German word for a Polish word - but a good translator must be able to be a poet himself, not a robot.

I want to be very clear about that: my translation is only there to show you how bad the official German translation is!

First Czeslaw Milosz's wonderful translation: 

(...)

In a drop of ink there are quite a few 

hunters squinting one eye, 

ready to rush down a vertical pen, 

to encicle the deer, to take aim. 

They forget that this is not life here. 

Other laws rule here, in black and white. 

An instant will last as I desire 

(...)

The German translator wrote: 

(...)

Der Tropfen Tinte hat einen ziemlichen Vorrat 

an Jägern mit Späheraugen, 

bereit, die steile Feder hinabzustürzen, 

in Anschlag zu gehen, das Reh zu stellen. 

Sie vergessen, hier gibt es kein Leben. 

Hier herrschen andre Gesetze, schwarz auf weiß. 

Hier dauert jeder Moment so lange, wie ich es will, 

(...)

  which is, one to one, translated back: 

(...)

The drop of ink has (!!, not even holds!!) a fairly stock

Of hunters with scouts’ eyes,

Ready to come rushing down the steeply pen,

To go into weapon at the ready, to catch the deer,

They forget: here is no life. (literally!!)

Here other laws rule, in black and white,

Here each moment lasts as long as I want, 

(...) 

Q.e.d.