Lately, so much has happened that I seem to have lost my ability to process it all ... and to write the stories. I so very much want to write the stories. From Genova, Lake Como, and Norway.
Italy was intense, followed by a stint at home where I played 'catch-up' ... which was intense. Before flying out to Norway, to give a photography workshop that was all about more intensity and more beauty. Day after day after day when the electricity of a life lived intensely hummed inside of me.
Home again to an impressive 'to-do' list that has me dreaming of two weeks of doing absolutely nothing. But I think the problem is mine, no one else's. I suspect, even if I were set down on a deserted island, a castaway or two would wash up and we'd talk for days and nights until rescued.
I'm like that. Intensely curious, intensely interested, in almost everything. I'm beginning to understand this thing about me. I don't rest but it's my fault.
Kim and AP came over from England last week and that was so good. Then I caught up with Marcia, my lovely Irish colour therapist friend, from Brussels. We had another kind of day filled with a different intensity ... one that involved everything from walking and singing to her 8 week old baby, to talking of e-courses and all kinds of other things too.
In-between times I photographed two lovely Belgian families, laughing but intense as we worked with the bright light and 5 beautiful children under 8 years of age. I rode home on the tram, jeans splattered with mud, exhausted but happy.
Then today ... an unplanned visit to the city, because I was almost out of coffee beans, netted an unexpected bonus. 5 fabulous books!
A Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron.
Tim Parks, Dreams of Rivers and Seas. A novel. I already loved his book, A Season With Verona.
Then, Jon Snow, one of my favourite journalists wrote a book i didn't know about. Lately I've been finding so many good books by and about war journalists and photographers. His book, Shooting History, was published in 2004. Jon had already spent 25 years reporting and is 'one of the most highly regarded newsmen of our time, renowned for his independence of mind and his unerring ability to get to the heart of the matter.'
I particularly love this, 'he presents his uncensored views on the new world order: how the West's constant search for an enemy has helped unhinge the world, and why the media have been less than helpful in drawing attention to key political and global developments'.
And then there was a book I had forgotten I was waiting for. Daniel Pearl's wife wrote about her husband's life and death in A Mighty Heart. ' A journalist in her own right, Mariane is, as was her husband, profoundly committed to the idea that a more informed public makes for a better world, and to the idea that risks have to be taken to uncover a story.'
And the final book, before I stepped away from that dangerous 50% off shelf is one by New Zealander, William Brandt. Titled The Book of the Film of the Story of my Life, I couldn't resist.
It's been a good day here in the flatlands of Belgium. I'm also working on the very first A New Way of Seeing Newsletter. And processing the family photography session, and trying to decide which book I should begin reading while knowing that, at this very moment in time, I should step away from the computer and go organise dinner.
