Found in translation: Self-discovery in unexpected places

You'd think I'd be lost in translation in my newly adopted home of Spain where I don't speak the language. Instead, I'm diving into the depths of self-discovery, eyes wide open.

On a chilly recent evening in Barcelona, seven poetry lovers and creative souls gathered in a beautiful apartment in a 19th-century building near the iconic Arc de Triomphe. Our host, an American woman, graciously led us into the sitting room, piles of books stacked against the wall behind the couch. We ranged in age from our 20s to our 70s: students, entrepreneurs, tech warriors and a retiree, all sharing a love of poetry and language.

It was the latter member of this monthly Meetup poetry and writing group, a well-traveled man retired from a career as an interpreter for the United Nations, who presented the month’s fascinating matchup of influential Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the poetry of Nobel Prize-winning songwriter and singer Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, revealed in his autobiography that the choice of stage name was a nod to Dylan Thomas, whose poetry had influenced the songwriter.

We sat back and listened to a recording of Richard Burton reciting Thomas’ masterful Fern Hill,” published in 1945. Later, we listen to Dylan sing “When The Ship Comes In,” a folk song released in 1964. The thread connecting the two artists was visible to all of us in these two pieces: “Fern Hill” depicts the poet's childhood on a farm, and ends with the line "Time held me green and dying though I sang in my chains like the sea." Dylan's song includes the lyrics "for the chains of the sea will have busted in the night".

Afterwards, we discussed the poem and the lyrics. I like the idea that in Dylan’s song the ship is a metaphor for change, although various commentators have seen it as a symbol for freedom and through a religious lens as well. In Thomas’ poem, many have seen its lyricism depict the green and golden joy of childhood and the shadowy sorrow of maturity—a poignant recognition all too familiar for those of us in midlife and beyond.

Badalona sunset: Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

Then, after a brief meditation with a lovely ritual passing around of a tin of essential oils, we sat quietly and wrote freely in our notebooks, sharing with the group afterwards, if we chose. As the evening grew late and we headed out into the night, I was so grateful to my daughter Marielle for inviting me into this poetry-loving group. I had found my people.

The Rite of Spring

It was the ghosts of the two Dylans, no doubt, that accompanied my daughter and I and her partner Esteban to Palau de la Música Catalana for a performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” which is both a ballet and an orchestral work. Both Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas had an appreciation for the music of the Russian composer.

Controversial at its premiere in 1913, “Rite of Spring” redefined 20th-century music. In the soaring piece of music, Stravinsky took himself far into the realm of the unconscious, critics have noted. It was music created with no apparent order but rather driven by pure gut feeling. Stravinsky has been called the “most rock’ n ’roll of composers,” with good reason. I felt in my body every bang and drumbeat and crescendo of the percussion instruments. Afterwards, the world-famous violinist and UN Messenger of Peace Midori treated us to Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D Minor.

With Marielle and Esteban at the Palau de la Música Catalana

Leaving the beautiful modernist gem that is the Palau de la Música Catalana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, before us stood the 4.5 meter high iron statue of Carmela, a classical Mediterranean beauty, by artist Jaume Plensa. Just beyond Carmela were towering palm trees. And all around us was a bustling city as people headed into the golden light of the cafes for their evening tapas. This—this is the life I had been longing for.

The Green & Gold: Finding Balance and Abundance

Throughout the next several days of my newborn life in Barcelona, just 15 days old, one of the stanzas from Thomas’ poem, particularly the lines “Before the children green and golden/Follow him out of grace” skipped along beside me:

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace

“Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas

This Valentine’s Day, I got the keys to my new apartment. As I stood in the white high-ceiling central living space with the bright sun streaming in, I began to understand why Thomas’ “green and golden” stayed with me. I stepped out onto the spacious terrace with its views of the green mountains of the Serra de la Marina range and the golden hues of the sun rising on the Mediterranean Sea in the other direction. Ever the seeker and explorer, I dove into the depths of those colors and learned:

• Green is the color of balance, harmony, and growth. It represents the spiritual connection between our hearts and the natural world. Green is associated with the fourth chakra, the heart chakra.

• Gold is the color of abundance, wisdom, and spiritual attainment. It represents the spiritual connection to the sun, divine energy, and the power of the divine masculine. It corresponds to the third chakra, the Solar Plexus, a chakra resonating with personal power, self-confidence, and force of will.

I surveyed my new space, already seeing the splashes of gold and green I would add to its decor. I thought of the beautiful song my daughter Marielle introduced me to years ago, Lianne La Havas’ “Green & Gold,” and its lines:

I'm looking at life unfold
Dreaming of the green and gold
Just like the ancient stone
Every sunrise I know, those eyes you gave to me
That let me see where I come from

Beneath the happy and excited surface of my new life here, there are anxieties and worries, big and small: the bureaucratic hill to climb to get the all-important Spanish NIE, or Foreigner Identification Number, essential for any legal or financial or business activity here; getting lost in the maze of streets off Las Ramblas as I run late for an appointment; struggling to express myself with my (as-yet) non-existent Spanish; wondering when I’ll get up the courage to initiate a dating life here.

Excited to show off the view of the Mediterranean Sea from my apartment terrace in Badalona.

The biggest hurdle was eased incredibly by my super efficient and knowledgeable, jill-of-all-trades daughter Marielle who found this apartment and then sat beside me for the signing of my five-year rental contract, conducted entirely in Spanish (and rather intimately concluded, for an American, with kisses on both cheeks from the owner, an older Catalan woman and her son, whose household she was joining now that she was widowed).

And so when Lianne sings of “those eyes…that let me see where I come from,” I am reminded that I am made of strong stuff: both strong and sensitive, the best combination. I moved to Sweden when I was twenty-nine, and then to Malta with my ex and two teen daughters at forty-nine. At fifty-one, I returned to the U.S. for 14 years, the last three spent living alone as a newly divorced woman. And so I know what it is to move, to experience and survive and eventually thrive with change.

I know how to create a home where ever I am.

I know how to find myself in translation.

I’ll let Dylan Thomas have the last word, as I think of the dangers to democracy and the ideals I hold dear being crushed in the awfulness of the Trump administration and his unofficial general, Elon Musk. (On that note, as a way to manage the awfulness, check out journalist

Jessica Yellin

’s new Calm News podcast co-hosted with Glennon and Amanda Doyle at the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. Jessica gives you the tools to stay informed without dropping into panic).

This is the first stanza of Thomas’ famous poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” I am closer to that “good night” than I once was, with my 65th birthday approaching in April and yes: I am raging against the dying of the light that I see happening in my country.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

TUESDAY TREATS

Let’s remember that even when times seem dark, life is full of delights, magic and hearts being shared. Here are some treats I enjoyed this past week:

Enjoying Valentine’s Day lunch with an unbeatable view

1. A three-course Valentine’s Day lunch at Donzella de la Costa in Badalona with an exquisite view of the Mediterranean Sea, with two of my favorite people, my daughter

   Marielle Velander
   and her partner Esteban.

2. Special guest Nate Postlethwait who leads an online community of survivors, reading his letter from love on

   Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert
   . Do check it out. What love told him pierced me, too: “I have always been here. I will always expand. I will always require you to bring the hard stuff to me, so we can sit together and find our way through.”

3. Meeting the lovely vibrant

   Jennifer Bush
   for coffee where we talked nonstop for an hour. Jennifer writes the wonderful
   Starting Over in Spain
   . She moved to Barcelona in 2019, bravely on her own, knowing no one and with very basic Spanish, a freelance writer with no fixed employment, but with a Spanish heritage that could give her a fast track to Spanish citizenship, along with the conviction that at midlife, it was now or never to make the move to Europe she had always dreamt of. In Jennifer, I’ve made my first local American female friend—that ranks among my life’s favorite delights.

If you’re a paid subscriber, note on your calendar the date for next month’s First Tuesday Community Call on Tues, March 4, at 9am PST/12pm EST and 6pm CET. The six of us had such a wonderful chat last month, getting to know one another and sharing where we find magic in plain sight these days. At each call, we’ll talk for about 40 minutes about the topic of that week’s Living in 3D post or whatever is on our collective minds. Let’s make new friends, share ideas and resources and offer each other a sounding board.

Welcome all new subscribers as well as those who have been on this ride with me all along. So glad you’re here! Your subscription is an honor that brings me so much joy. I am grateful for each and every one of you. I spend many hours each week crafting these essays with an eye to what will most serve my readers’ interests. If my writing brings you value and connection, and you have the means, consider upgrading your subscription. If that isn’t in your budget, I always appreciate a nice cup of coffee! Thank you!