The desire to go home, that is, a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to tame the animal, to let the soul go wild, to shelter in darkness and blaze with light, to cease to speak and be perfectly understood.
Rebecca Solnit
On this day last year I was posting photographs of Mount Tongariro erupting because I was back home in New Zealand and had recently driven past that North Island volcano. On December 1st I had arrived at my sister's house, down in Dunedin, and was catching up with her and her beautiful family for the first time in 8 years.
Eight years can go by in a flash ... and they did. I was always coming home soon but getting home was a hellishly expensive business. Fortunately I lack a sense of time passing and, while I longed for home and family something fierce sometimes, I got by. I was even more delighted when I discovered everyone still there, where I had left them.
Old friendships had survived, babies and toddlers had grown, and there was enough good New Zealand pinot noir to make sure I survived how old all the babies were now, and laughter too, making every day there so very special.
I was talking to Dad tonight, harassing him in his 9.30am Monday morning from my 9.30pm Sunday night. Since I stopped traveling so much I've made a point of startling him with a phone call far more regularly. He's stopped with his startled, 'Is that you Di??!' and is no longer surprised when he hears my voice from some 16,000kms round the world. I used to disappear for months sometimes. It's that time passing problem ... no sense of it.
So anyway, all this to say ... this time one year ago I was home in New Zealand.
I may have even taken the photograph that follows today, precisely one year ago. Sandra popped us all into her car we wandered off down my beloved Otago Peninsula. This view, on the way home via the high road, is one that I had always loved.
An Update: Greenpeace today filed papers at the High Court of New Zealand in Wellington asking for a Judicial Review of the decision to allow Anadarko to carry out drilling.
The government’s Environmental Protection Authority made an ‘error in law’ by allowing Anadarko to go-ahead without looking at several key documents, including reports on oil spill modelling and emergency plans to deal with an oil spill, according to the legal papers.
Lawyers for Greenpeace are asking for the matter to be ‘allocated an urgent hearing date’ due to the ‘national importance of the issue’.
If Greenpeace’s challenge is successful, it could bring a halt to Anadarko’s drilling plans, as they should not have been given permission to drill because the requirements of the law were not met.
Is there nothing at all who can appease your greed,
Could you please leave the air we breath
Why is it something we've done
You all seem to forget
About nuclear fallout and the long term effects
... Let me be more specific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific
French Letter lyrics, by the Herbs. A protest song telling the French government to take their nuclear testing out of the Pacific back in 1982.
I have embedded a link to their song, a memory of a time when New Zealanders and the government came together to fight for a nuclear-free Pacific. At the time the French government was testing nuclear bombs in the Pacific and wouldn't stop. |The French government decided to get very serious with the kiwis and sent some of their crack troops to Auckland where they blew up a Greenpeace vessel in our second-largest city, killing one person.
These days evolution seems to be spinning backwards and the New Zealand goverment, in a moment of insanity has given a Texan oil giant, with a poor safety record, the right to carry out deep-sea drilling just off the coast of New Zealand. The risk of an accident is small, they say ... the consequences of just one accident, are huge in a place like New Zealand.
Anadarko started drilling in the wee hours last night, surrounded by a small flotilla of protests boats ... it's truly a David versus Goliath battle. Of course, with our very 'special' prime minister at the helm we see the New Zealand government threatening to send the NZ navy out to stop the protestors. New Zealand has changed and not for the better.
In the last few hours the New Zealand protestors were warned by the Texans that being closer than 500m to their oil drilling rig in New Zealand waters is ... illegal, because the NZ government also changed some rules for them, making it illegal to protest out there.
So not only has the NZ government broken trust with the people who hired them, as in the public who voted them in, they have lied and changed laws so that the NZ navy can now be used againt the NZ protestors in order to protect the big oil giant.
And they'll probably give Anadarko ships safe passage too, should the unthinkable oil spill happen.
It makes me heartsick because if and when the oil accident happens ... well, what do you with the worst-case scenario? The documents shows that up to 90 per cent of the wells have a worst-case discharge rate of 100,000 barrels, about 16,000 tonnes a day, but some could discharge up to 350,000 barrels.
"And a couple of months' worth of major spill - unlikely though that may be - would be a significant disaster for wildlife, for the health of our oceans, for our fisheries and for our tourism brand at a cost of billions of dollars to New Zealand.''
Congratulations to Mr Keys and a very shortsighted New Zealand government. I'm just going to be praying that your greed for immediate returns and thirst for oil doesn't leave New Zealanders with a mess that takes decades to clean up.
Source, The New Zealand Herald.
I wouldn't be exaggerating if I wrote that I am spending time with the most remarkable people this weekend. I'm on a two-day workshop that has both filled me with a new kind of energy and left me an exhausted shell of a woman tonight.
The intensity is quite something. (And I've deleted words and sentences here so many times already...) I need to get through the workshop and then give it a couple of days to brew some before writing of it.
The bonus is spending time with Lynette. She is a New Zealander living over in Brussels ... a woman who has fitted so beautifully into our household that we might just keep her. She's been a great companion on the journey and after about 24 hours together I feel like we've known one another a very long time.
Meanwhile, I'm proud of the New Zealanders out there putting up a fight against the deep sea oil drilling off the coast of our beautiful little islands And while I know a few grumpy old blokes read my blog and will surely mutter into their long grey beards, I'm going to proudly post a clip from those people who see the huge risks in the drilling.
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.
I must share ... my favourite New Zealand radio personality, Kim Hill from NZ National Radio, interviewed the Man Booker Prize winner, Eleanor Catton.
I knew Kim would have done this thing ... a 41 minute interview, that really explores Eleanor's life and work. Thank goodness for Radio New Zealand's archives. So many treasures found there - Sam Hunt is another special NZ love of mine.
Radio New Zealand wrote: Catton, 28, is only the second New Zealander, and the youngest author ever, to
win the presitigious literary award. She is also the youngest short-listed writer in the competition's 45-year history.
The prize, announced at a ceremony in London, carries a cheque for £50,000. The Luminaries is a murder mystery set on the West Coast during the 1860s gold rush that relies on an astrological narrative. It follows in the footsteps of Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones, which was shortlisted in 2007, and The Bone People by Keri Hulme, which won in 1985.
Here's a collection of Radio New Zealand's interviews with Eleanor Catton from recent years.
Piano piano, in Italian. Langzaam in Nederlands. Yavaş yavaş in Turkish - I know these words in every language I've played with.
Slowly slowly ... and so I am moving like that, playing with photographs, reading a superb book by a New Zealand author and spending time with my cousin, Julie, as she wanders the world, transitioning from her old job in the Cayman Islands to a new job in New Zealand.
It's like that ...
Ferns were the object of my photographic desire when I reached home. No explanation, I just found myself falling in love with them ...
This photograph, there was so much wrong with it but I love it. I'm tempted to get it printed Huge.
There's been a wee bit of blogging done by my self tonight. I'm trying to turn my curious gaze away from all that is wrong in the world and find some kind of peace of mind.
But wait ... there was something I almost forgot. This article was out there this morning and I loved it. It opens with, and yes, I added (or girl) ...
Date a boy (or girl) who travels. Date a boy who treasures experience over toys, a hand-woven bracelet over a Rolex. Date the boy who scoffs when he hears the words, "vacation," "all-inclusive" or "resort." Date a boy who travels because he's not blinded by a single goal but enlivened by many.
Lena Desmond, extract from Date a Boy Who Travels
A section of the meeting house and panels on Te Hono ki Hawaiki, in New Zealand's National Museum's, on the site of the marae, Rongomaraeroa.
I was handholding the camera rather than using a tripod but was happy with this image.
When I returned from New Zealand there was a bleak Belgian winter going down and so I simply holed-up, in my office here, processing photographs taken during our 5 weeks back home.
At some point I realised how sad I was becoming, missing the freedoms of home, missing the light, missing people I loved and so I quietly put the rest of my photographs away. Unprocessed.
Spring arrived ... then left after one day, making repeated attempts over months until finally one day it was ours and I realised I had moved on too. I had stopped comparing there to here and was focusing on European people and projects again.
I wandered over to Genova, worked like a crazy woman for 5 days and returned to Belgium, swearing I would never attempt Italy in 5 days again. It's too short a time. Then Gert took his summer holiday and we explored a small part of France ... discovering some of Bourgogne then falling for Doussard, near Annecy.
Back in Belgium, we have overcast skies and heavy rain today. We were at 31 celsius two days ago ... it's like that. Will summer come ... maybe, sometimes.
And I have some exquisite projects in front of me. A photography exhibition in autumn, the wedding of some favourite folk in France in summer, two workshops in Italy, and the promise of meeting some excellent people along the way.
But today ... today I turned back towards New Zealand and worked through images taken of a favourite family in Fiordland. Hunter, pictured below, is a treasured friend.
After I left Fiordland, way back in 1998, he sometimes had work in Dunedin and would come stay with me and my dog, bringing fresh venison from the hills. Bringing himself and his stories.
He introduced me to the music of Buena Vista Social Club by turning up the volume on his car stereo while we sat out on the deck of my little wooden cottage on the peninsula.
It was good to see him again, to be back in Manapouri for a while and to spend time with his wife Claire, and with their daughter Phoebe too. Photographs to follow if permissions are given.
I find myself comparing the landscapes here in Bourgogne to those back in New Zealand. Although, surely, that is the fate of the wanderer. I find myself always layering memories of places I've lived or visited over where ever I am in the now. Looking for some kind of 'fit' or familarity.
Some mornings I wake up in Antwerp and I smell that particular smell, that heavy-traffic pollution smell, first discovered in Los Angeles, a familiar scent back in Istanbul and now, oftentimes, there it is in Antwerp.
Here in Bourgogne it is the geography ... the lay of the land. The vineyards that run as far as the eye can see, the hills, the lush fields. The air is good. And somehow the cloud formations make me imagine the coast or a huge lake is somewhere close by. It's big sky country where we are.
Chateaus and castles are everywhere. Sunday was spent wandering le Château de Cormatin. Rather exquisite it was ... no echoes of 'home'. It was particular and surely an example of 'someplace else'. Unimagined. Unknown.
Evenings, and I've been relaxing with a short tv series out of New Zealand, Top of the Lake. A Jane Campion creation. I'm hooked but find the storyline disturbing. However the scenery is so beautifully familiar. Two episodes to go ... Salon.com has promised a 'superb finale'. Let's see how that goes.
And now? Sunshine and Bourgogne are calling me.
Off and wandering.
We were introduced to the concept of a cheeseburger pizza in Fox Glacier township, on the wild West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.
Oh my goodness. I cannot tell you how delicious it was!
The people at Cafe Neve were fairly modest about it all but it was stunning.
Fast-forward and here we are, back in Belgium. Gert decides to whip up a pizza base, wanting to recreate a cheeseburger pizza.
All his own work ... a cheeseburger pizza Belgian Bloke style.
I wanted to come back to documentary photography once more and just say, never stop watching. For me, it's a little like hunting ... perhaps.
I don't go in with a plan beyond the attempt to capture the story. To tell it true. I picked up a 3-day documentary shoot, over on Flanders Fields, working with the New Zealanders a few years ago.
The image that follows is one of my favourites and I have to confess, it really was about swinging round and capturing this exquisite moment without thinking too much about settings. A hongi ... a Maori greeting, was being exchanged.
I had been traveling in France with the New Zealand veterans the day before and so they knew me a little. The New Zealand London Rugby Club were playing a commemoration match in Zonnebeke.
Moments like these make documentary photography a big love of mine ...
I love this thing about New Zealand.
There you are, driving along one of the state highways there and voila, you have exquisiteness!
I'm finally putting together a presentation series of images taken in New Zealand.
We're seeing the Belgian Bloke's parents tomorrow. It's Easter and they were curious to see where that son of theirs spent 5 weeks wandering.
It's easier to work on the photographs now that (perhaps) the last of the snow has fallen. There was a light fall as I headed out into the night last night with my lovely Irish Fiona friend. Irish is mentioned because I have this forever friend always referred to as, since I was 13, my friend Fiona. That would be the New Zealand Fiona.
Anyway, I love this photograph. I took it out on one of those Otago Peninsula roads that we wandered and it's my desktop background for now.
I loved this house and the Otago Harbour views ...
Note: The harbour view was taken down on the road at the bottom of the street ... not from veranda.
Back home, I discovered Broad Bay, Dunedin and I lived in 3 houses in that small bay before flying to Istanbul ...
The first (numbered 1 on the image below) was where I escaped to after my first marriage ended, and it was perfect for a while. Then the house just above me ... on the hill you see there with the number 2 on it ... came up for rent and it was more sensible, less quirky but still wooden, with a verandah and a view of the harbour.
I loved living in Broad Bay. I had a sea kayak, a car, and a golden labrador. And just enough money for secondhand books and the occasional bottle of red.
I hunted those old houses down and photographed them while I was home in New Zealand at Christmas.
