A Grey Sunday Post

I am allergic, or perhaps intolerant, when it comes to grey Sundays.

There were more than a few while I was growing up on the east coast of the lower South Island of New Zealand.  And back then everything closed on a Sunday.  Telephone wires hung from poles rather than being buried underground and sometimes, on a particularly miserable Mosgiel Sunday, the wind would whistle through the telephone wires.  It was deadly and there was nothing that might perform a 'distract and save' mission.  A grey Sunday could suck the life out of me faster than anything ... joy, pleasure, hope, energy, drive, all gone.

Now, when looking for someplace else to live, I always imagine how this place or that would be on a grey Sunday.  Small villages in Belgium seem especially deadly.  Red brick rows of houses, skies that do grey regularly, and the complete silence of empty streets.

I'm suspicious of French villages too. Germany, where all is closed on a Sunday, feels flat and listless to me when the sun is hidden.  And it's not about the distraction of shopping.  I dislike shopping.  It's about the absence of life somehow.

A spark that seems extinguished in some places.

The remedy.  A beach, a forest, a lake, a river ... or maybe a drive.  Movement. 

I love Nature and yet I loved my life in Istanbul too.  City of 14 million+, there was always a feeling of life, an energy of some kind, pulsating in the air there.

I suspect it simply means that I need to live amongst people who like to be outside.  In Genova, down by the sea on Corso Italia, there is life.  People walk and jog there, talk there, move.  I loved Salmanca in Spain for it's Plaza Mayor and the life that appeared there in the evenings.

Even Te Anau, that small village in Southland ... a tiny population enriched by tourists who always move outside of time.  It's never a Sun-day in a tourist area, it's a Holi-day and I feel the difference most powerfully.  That energy, when managed in a good way, energises me.

I can choose then ... work, curl up in my warm bed with a book, or wander into the life outside.

Today is a grey day here in Belgium.  The streets are empty of both people and cars.  I am feeling the bite of not traveling already, only one month after that quick trip to Paris.

It's a grey Sunday today but it seems I never photograph them.  I can't show what I am writing about but here's an image from that other grey day, that one that wasn't a Sunday, when I had to go into the city.  I took my camera ...

Things I'm Learning About Writing A Book

I'm learning ...

I don't write a book in the same way I might train my body at the gym.  It's not about pushing the limits and building up strength.  It's not about endurance. 

And it's not about 9 to 5.  It's about 'anytime'.  My most exciting idea, so far, came while I was walking back through city streets in the early morning, a 5 celsius day.  I was thinking bad thoughts about Antwerp's polluted air.

I smsed my idea to myself.  I had a book for the tram and I know how time stretches and warps on these journeys of mine.  I need to make notes.  Always.  Because I forget stuff.  Even brilliant stuff.

Always make notes.

I have a song, sometimes more than one but usually just one, that I put on repeat ... endlessly on repeat.  It helps somehow.  It disappears into the background but creates a state of mind.  I recently heard Man Booker prize winner, Eleanor Catton, admit to doing it and I thought, 'So it's normal'!'  Many have tried to convince me that it's so far from normal and I should stop immediately.

So, currently, whenever I hear Ben Howard's 'Old Pine' then I know it's time to work.  Maybe I should put a dedication to him in the front of this book.  I've played his song hundreds, if not thousands, of times already. 

Obviously this can only be done when I'm working alone here ...

I am learning to steal the Belgian's bloke's desk-chair the moment he leaves for work, as my chair is an ergonomic disaster, even though we were careful in choosing it and paid more than we wanted to.  He just sighs, rolls my chair away from his desk, and waits while I return his in the evenings.  Thank goodness he works away from home all day ...

Most importantly perhaps, I'm learning not to panic when I can't think of what to write, how to dive in and begin when I have 'just 3 hours to produce something new!!!!'  It will come.  It does.

Oh and if I have the 130 photographs I have chosen (so far) for the book colour-photocopied to A4-size to work on, in batches of 20, then it seems less wicked.  Or is that like the kid playing hide-n-seek, standing in the middle of the room with her hands over her eyes, pretending that she can't be seen.  Hmmmm.

And finally, I'm learning that committing to writing a blog post everyday in November has been more helpful than I could have imagined.

Now,  I'll leave you with Ben. 

Oh ... I've posted this song before?  At least you don't share an office with me  :-)

The Magic of Myth, an enchanted journey by Elizabeth Duvivier

It would not be untrue if I wrote that I love this woman's blog best of all blogs.

I have written of her work before.  A snippet here and snippet there.  Mystic Vixen is where I wander when I need a fix of beauty, both in words and in images.  There's quite some wisdom to be found over there too.

Wandering there is like opening a window onto a beautiful view ... it simply restores my soul. 

And she shares her dogs too.

So, Elizabeth is even more than I knew her to be.  I've attached the video where you get to know a little about her and work.  She's responsible for Squam, as founder and director.  You have to read about Squam to believe it but obviously any place where I read 'creativity as a way of life' in the subtitle I'm going to be interested.

Anyway, the video below, it's all about Elizabeth and an exciting new offering she has created for Squam - The Magic of Myth, an enchanted journey. 

Take a peek ... see what you think.

the MAGIC of MYTH :: an enchanted journey from Squam on Vimeo.

Balance ...

I am always searching for a kind of balance in life ...

I work hard. I work long hours.  There is no income.  However I have finally decided to commit to the life of an artist.  And I'm lucky, my Belgian bloke is pleased  that I am finally writing again.  It was the thing I loved first, the thing friends back in New Zealand most associated with me, it turns out.

So I write in the mornings these days and depending on whether I'm on the school pick-up run, which is lunch-times two days per week, my writing often runs on into the afternoon.  And the evening.

And I edit for friends and causes I believe in the way some people do crossword puzzles. That's my hobby.  I love making texts beautiful.

And I can be lured out of the house to shoot an event or a portrait for friends I admire or whose business impresses me. That was last night.  And I sparkle on the inside.  I love the energy that shoots through me when I'm working with my camera. And I always meet really superb people.  There was this wine-maker last night.  An extraordinary woman that I will interview on Saturday.

So I have all these things that I love doing but they rarely involve money.  And making them earn money while bowing to the gods of taxes, social security, and etc, can only be described as a Kafka story.

Do I kill all the art and get a real job? 

It feels so much like cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I can create beauty.  I'm pleased with the shape the book on Genova is taking.  My photographs seem to please people and even if they don't, I find them pleasing.  I printed 20 of my Genova photographs off as A4 colour photocopies. 

I was like a mother with her new baby.  Who knows if the baby is ugly, I was that mother who was besotted.  The images looked so powerful laid out in front of me.  I needed that.  I was bored with looking at them on the computer.

The scales that weigh the content or purpose of my life are sensitive things.  Sometimes I have them in balance - my work is good, I should continue with photography and writing, the housework, and this crazy extended family of mine.  Other times it's ... who do I think I am.  Some princess who can live so irresponsibly and lightly in the world!?  I must find a job!'

We live in a world where the arts are always first against the wall in budget cut and yet art is the thing that makes humans different to animals, isn't it?  Art is the place we all escape to ... into books, into music.  And yet the raised eyebrow, the idea that we are spoiled ones ... oh how that messes with my head.

I was out with a friend last night and I said, I should get a job.  She said, but you work.  I said but I make no money.  She said you work really hard.  We laughed.  I do enjoy Ruth's company.  She keeps me sane.

So here I am, living what feels a little like life in bubble.  If I float out here, kind of disconnected from the world, then I can write this book I've been carrying inside of me for a long time but ... like being on the edge of a cliff, I can't look down.   If I look down, I'll may fall into despair and despair means I struggle to write and create.  Bitterness is deadly.

Lately I've read through a million job decriptions, trying to work out who would hire me, woman of strange abilities.  And I can't get past what I might gently call the 'wankspeak' of job descriptions.  I think you're meant to apply anyway and then everyone laughs and says noooooo, you're absolutely what we need but we had to write that other stuff ...like,  fluent in 17 languages, with the ability to get our newsletter out into the world in 17 seconds flat.  But maybe it's better those jobs have seemed impossible.

This morning began with a bit of a crisis.  Oh, you guessed.  Maybe I've written it out of me and tomorrow I'll delete this and we'll pretend it never happened. 

But make no mistake, this needs to be read knowing I'm smiling.  I have fought off the despair.  I'm going to write now. 

Adjusting ...

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go” responded the cat. “I don’t know” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “It doesn’t matter.

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Source: Oh Fairies

It's fascinating (for me) to watch myself struggle with having made space and silence to write ...

I didn't realise quite how addicted I had become to distraction.  'Addicted' for want of a better word.  Facebook is perfect as a distraction.  It's full of some of my favourite people and, often, it's the only place I easily and instantly reach them.  It's playtime all day, if I allow it be.  Or forget that it shouldn't be ... on a slow day when I am quite lost and lacking in self-discipline.

And my FB wall was full of interesting folk.  It wasn't the tedious stuff you read about in the 'worst of FB' stories.  They were posting politically and intellectually interesting stuff ... as well as day-to-day life, links to good music, and their stories too.

These days of allowing this silence to fall around me haven't been simple but slowly I'm growing  used to the peace of it all.  Instead of multiple story-lines telling of other worlds running there in my head, I only have my stories ... mostly.

The loveliest thing is that I am receiving long emails from friends who have either already left facebook or who want to stay in touch.  Long emails are bliss and I find myself setting aside time to reply, instead of them being lost in the avalanche of action that my life used to be.  And links to good music are often included.  I would hate to lose those introductions to music others love.

Yesterday I was consumed by a desire to further prepare myself for the long winter ahead.  Bookshelves were moved, the sofa went upstairs to Miss 9's room, replaced by a exquisite yellow armchair I found secondhand and today this office space/bedroom is so much more beautiful.  When the sun angles in through the window behind me now, it is no longer absorbed by the other deep-red bookshelf, instead it reflects off the wall painted a warm terrocotta (I think) and lights the middle of the room with a warm glow.

Light, and that colour range from pale yellow through into a deep gold, they are things that I love.  My desk area is clearer than ever, and the small round red patterned rug that we found is perfect under my chair.

The paddling-people delighted me, in the image below, but so did the house.  If I had a Pinterest board, I'm almost sure that it would be filled with images of houses and rooms made for dreaming and writing in...

Insecurity ...

 The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.

Steven Furtick

Source, Oh Fairies.

Under The Tuscan Sun ...(or a recipe for dreaming)

Whenever I am unable to create my own sense of beauty, I have this book that has traveled with me since the 90's.  The date I wrote in the front reads 'pre 1999'.  I remember how it saved me when we moved to Te Anau, from the disruption and loneliness that is moving, and that it has saved me so many times since.  For me, there is this sense of falling into the beauty that is Frances Mayes prose, like sinking below the surface of a swimming pool, immersed for a while.

Whatever a guidebook says, whether or not you leave somewhere with a sense of the place is entirely a matter of smell and instinct.  There are places I've been which are lost to me.

I've heard so many angry women talk of Frances Mayes book 'Under the Tuscan Sun' - and make no mistake, I am talking of the book not the movie, which is another story entirely - and these women rage about this book and that woman's unrealistic portrayal of a life lived partially in Italy.

I listen, sometimes I speak up but mostly I quietly decide that they are not lovers of beautiful poetic prose writing ... that they simply lack a dreamy writerly soul. But truly, I'm not sure why I love what they hate.

The outrage ... I would love to unpick it, to understand where it comes from. 

The second-floor bedroom that opens onto a brick terrace gleams.  They've made the bed with the new blue sheets and left the terrace door open to the sound of the cuckoos and wild canaries in the linden trees.  We pick the last of the pink roses on the front terrace and fill two old Chianti bottles with them.  The shuttered room with its whitewashed walls, just-waxed floors, pristine bed with new sheets, and sweet roses on the windowsill, all lit with a dangling forty-watt bulb, seems as pure as a Franciscan cell.  As soon as I walk in, I think it is the most perfect room in the world.

These are soul-soothing words for me.  I once lived in the brick house of a friend who was so good to me when I divorced.  It was everything sensible, that borrowed brick house, but my soul needed something else.  I found a funny little 1.5 bedroom cottage out on the Otago peninsula. 

I moved there and was happy.  I would drink my morning coffee out in front of the massive rough wooden-framed windows that made up the front wall of that  cottage.  My view, a few metres of lawn, maybe 2, a small road just below, and the sheltered water of that beautiful harbour.

I require beauty but mostly it's simple.  It's about Nature and good air, it's about views that make you stop and dream for a while.  It's about having a dog, when possible. 

New Zealand spoilt me in a way.  My Belgian bloke understood more of me after our trip home last year.  He realised that while I believe natural beauty is a right, he understands beauty is a luxury.  He comes from a small country, 1/10th the size of New Zealand.  In Belgium there are 11 million people, New Zealand has 4 million.

After a few days, my life takes on its own rhythm.  I wake up and read for an hour at three a.m.; I eat small snacks - a ripe tomato eaten like an apple - at eleven and three rather than lunch at one.  At six I'm up, but by siesta time, the heat of the day, I'm ready for two hours in bed.  Slumber sounds heavier than sleep, and with the hum of a small fan, it's slumber I fall into. 

Finally entering into university studies at 34 was one of the best things I have ever done.  There was an appreciation of all that I studied, an excitement that I might not have felt back when I was 18.  In those days, I lived in 4 different homes along the peninsula.  My first husband and I bought an exquisite cottage down there back in 1999.  We divorced and I lived in a series of cottages on that narrow strip of land between the harbour and the Pacific Ocean. 

Under the Tuscan Sun got me through dark times and lonely times too.  It was like a burst from a sun-lamp perhaps.  It traveled to Istanbul with me, as one of the few things I could take from the old to the new life.  It lives here on my deep-red book shelves in Belgium, a much-loved book that I recently pulled out as these autumn days grow grey and the darkness comes so much earlier.

For me, the book is a meditation on the beautiful moments, written in the prose of a woman who began as a poet and went on with prose.  It's a writers book.  A book for dreamers and lovers of beauty. 

Siesta becomes a ritual.  We pull in the shutters, leaving the windows open. All over the house, ladders of light fall across the floor.

Merel - Life is an Art, Art is my Life

Merel is a Belgian artist who lives and works in the centre of Antwerp since 1980 and devotes herself entirely to the practice and distribution of her art. 

Extract from Merel's book, Life is an Art, Art is my Life.

I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Merel's art exhibitions. An opening reception for  Life is an art, art is my life, at Leonhard's Gallery, here in Antwerp.

My lovely Belgian friend, Ruth, had introduced me to Merel's art and invited me along to the opening.

There we were, it was almost time to leave, and I was looking through Merel's exquisite hardcover coffee-table book while Ruth and Merel chatted.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered the page photographed below.

There was some surprise, much laughter, and conversations about how it happened.  Anyway, I really admire her work ...love it, wouldn't mind some on my wall.  One day, when I'm working again, I'll go buy a copy of her book.

As always, Ruth, thank you for another lovely adventure.

On Preferring Genova ...

A shameful admission ... perhaps, but I didn't fall in love with Verona. I don't know what I expected.  I may have accidentally watched Letters To Juliet once and you might say, that serves you right, Di. 

It was a very pretty movie set in an Italian summer.  Meanwhile I was there in September on an overcast day and I couldn't help noticing how much they had tidied things up for the movie.  And I think I was disappointed.

I really like Genova.  I like the extremes of Genova.  And it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not.  The gritty is there, right next to the pretty, in that northern Italian city located on the edge of the Ligurian Sea.

Trieste didn't seem to be pretending, not at all, during the few hours spent there.  And the local restaurant we found served food that I'm still dreaming about.  I love Rome but not like Genova.  Rome is simply something else.  Magnificent.

Acqui Terme has fabulous food and wine.  And the people were lovely but still, I preferred Genova.

Venice ... rainy, overcast, crowded.  I don't know, it didn't capture me but perhaps I need to go back there in summer, or spring.  On a sunny day anyway.  And Cinque Terre ... I'm still muttering about the crowds I found there.

Naples, that was something something else!  It was like nowhere I've ever been before.  Not like Istanbul, nor Cairo.  Not Singapore.  Naples was just its ownself.  I loved it but I imagine it's obvious by now ... not like I love Genova.

I write all of this in a bemused state of mind.  I need to pop in and visit Florence one day, and maybe drive through this Tuscan countryside everyone raves about.  Even if it only confirms what I suspect ... that Genova has everything, and more, of what I prefer.

Maybe Italy is like a pick-a-path story.  Maybe you simply find what you love best there and stay loyal to it.  I don't know but that's how it is for me.

Life Without Travel ...

The longer I'm home, the more domestic I become.  It's as if the examples laid down in my childhood just take over when I'm home too long ... ohdearlord!

The house is clean, the laundry mostly done.  There's gluten-free bread in the machine, tacos are ready to cook.  I imagine it might be the last lettuce and tomatoes I can stand to eat until next summer.  How and where do they grow these once the warm weather is done and autumn is absolutely in place? 

The tv people are coming to interview me tomorrow.  Let's see how that goes.  If it goes well, I'll share.  If not, I shall never mention it again.  It will be my third tv interview thingy and I'm hoping that I have finally learned how to self-censor.  Last time, a laughing producer said, 'Ohhhh, we had to murder some darlings!'  I was relieved that he did but concerned he was laughing.

Actually, that's over here.  They got our dates wrong.  I've been in Belgium since 2005 and Wendy, the artist, has been here for 3 years.  We had so much fun making that.  Mustn't relax tomorrow though ...

But it's a short piece and so the temptation to relax into a conversation with the interviewer may not occur in ways that make me forget the potential viewing audience.

It's getting cold ... 4 celsius this morning, rain fell most of the day.  My new book arrived.  I ordered wrong but it seems like a better starting point than Viktor e. Frankl's original 'Man's Search For Meaning'.  He expands on that book in this book.

I devoured it on the tram to the city this afternoon ... 'Existence thus may well be authentic even when it is unconscious, but man exists authentically only when he is not driven but, rather, responsible.  Authentic existence is present where a self is deciding for itself, but not where the id is driving it.'

Let's see how that unfolds over these days where I'm catching trams across the city 4 times per week.

I posted a photograph of my workspace the other day and then I decided to withdraw from my commitment to blog everyday.  I deleted the 3 posts I had written.  But then ... in a moment of brilliance, I deleted my Facebook account and voila, I am back blogging daily ... twice daily today it seems, and so I'll repost the photograph of my work space because I wouldn't mind seeing if time off from Facebook, combined with this promise to blog daily, and the fact I am beginning work on my book, doesn't inspire an evolution in my workspace over time.  I'll chart it here.  Then again, nothing may happen.

I'm struggling though.  I used to write the blog just for me now I'm more conscious of the fact I'm putting this space out there in the big new world called NaBloPoMo.  That's odd and I'm trying to get past the whole self-conscious thing.

On Gallivanting ...

There is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. Negative people find their walls. So never apologize for your enthusiasm. Never. Ever. Never.

Ryan Adams

I read this first thing this morning, pre-breakfast, and thought, yes.   I was reading Amy's blog.

It was a quiet yes.

One of the things I have most consistently done through time  ... and it's dancing for shadows really, is defend the way I live my life.

My ex-father-in-law was an outrageous monster sometimes ... one who made everyone laugh.  He assured me that the more he mocked the more love there was.  Eyes twinkling, he pointed out how much he must care about me.  He could be charming at times.

I can still see him there in the kitchen of 40 Tyne Street in Mosgiel.  He's gone now, that man who was planning on spending his retirement near some beach where he could fish everyday.  But his most serious and real accusation was always his ... have you been off gallivanting AGAIN?

The men I grew amongst were men who believed that a woman's place was there in the home, next to their husbands.  They also believed that a husband's place was right there next to their wives.  Kind of chained together.  And that was a problem for me because I've always wandered.

My first husband gifted me an entire month off interviewing climbers and mountaineers for a book I was writing.  If the authority figures in my young world were telling me I must stay at home, then my husbands have always told me to ignore them and wander anyway.  But maybe they knew that I had to.

'Never apologize for your enthusiasm' was timely.  I have tempered my enthusiasm over time.  It is less evident although still explodes out of me on occasions but the need for flight ...  there are no apologies in me.  If anything, I'm becoming more convinced about the beauty and the need for flight.

There is the goodbye and hello of it all.  You never stop appreciating a partner when you have a little distance sometimes.  But more than that, filled with a compulsion to fix things for people, it's better to give myself a little people-less time.  To live on toast and red wine and stand on the edge of societies I'm not part of ... there's something healing about that.

I do worry that things will collapse while I'm gone but it's so good realise that it's not all about me and that the world does go on when I wander off.  I knew it as the small child who wandered.  Perhaps I was my entire universe back then.  I didn't care so much as the teenager who disappeared with her dog and dreamed dreams that she doesn't recall now.  And I needed it on becoming a wife and a mother.

Negative people find their walls. So never apologize ...  I'll run with that I think.

On Missing Home ...

It's been an odd day here.  Some blog posts were deleted today and I decided to step away from Facebook for a bit.  I'm learning the limits of 'what else I can do while writing' and having FB available just doesn't work for me.

I've been homesick for New Zealand.  Dad's brother had a fall last week and so I spent a few evenings talking with Dad via skype.  It was sad knowing he was spending his days at the hospital, watching Uncle Brian slip away.  They couldn't save him.  The funeral was last Friday.

Uncle Brian was a butcher by trade but when I think back to my most vivid memories of him they seem to involve those backyard games of cricket played by families, and their neighbours, all over New Zealand during summer.

I think Brian might have been a Speights man back then too.  Like Dad.  I think all of them were, and I don't think he would mind the link.  That series of adverts usually makes kiwis smile some.

You will be missed, Brian Mackey.

Teaching Miss 9 To Take Photographs ...

I spent a few hours teaching Miss 9 about photography yesterday.  Just a slow introduction to the most basic ways of using an SLR.  We talked of composition, light and exposure.  We did a lot on focus.

And eventually, as per the story that follows, we went to photograph the  giraffes.  Once there I shared my passion for reflections. 

She took it on board but I love what she did.  So different to mine but that is the beauty of photography.  No one ever sees and captures the same thing.  It's always about your own individual way of seeing.

We ran this image through PicMonkey this morning, added a frame and cropped it a little.  The light and colour, the composition except for a small crop, it's all hers. It's how she saw ...

And I love it.

An Afternoon at the Antwerp Zoo

In my photography, there are themes that recur, images that I don't realise I'm chasing ...

Reflections would fall into that category.

Today was a sunny autumn day here in Antwerp.  Miss 9 and I wandered off to the zoo.  School holidays.   And I had to smile as we worked on a miniature photography workshop while exploring the zoo together. 

Her joy, as she worked out shutter speed and focus, was lovely.  She really got it. 

Anyway, she was given a zoo map when she paid for her ticket.  Oh my, there were some conversations where I suggested her map-reading skills were dodgy.  She laughed and, of course, we ended up at that funky slide over in the playground ... 

Not so dodgy it seems, perhaps we were simply on different missions.

Eventually I was able to arrive at the giraffe enclosure.  It's one of my favourite places there in the zoo but what I had forgotten was that there is a water course that runs round the edge of their space.  I don't know what it is about the water but it reflects exquisitely.

The image that follows ... Antwerp's blue sky reflected with the stripes and paint on the giraffe house.  Miss 9 and I could have stayed there all afternoon but for the fact we were cold and getting hungry.

Dank u wel for a lovely day, little Miss 9.

60 Andrássy Avenue, Budapest

60 Andrássy Avenue in Budapest, now knows as The House of Terror Museum, opened on 24th February, 2002 and is unique in its genre.  It is a monument to the memory of those of who were held captive, tortured and killed there.  The intention is to make people understand that the huge sacrifices made for freedom were not in vain. They hope point out that although they fought two of the cruellest systems of the 20th century, freedom and independence managed to emerge victorious.

A stark contrast to the colours and stories I usually post here but I thought it an important story.  I couldn't visit the museum.  It's not something I would explore willingly.  These photographs, hanging on the wall outside ... they haunted me.

Amy Turn Sharp

Amy Turn Sharp writes poems I adore. 

On a day like today, when that UK storm is passing over us here in Belgium.  When the sun comes and goes.  When I am waiting on all kinds of things, unable to concentrate, I wander on over to 'Amy's Place' and find treasure like this.

I found Anna Sun over there once. 

Amy's poems are like this ...

Reading her website feels like going on a roadtrip, with good music and truly excellent stories.

Belly laughter and red wine, without hangovers.

I found the quote on the photograph below ... over on Amy's website, of course.

On Writing ...

I had forgotten the glorious agony of writing an article for a particular audience ... such is the luxury of writing whatever I want on my blog.

I have been carrying this idea that I could only write this particular article when I was ready ... when I was sure that all I would write would be perfection itself. 

Weeks later, I was still wringing my hands about it because the deadline had been far into the future.  Then the future arrived and what would I write?  How would I incorporate my best images into this text? 

I had raised the bar fairly high in my mind ...

Last night, as I was going to sleep, I thought of the series of fountain images I had added to my previous post and I knew that I had it.  A beginning point, an inspiration, a concrete image of the feeling I wanted to capture.

And so it was, after our Sunday Belgian breakfast of pastries and coffee, that I sat down to write.  And how I wrote ... and wrote, and wrote some more.  Finally, slightly lost, I handed it over and asked the more level-headed Belgian bloke if he might read it through and see where I was. 

Whimper.

He handed it back and told me ...   It seemed, to him, that I might have attempted to squeeze the outline of my entire book into 5 pages of text.  It was a little incoherent and he couldn't find a clear line through it.  Of course, I had wanted my best stuff in the article ... all of it!

Perhaps a prayer was needed.  Something like, Oh enthuisiam, oh passion ... be still so I can write more coherently.

Anyway, that explained my lost feeling and allowed me to pull back out of the work.

And so I reread and found the story I wanted to tell.   I had to remove some favourite photographs from the article.   I had to disappear some favourite tales too.  Paragraphs were slashed as I read.

I need to leave it a few hours now.  Weeks would be better.  I have always preferred to spend time away from a first draft, sneaking up on it at some later date and hoping to read it as a stranger.  It's more effective than you can imagine.

When I write here on the blog I write fast and, for some reason that must be entirely frustrating to those with blog readers, I edit best after I've published.   It's a luxury that I don't have when I write for others.  Even when I edit for others, the final draft is with them.  The post-publish quirk is one that has probably lost me more than a few subscribers.  I must work on that.

The thing about writing so intensely, and I had forgotten this peculiar pain, is that when I write it all out like that there is this horrible emptiness when I stop.  As if all of my intensity and energy has been poured directly into the writing, like an IV that pumps my blood to a new location ... outside of me.

I came here in an attempt to step back from the intensity of the last few hours.  Actually, I did have rather a lot of fun creating storyboards to focus me down on the writing.  Here's one I can't use ...

My borrowed 'desk' in Genova.  The one by the open window that looks out over the carruggio, and a selection of the flowers that I always buy as that first thing I must do in the city.

Conformity ...

If you eliminate that private realm, you breed conformity. When all your behavior is public, then you’re going to do the things that the society insists you do and nothing else and you lose so much of who you are as a human being.
Glenn Greenwald, an interview with an interesting man.

I put this quote up on my facebook page today and it sparked some interesting conversation.

Women called by to comment, women I respect, and in the end we decided that the journey is the destination ...

It came up because we're all out there, either self-employed artists or living in countries not our own and the temptation, on the bad days, is to simply put down our passions, our impulses, our work, our funny little dreams perhaps ... to put them all down and turn back into that world where a weekly pay cheque is guaranteed and our souls aren't so tied up in our work.

But I suspect we gave one another courage and voila, I'm back at work here again ... in Belgium on a Saturday night but remembering that beautiful fountain in Italy.

Friends Around the World.

I just had a rather special experience, one that couldn't have happened without Facebook ... that social forum I'm not always convinced about.

It was my birthday on Tuesday 22 October and while we were still back in the evening of 21 October, 11 hours behind New Zealand, friends there woke up there and began wishing me a happy birthday via Facebook.

It was lovely.

Midnight my time, rolling over into the European 22nd October and up popped birthday wishes from this side of the world.  And in the morning I woke to some more beautiful wishes and emails came rolling in too.  I was feeling pretty special by now.  Bemused by the role Facebook was playing but special anyway.

And it occured to me as American friends woke that these greetings rolling in from various time zones seemed like one of those great big Mexican Waves you sometimes see in stadiums at sporting events.  The Americans arrived in the afternoon of the 22nd, some 6 hours behind Europe.

And on it went.  There were photographs sometimes ... and so many smiles were inspired by these people I love and adore, all over the world.

The photograph below ... there's a story.  I met Jason in Istanbul.  He was my colleague in both private schools we worked at there.  He became honorary family and I adored his beautiful soon-to-be wife, Beste. 

They took me home to her parents and sister ... a family to surely adore.  I loved the times I was invited home to the Asian-side of Istanbul city.  And Beste's parents insisted on meeting Gert before he was allowed to take me away to Belgium, standing in for my absent parents, making sure that Belgian bloke was okay.

But the story didn't end there.  I met Jim, Jason's old history teacher, when he came to Istanbul.  We struck up a friendship that continues to this day.  He's a much-loved facebook friend of mine too.

Then came Cloe.  Cloe was moving to Belgium.  She was an ex-girlfriend of Jason's and had worked with Jim on a political campaign.  Both Jason and Jim wrote to her and I, telling us of one another and yes, we became friends ... as you do.

There are so many stories about how I met those friends I have over on Facebook.  It's not about numbers, it's about staying in touch when you're 16,000+ kms from home, when you're a woman who moves countries, when you simply enjoy talking with people.

But imagine, there were over 100 messages that rolled in over 36 hours and the photograph below is just one of those that made my soul feel like it was full to overflowing with the pleasure that comes from knowing some really excellent people.

And yes, I did ask permission to post.  You can see why I love them.

And now ...

Chance encounters change lives.  Close friends, passing acquaintances and even characters who emerge from old books often leave footprints across my heart.  By opening mysterious doors, the influence of others has inadvertently altered the direction of my life.

Colin Monteath, extracted from Under A Sheltering Sky.

And now ... I am beginning work on a long-talked about book.  Years of ideas have reached a point where I must begin working with them.

When I walk on beaches, I pick up shells ... I'm a sometimes collector.  Stones too, when I wander along the edges of rivers and lakes.  Since I was small.

My photography, I think, emerges out of that same desire to collect, to handle, to pore over later.  But to collect, without ever stopping to enjoy, that seems somehow sad.

So here I am, commiting to this book, for months ... at least a year I think.  That is something I haven't excelled in.  I have so many ideas, so many passions, project ideas.  And I try to follow them all. 

These last two months have been months of insanely beautiful chaos and whimsical impulses ... of action.  People. Places.

But I must have been maturing somehow ... like a wine (I hope, avoiding the old and smelly maturation process we call rotting).  I feel ready to attempt to breathe life into a multi-layered story, using the words and images I have been collecting, to create a portrait of a place I love.

In my people portraits the intention is always about capturing a soul ... something of the true essence of a person.  Now to lift that impulse, that desire, and fit it over a city, over a region, and tell how place can capture a heart.

There will be a photography exhibition in December, here at home I am hoping.  A party.  And there are plans for limited edition print runs, postcards ... but woven so very closely into this book project that I think it will all work.  There will be a series of photography workshop beginning in Spring 2014, and I will leave my door open for one-on-one workshops too but mostly, I'll be here at the desk and working on images and ideas collected since 2008.

And so, here I am, announcing it ... the intention.  Now to work.