Remembering ...

Nana with her great-grandkidlet back in those heady days of summer.

December 24th finds us hunting down a new oven, as ours died last night.  Could be an interesting Christmas day, I'm thinking.

 

These last few days ...

These last few days have been a psychedelic whirl ... somehow. 

No drugs were taken, I hasten to add.

If I attempt to put past few days together, I would tell you that we had a horrific random shooting here in Belgium, where more than 120 were injured and 5 were killed. I was told about it when it was still breaking news and no one knew what was happening.  It left me disorientated at the end of the day.

Then there was my 17 hour marathon Friday but as it ended with red wine and time spent with a lovely friend, I shouldn't complain.  

Actually, that day was a little surreal, in terms of all I experienced.  Even the train trip home took on an odd quality when a lovely older Moroccan woman next to me started talking and ended up getting me to try her Coco Chanel perfume.  The 'odd' could be applied when you realise she spoke French and Arabic and I spoke English and Nederlands.  No language in common but when has that ever stopped me ...  There was much laughter and family photographs were exchanged and smiled over

Saturday and Sunday were spent in the company of the truly delicious Miss 7, who came out to street Christmas party with us in the evening.  The street party where Gert and I, along with others, spent some time trying to help a guy who collapsed there.  It was a relief when the ambulance arrived. 

We stayed on for a while, catching up with good people, most especially the 'justice of the peace' who married us back in 2006.  Sunday I look at the 'chaos' on my desk (let's not call it mess) and realised I had an Eithopian cross (pictured above), a Turkish prayer bracelet and necklace from Lhasa, all lying next to each other here. 

I love the stories and relics that pop up in this crazybeautiful life I sometimes get to lead.

But mostly, if I had to explain this absence from blogging, I would tell you it's because I've been working on this new website.  The website where there is still work to be done but perhaps I just have to throw out here in front of me.  I always want things perfect and, of course, nothing is ever 'perfect enough'. 

So, here I am, launching this new website.  More work to be done in the days ahead. I hope you enjoy it.  The url should switch to www.dimackey.com but for now, it is here.

A timely reminder ... Gwarlingo

During the audit, one of the IRS employees explained to my friend that she couldn’t keep declaring a loss for her business year after year.

“This looks more like a hobby than a profession,” the auditor said.

My friend attempted to explain the financial ups and downs of being a working artist. Yes. There had been a dry spell in the “income department” in recent years, but her expenses were legitimate. Art was her business, her life, her passion–not a mere hobby.

The auditor was completely puzzled. “But if you aren’t making any money creating art,” he asked, “why do you keep doing this year after year?”
Extract from, What Inspires Michelle Aldredge, creator of the website called Gwarlingo.  The website where some of the most inventive work being made today in music, writing, film, performance, and the visual arts is highlit. It is also a place where creative people can connect, explore, and share ideas and resources.

The 'Joy' of Being a Photographer

One of the crazy beautiful things about my life is that I get offered the opportunity to photograph some truly interesting people and events.

One of the crazy-making facts of this life as a photographer, I’m usually offered the opportunity to donate my services for free ...

I was recently contacted about the possibility of heading off to a world forum as photographer.  They made it immediately clear that they were a charity, they had no money but there was the possibility the media outlets might want photographs.  I could probably pick up some loose change there.  I was left wondering how the caterers got their money ... tips?

The gig interested me, intensely actually, and the guy I was talking to was lovely however at some point sanity kicked in and I realised that it was same old same old.

I would attend two or three days of events, take a few hundred photographs because I love that kind of photography.  it was possible that some of those photographs would be urgently required for press releases, as is so often the case.  I would travel too and from the venue each day.  This was to be at my own expense, until I mentioned it would cost me money to work for the charity.  Not to mention that fact that I would spend a number of days sorting, selecting, processing and packaging my images so that everyone involved had the option of their memory of those days, proof of their professional abilities.

I thought, No ... not again. 

The organisers will be paid.  The cleaners will be paid. The caterers too, I imagine.  The office staff, the media people, the owners of the venue. Even the speakers will probably be paid as they were coming from all over the world ... but hey, the photographer works for free.

Why?

Are my skills such that I don’t deserve to be paid?
Is my time without value because I am an artiste?
Am I having too much fun in my profession?

Could it be that my 200euro monthly payments to social security here in Belgium aren’t impressive enough to merit payment?
Is my 21% BTW (VAT) payment on every invoice something I can choose not to pay?

I said no.
They offered expenses.
I had to walk away because how can I explain that I might be a little more qualified than some of the cleaners.  That perhaps my photographs will give the event more coverage than some of the office staff involved in putting this event together.  That maybe the photographer contributes something material, acting as a kind of witness to an event, that enhances the careers of those organising it.

Obviously my business is on hold while I regroup and learn to say no more often to these gigs.  I don’t want to get bitter about my photographer’s life because I love photography and people with a passion.  I love documenting events where the world comes to speak but I just can’t keep taking the financial hits. 

So please, sometimes just think about the photographer you’re hiring. 
Think about how good they are, how long you’ll have those memories for, and what value you place on those images ... and then just pay because they have bills just like you.

Thank you for reading.
Normal service will be resumed as soon as I find some bounce again ...

'Back', a little more everyday.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath

Friday was the longgggg day of travel.  I do it the most difficult way and almost destroyed my shoulder this time.

I caught a taxi to the train station because the possibility of me experiencing a Mr Bean-like incident is high.  Once, while rushing to Genova’s Brignole Station through the rain, I slipped and bent my knee in a way I hadn’t bent it in a long time.  Lying on the ground, pre-pain, I remember considering the possibility of hospital and not having to leave the city I loved however, a lovely man helped me up and I realised that the bone-crushing bend had actually freed my rather stiff knee up.  Bizarre but true. 

My train platform lacked both elevator and escalator access.  I looked at my bags ... one 23kg suitcase, one 7kg+ equipment bag, and considered weeping.  Needs must, and so I picked them up and began the climb.  There was a beautiful young man at the top of the stairs, watching me, resplendent in his Milan clothes.  I reached the top, looked at him, and said OHMYGOD! and laughed because what else can you do when you’re not sure you can survive that kind of ‘lift and climb’ scenario.  I wandered off to a spot in the sun to see what was going to happen.  It seemed I was to survive but for the odd achey muscley bits.

Then it was almost 2 hours on the train to Milan, first class ... because it was just 6 euro more, and so worth it.  And almost another hour on the train to the airport and yes, that was me, 2 hours early for the earliest check-in.  I still have a mild cough thing going and I was so tired, I just wanted to make sure I got home…

So they sent me away with my suitcase, my much-hated suitcase by that point in time, and I found a quiet spot where I could buy some pasta and tomato, and drink a glass of red wine.  My usb modem was still working and so I worked a while but, really, I just wanted to get rid of the suitcase, buy a book, and get through security.

Evening, on the plane and I bought one of those tiny bottles of airplane Merlot, twitching my nose a little over the fact it wasn’t the Chianti I had come to love. 
It was really bad.  I sipped but couldn’t drink it.  The air hostess noticed I hadn’t finished it when I returned it to her and offered to pop up the front and replace it with something nicer.  And she did!  I’m still smiling over that.

Home, suitcase battered but ahah! I had encased it in plastic wrap to avoid the usual suitcase breakage I experience on reaching Brussels.  Well ... I got it home only to discover that they had had their dastardly way with it and that the lock was broken and had jammed closed.  Dank u wel, Brussels airport.  Another suitcase story to add to the growing collection titled ‘Horrible Things That Have Happened to My Suitcase at Brussels Airport’.  This was its final journey.  God only knows what I’ll replace it with, probably titanium or some other unbreakable material.

On the bright side my suitcase on one of the first off the conveyor belt.  I looked at the time, I had about 6 minutes to reach the hourly bus to Antwerpen. I sprinted through the ‘anythingtodeclare’ section thinking that perhaps that wasn’t the best look when toting a plastic encased suitcase.  I ran, jogged, walked briskly and arrived, a dishevelled panting heap with about 2 minutes to spare.  The driver told me to calm down, that he’d wait, and he laughed. 

Gert met me in the city and, he too, experienced a small destruction to his body on taking my suitcase the rest of the way home and voila, I was home by 10.30pm ... to the most delicious guests.  Ashley, last seen when she was 10 and I was living in New Zealand, daughter of one my favourite friends in the world, was staying over with her lovely Australian friend Beck.  Our place had been their Belgian base for 2 weeks.  It was good to catch up on the years that had passed ...  although how lucid I was is debatable. 

I slept.

The next day, Paola, Simon and Matteo arrived, fleeing their home renvoations, and the quiet party kicked off.  It was more of a talking and eating and lounging around time together.  Persian chicken for dinner, with Paola’s delicious Limoncello Tiramisu for dessert ... and red wine.  We were trying to find a Chianti replacement for the Banfi I came to love in Genova.

Well, that’s what I was doing.  Maybe the others weren’t quite so interested in that particular search and, in fact, Gert had a Belgian beer.

Sunday came, Paola and Simon left after lunch.  Beck’s and Ashley started packing ... Beck was heading for Spain on the 5am airport bus, and Ashley’s flies out of Paris tonight, heading for New Zealand.  Jessie and little Miss 7 arrived and I did an impromptu photo shoot of the girls.  Dinner ... what was dinner?  Oh yes, it was the one where we introduced the girls to rabbit cooked the Belgian way ... in tons of beer, with sultanas and all kinds of yummy things.  They weren’t quite convinced despite me promising we were only eating the naughtiest rabbits.  Beck finally decided it would have been better not to know which creature we were consuming. (Note: that didn’t work with Jessie.  I may have led her to believe she was eating chicken once ... when it was rabbit.  I wouldn’t do that again.  She was veryvery cross with me.)

We heard the taxi leave this morning for the airport bus stop around 4.30am.  I went with Ashley to the train later.  I’m home now.  Sunshine on my back, an empty house.  Good music playing. 

So I’m back from Italy and now ... to work on that book.

New Zealand Wins the Rugby World Cup ...

AMAI ! (the Flemish equivalent of ‘my goodness’ perhaps), I’m not sure how regular my breathing was during the final of the rugby world cup. 

So many times, we have known we have the best rugby team in the world ... so many times, they have failed at the final hurdle, that final rugby world cup test. 

For perspective on this fact, you probably should know that rugby is almost religion in New Zealand.

And, my goodness, there were times during today’s final where it looked like the All Blacks were going to do it again.  That is ... lose.  It was heart-stopping stuff, with just 1 point seperating New Zealand and France for the final 30 minutes of the game.  France was playing strongly.

But the All Blacks won and our little nation, of just over 4 million people, surely erupted with joy (and quite some relief).  Even there in the Embassy, just as it was beginning to sink in, in the photograph below.  There was another room, with a BIG screen and many more people there too.  The Embassy was full.

Gert and I stayed to chat a while with some of the lovely people who turned up to watch the big match at the embassy.  Apparently there were ambassadors from 5 countries there.  To me, they were all there for the rugby, nothing else mattered ... did it?

From there, we wandered on over to the home of a lovely writer.  I was photographing a man who is in the process of publishing his first book ... in Greek.  If it is ever published in English, be sure, I will let you know because it sounds like one I would enjoy.  He was a pleasure to work with and being there for a while, in his world, was a nice time out.

Home, and voila, our tram took us past a robbery-gone-wrong crime scene, with the police tent covering the body.

Then Oliver had time to film my first ever web video and could I? 
I could.

We spent 2 hours or more, with him interviewing and filming me ... using two cameras. Amai!!  it was intense.  It should appear on the website one day soon, although it is destined for the new website which is up but still being loaded.  Dank u wel to my Belgian bloke who, so very patiently, built me a new site using SquareSpace.  News to follow.

Now, with my glass of red wine almost done, I’m turning my attention towards flying tomorrow.  I jet back to Genova Italy in the morning.  It’s a 5am start, I believe.  A long day of wandering but, by crikey, I’m looking forward to being back there and beginning work on my book ... and organising the dates and the marketing for the first ‘come travel with me’ photography workshop for Spring 2012.

I’m glad I had Saturday.  I had a birthday and my lovely daughter cooked dinner for me, and baked a cake of Veronica’s that still makes me smile when I think of it.  I rested, as if I had an inkling of the sheer insanity of Sunday.  Saturday saw me enjoying Miss 7, hanging out with the Belgian bloke, talking with my sister and her daughter Katie, back home in New Zealand for 3 hours perhaps, there was a family dinner too.

Tomorrow ... tomorrow is coming at speed and I really must pack.  I hope your weekend was a sweet one.
Ciao for now.

All Blacks Vs France, the final of the Rugby World Cup

It’s been good to sleep through the night and not spend the day anticipating the big match being played in New Zealand in a couple of hours ...

New Zealand’s All Black rugby team is pretty much the best in the world.  Somehow though, when they reach the rugby world cup finals, stuff happens and they rarely win. 
It’s bizarre.
It’s devastating.

We’re a small nation of just over 4 million people.  Rugby is a religion there in our land downunder.  We love being the best, as a nation ...

Then there’s France, the team that reached the finals, not so much because they were the best but because they managed to get past some excellent teams.  Sport is like that. 
As Kay wrote on twitter this morning ... All NZ is one large, hot, tin roof tonight! Go the AB’s! If u support France; may the best team win!

Must go.  We’re off to watch the match with a whole lot of other kiwis ...

My Friend, Judy

It has to be said, I have the loveliest friends ...

Today, Judy was coming to town.  We had plans, that changed, and were all the better for changing I’m thinking. 

We immediately wandered from the train station to Caffenation, for some really good coffee.  Much talking later, we left, heading for my most favourite bookshop in Belgium ... De Slegte, in Antwerpen.  We both love books.

Lunch, and Judy introduced me to a cafe she knew once.  It was lovely and I recommend it so highly ... Moments, on the Meir at number 47.  Second floor, for those like me who have never noticed it before.

We walked on, finding delicious boots at Torfs (that were not purchased), my new favourite shoe brand, also found on the Meir at number 14-16.  Then to the Grand Bazaar ... which is nothing like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul but still, place of some favourite stores of mine. 

There, she bought me a birthday gift that made me smile.  I have never known anyone quite so convincing in the ... ‘well-it’s-better-if-you-choose-what-you-would-like-rather-than-me-guessing’ line of gift giving.  I do adore her.  And so, after quite some sweating, I chose a favourite author’s latest book.  I have all of Joe Simpson’s non-fiction and I have to confess, his work of fiction had me totally in its grip by the time I reached the supermarket, via the tram home.

Then, I took her to Lojola.  This youtube takes you to the cafe ...  it’s the cutest little cupcake and coffee or tea place in the city.

From there, after much laughter, we wandered back to the train station where ... after running for the wrong train, she decided to walk me to my tram, as she had time to spare.  The most commonly used sentence during the long walk to my tram was variations on ‘Yes Di, I can find my way back to my train, as I did Cuba alone’.  But there was so much more humour that doesn’t quite come through in that sentence.  Both Judy and I are terribly amusing.  Modest though.

So yes ... it was a magical day.  Unexpected really but all the more lovely for it.  As I write this, I’m listening to the Chan Chan Compay Segundo cd that she slipped into that birthday package for me. 

Dank u wel, Judy.  Today was truly delicious.

Autumn means Easter to Me ...

I’m not sure my unconscious will ever adjust to this upside-down life in the northern-hemisphere.

The leaves are changing colour and we’re waiting for our first frost which means ... it’s almost Easter.  But no, that was a New Zealand thing.  Here it’s already mid-October. although Belgium had been enjoying high temperatures as late as last week. 

I took the bike out this afternoon, needing to stretch. I took myself and my camera into the park on our beautiful day.  We’re blessed with this city park, and mostly I love it even while struggling to forget the massively busy European motorway right next door, the motorway that, if I wake in the night, sounds like a Spring tide at Tautuku, on the lower East Coast of New Zealand.

Anyway, today it was pretty.  There was a blue heron down at one of the many ponds, hanging out with the big white geese and the ducks.  The moles hills were there mocking mans efforts to tame nature too.  I love those moles ... there to remind us, surely, that we’re not quite able to tame and maintain everything out there in the natural world.

Eugenio Montale, Christy Moore and Pasta Hippo ...

I woke this morning, with ideas for my book demanding I note them down ... I gave in at 5.30am, grateful I hadn’t lost them to laziness.

This book will be full of images but I need text too.  This morning the images came marching into my mind so I got up and wrote the words for them.

Yesterday was a day spent going through all of my notes; a day spent working out the structure of the workshops I plan on offering soon ... the workshops where I see if you want to come spend time in my worlds, either via the chair where you read this, or physically come wandering.

As I do these things, new ideas come knocking on my door. 
What about this idea for a book?
Hey, where’s that manuscript ... that story you put down and forgot to pick up in your mad rush to live?
Don’t you wish you could draw ... imagine, then we could do this with that idea?.

Wednesday was a stunning day.  I had no idea it was going to be. 

It was enough when the postman delivered a parcel and I opened it to find a book titled Eugenio Montale, Collected Poems 1920-1954, a revised bilingual edition, translated and annotated by Jonathan Galasi.

I had wanted that book for research.  And it arrived unexpectedly.  Thank you, Gert.

But that wasn’t enough.  That night we had dinner at my favourite Antwerpen restaurant, Pasta Hippo.  The food was glorious, as always.  I remember I stopped going for a while.  I believe I may have run into the owner one time, if not, a staff member who was so rude, I remained offended for months however ... the food is that good. And the slightly expensive glass of Chianti I had while waiting for Gert ... it was divine.

Then to the concert of an Irish singer I had been loving forever.  I remember gifting a copy of his cd to my ex-mother-in-law, more than a few years ago.  On our recent trip from Dublin to Connemara, my first time driving in 7 years, I stopped enroute, stating that we simple MUST have a Christy Moore cd playing, as we wandered in Ireland.  It was grand.

Christy, at 60-something, is one of those musicians I could listen to for a very long time.  He’s a story-teller gifted with the loveliest voice. Individual political songs he has performed throughout his career include Mick Hanly’s ‘On the Blanket’ about the protests of republican prisoners, his own ‘Viva la Quinta Brigada’ about Irish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and his own ‘Minds Locked Shut’ about Bloody Sunday in Derry.

Moore has endorsed a long list of left wing support causes, ranging from El Salvador to Mary Robinson in the 1990 Presidential Election.[2] At Glastonbury Festival in 2005 he sang about the Palestinian solidarity activist Rachel Corrie.

I loved his courage.  I loved his voice. It was a grand evening out, with Gert and the lovely Stephanie.  You know, if a fortune-teller had told me the story of where and when and with whom I would see Christy Moore perform live, back in those New Zealand days, I would have known that she was a charlatan ...

One never quite knows where life might take them, does one.

Wednesday was the loveliest day.  Thursday was spent hunched over my desk, I worked through into the night after dinner.

Friday ... let’s see how plays out.  There’s a plan that involves a private art viewing, a castle, and lovely friends tonight.
Note on the editing and re-editing: I started writing this about 5.30am.  Errors were made.  Now I must go and find coffee.
Have a lovely day and tot straks!

A Little Glass Kiwi

It has been 7 years since I was last home, 7 years since I last saw so many people ... and now I have one of those long-ago people here at my house.

Valda was my first mother-in-law, mother to Chris - my first husband, grandmother to my daughter Jessica.  I’m not sure if you can imagine how delightful it has been to catch up with her.  This woman who has known me since I was 17 years old, something so rare in this life of mine.  I had my daughter when I was 21, so not even she has known me so long and no one in my Istanbul life, nor my Belgian life, has either.

So we have spent the last few days catching up on extended family news, with Valda delighting in time spent with her granddaughter and her great-granddaughter too.  It has been lovely.

But there this small thing that did make me giggle.  The photograph below ... the glass kiwi.  It’s a wine bottle stopper.  An exquisite wine bottle stopper that Valda brought me from from home.  And it shows me, even after all this time, Valda still does know me rather well.

The house is a metaphor for the self ...

The house is a metaphor for the self, of course, but it is also totally real.  And a foreign house exaggerates all the associations houses carry.
Frances Mayes, extracted from Under the Tuscan Sun.

I love the words I find written in Frances Mayes book, Under the Tuscan Sun.  I’ve been carrying this book with me, wherever I move, since before moving to Te Anau, New Zealand, and that was way back before 1999.

The book is so veryvery different to the movie.  My idea is that the book is for writers and dreamers, while the movie is a straight out chick flick ... humble opionion, of course.

The Belgian Bloke ...

I often travel alone ... I’m lucky, the man who found me in Istanbul accepts that a New Zealander living in Turkey might be a bit of a wanderer.

But sometimes he travels with me however I can’t always blog all about that while on the road.  It’s the kind of information burglars might rather enjoy.  There’s the whole google face recognition thing these days and so, when I travel with my Belgian, he’s often not mentioned and it’s sad because I do enjoy traveling with him.

This trip to Ireland was special in so many ways.  He had decided he wouldn’t be driving.  Instead, he had hired an Irish rental car and it was all about me getting back behind the wheel after 7 years as a passenger. 

It has to be said, I loved driving back in New Zealand.  Loved it with a passion!  Friends visiting New Zealand can attest to that, although I would rather they didn’t critique my style here.  Yes, that means you Diede, and perhaps Mary Lou too.

Anyway ... I was a little bit nervous about it all.  7 years is a long time. 

The rental car bloke in Ireland said, ‘so you’re okay with a 2011 Peugeot 308?’  I think I gave him a wee bit of a fright.  I didn’t hug him but I might have said, ‘I’ve only just arrived in Ireland and here I am, having a really excellent time!!!’  He almost smiled, which we felt was an event, as Gert and I weren’t sure he smiled a lot normally.  It was possibly the equivalent of a hearty laugh from a more easily amused bloke.

We trotted out and loaded up the car.  Gert had maps.  He’s great with maps.  I’m not.  I never know where I am in the world.  I accept that.

We did all kinds of M Roads on our journey from Dublin Airport across to Galway, over there on the other side of Ireland.  It was grand.  I had imagined I would sit around 90kms p/h in the slow lane in those places where the speed limit was 120kms but do you know, it all came back to me.  120kms was okay.  Gert liked my driving.  He’s a Flemish bloke.  He’s fairly blunt when it comes to truth-telling.

And we timed it nicely.  His directions were excellent.  I didn’t drive him crazy, not once.  A miracle.

Anyway, we arrived in one piece at the home of the lovely Rob and Angie and just kind of stepped into this magical time of wandering and boating and fishing and stuff, in Ireland.

I took this photograph of Gert fishing ... but that’s a whole other story, involving trees and fish and things.