blame it on trayflow.

I’m not back. Blame this post on trayflow, her picture and hed, “ein halb-liter, bitte.”

It took me back undisclosed decades to a beer paramount in a lifetime, time, space and memory. A single glorious glass of Weissbier in a pub in Germany.

Trayflow’s photo stirs that full-bodied memory. Und more. The long-held desire to study German again.

I studied German for five years – the four years through high school and one year at university.

I’ve also studied, to varying degrees: Spanish – too easy, booooring, didn’t pursue; French – hated the sound, yech yech yech, no appeal; Italian – loved the sounds and tongue written and to my sensibilities remains the most sensuous of the languages studied; and of course Japanese, both the speaking and writing (hiragana, katakana and kanji); to study Japanese is to study four languages in one. Or seven due to the very distinct and varied levels from formal and casual).

The German language is no kinder play. It’s challenging, particularly at the advanced levels.

Japanese is not exactly a day at the umi (beach) either. Of the five languages studied, those two were the most challenging. Have never studied Russian and trust those linguistically bright ones who say it is quite трудно (difficult).

I’ve often entertained the idea of resuming my Japanese study and perhaps one day will. It’s the German that has beckoned through the jahre … why I can’t precisely say. Perhaps it’s because I was exposed to it in my childhood (from my father, who learned it in his childhood, and occasionally we’d speak it, the only two in the immediate family four) … perhaps because of my ancestry … perhaps because I just always liked the sound and the challenge. It tickles and tugs at my gutteral roots somehow.

The reason I do not return to German schoolroom studies is the same reason I do not take classes in clay and pottery and Japanese and cooking and tile mosaics and looming and weaving and physics and paper-crafting and calligraphy and other academic and creative interests. Money.

 

Like I said, tadeln sie es auf trayflow. Blame it on trayflow.
Jetzt komme ich zur Einsamkeit zurück. (Now I return to solitude.)

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