Immersion ...

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.

 

The Sun Shone and There Was No Snow!!!

We hit 5 celsius today, with so much sun and a breeze for the laundry too. 

And I opened the windows here this afternoon and pulled my bedroom/office to pieces ... dusting, vacuuming, mopping, stream-lining because cabin-fever is a strange and terrible monster and must be fought with diligence and much application of energy.

Everyone is struggling here.  Snow at this time of year hasn't happened since the 1880s.

So here I am, fighting to get underway and on with life again.  I have been hermit-like for weeks.  No trips planned until June and August ... and that has to change.  I'm hungry for long walks and good coffee.  Perhaps there is a way to reach Genova before June.

One my marvellous nieces photographed me while I was home.  I recognised my technique in her.  She stalked me until I gave in and let her photograph me. 

I miss the woman in this photograph.  She was driving, adventuring, moving, living ... breathing good air, talking everyday with some of the friendliest people you could hope to meet in the world.  She was home in a place she hadn't been in 8 years.

Now to make her reappear here.

I used to live here ...

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.

 

Le Touquet-Paris-Plage ... and my bracelet.

Last weekend, Gert and I were wandering the wet streets of Le Touquet Paris Plage, about 200kms from Antwerp, playground of wealthy Parisians ... or so rumour goes.

He had booked us the Sunday night special in a rather marvellous hotel and it was really lovely.  But the weekend ended up being about more than that.   I have been searching, for a very long time, for a bracelet I could wear constantly, without it breaking and devastating me on a regular basis.  As has been the story so far ...

We were strolling along the rain-soaked streets, looking in shop windows and amusing ourselves before dinner when I spotted a beautiful silver bracelet.  I had to smile ... of course I was going to find a silver bracelet in the playground of wealthy Parisians.  Not being one myself.

Gert called me back as I walked on, pointing to the signs that said '70% discount' and 'closing down sale'. 

We knew it was impossible but we decided to wander in and ask anyway.  There's something rather nice about bracelets when you're a photographer.  Don't ask me why but I relate them to the whole practice of photography.

I tried it on, loved it, and asked how much.  He pointed to the 70% discount sign and did the maths for me.  I was stunned ... and delighted ... and feeling kind of guilty about picking up a beautiful silver bracelet at 70% off.

We walked out smiling, unable to believe how fortunate I had just been.

And the next day, before leaving, I saw this man on the beach and he seemed like a photograph.

 

That Beautiful Hat ...

My journey is the destination companion recently knitted her first hat.  She is the creature who gave me much-needed permission to squander my money on that beautiful scarf pictured in the previous post.

I loved the colours she used and so I am currently negotiating my very own woollen hat.  One with a  Miss 8 designer label.

As for the origin of the concept, 'the journey is the destination' ... I stumbled across Dan Eldon's work back when I lived in New Zealand.  His book has been traveling with me since.  I had this idea it would inspire my English students in Istanbul however the syllabus was always quite tight in the private schools where I worked.

So he simply inspires me. As does Miss 8.

 

Winter continues ...

I cleared about 10cms of snow and ice from the sidewalk this morning ...

Winter continues but perhaps I am beginning to wake, to shake off this winter lethargy, inspired by the kindness of old friends and new. I've been living a hermit's life lately, curling up in the cave of this Antwerpen winter.

Midday found Diana and I  chatting on skype, bringing each other up to speed and talking of winter and workshops.  I find her writing inspirational and this blog post helped shine a little light in on the greyness here.

And the other day ... the day after the day of drama and sadness, Miss 8 convinced me about buying the beautiful Nepalese shawl you see pictured below.  It's a little like wearing my own private version of the sun.

We discovered Nepal Handicrafts on Hoogstraat which is part of our 'pretty way home'.  Miss 8 and I share a passion for finding the most beautiful ways to reach home ... the prettiest way to go anyplace really.  The journey is our destination and we must, if possible, enjoy it.

We have an animal spelling game for the days that are bleak and the trams full.  She starts with 'elephant', for example, and then I have to find an animal whose name begins with the last letter of her animal.  More research is required as we're running out of animals known to us.  It helps that we both have Dutch spelling too but the tram journey is oftentimes longer than our memory or knowledge.

I feel more posts are long overdue.  Life goes on and the sadness that has filled me simply must go.  It's time.

 

Just A Name ...

Yesterday became chaotic suddenly. 

Off the scale really...

I took a phone call from my daughter.  She was collapsing on the side of the road with chest pains but she wasn't sure of the street name.  She couldn't even stand up to put the bike away safely.  And friendly city that Antwerp is ... no one would help her.  Not even with the name of the street.

No one.

I went back there today, to pick up the bike the ambulance people had locked for her, and it's a busy street.  This European city breaks my friendly little New Zealand heart sometimes.  What made those people so cold and uncaring?

Yesterday I called Gert, not knowing what else to do, and he called her.  He managed to recognise her location and called an ambulance.  All of this, bouncing between people and phones, with the added stress of knowing Miss 8's after-school centre was closing and I had to find a way across and through the city's rush-hour gridlock.

As the ambulance people were covering her with equipment to monitor her heart, I was making an emergency call to a really kind Belgian I know.  Sarah saved the day, as did her mum who was able to jump in the car and pick up Miss 8 just as her teacher was calling me, wondering where on earth we all were.

Quite shaken, I set off on a tram to begin putting my family back together.  Jess was in a city hospital, precise location unknown but able to reply to sms's, Miss 8 was safe with good people. I picked Miss 8 up immediately because it was something I could do.

Later that evening and Gert finished his meeting.  He arrived at the hospital, after calling the emergency phone number again to find out exactly where she had been taken, just as the hospital were releasing her.

It wasn't her heart, it was a stomach blockage, she was told.  I went searching.  They're incredibly painful, a collapse on the street is quite understandable as it can feel like your heart. Today I was able to be amused, as I read that coca cola is the 'drug' of choice ... achieving a 91.3 success rate in terms of a cure. 

And so today has been an all over the city day.  School drop-offs and pick-ups, and a return midday for a school play.  The bike rescue, the long icy bike ride home. 

I'm sitting here, wrapped in a beautiful Nepalese shawl Miss 8 convinced me I needed - after 4 days of putting it back.  And I have a glass of red wine, and some good music playing.  I'm exhausted.

Actually, further to the story of the people on that Antwerp street ... someone did come and help Jess eventually.  A lovely Morrocan guy.  And when I think about who I see giving up their seats on the trams or helping young mums lift pushchairs on and off trams, I'm not surprised.

To the others who passed by that young woman on the footpath in a state of collapse.  She only needed a street name, not your blood nor your time.  Just a name ...

So yeah ... it's snowing again.

I took the photograph on 13 March but looking out from my window today, the scene is exactly the same. 

March 20, 2013 and it's snowing.  As I set out across the city on the school run at 7.20am it was all about the umbrella, the correct amount of layers to protect us from the wet cold rain.  On the return, lost in a book on the tram, I looked up and discovered that 'outside' had turned into yet another horrid snowy winter's day.

To try and break the misery that is Antwerp this winter, Gert and I disappeared over to France, to the summer playground of the Parisians ... on a cheap Sunday night deal last weekend.  It rained but I was on a roadtrip and has always delighted me.

Although ... he had fallen on ice last week and sprained his wrist.  Slowly slowly he is healing.  The roads here are lethal in snow and ice, especially the shiny new bricks they've laid on the round-abouts.  He fell crossing the one near home.  We were talking on the phone at the time, and I was feeling particularly miserable after making a freezing cold, roadwork-infested, cross-city trek.

There's nothing quite like hearing the Belgian bloke crash to the ground and lie groaning while seperated by  more than a few kilometres.  I arrived home just in time to head off to A&E with him.  Oh yes, that was a long day.

I suspect I shall be giddy with delight when the temperature goes up and the snow finally stops because it really is Spring.  And rumour has it that these 2 hour city treks will be over as of the Easter holidays.  I really need them to be.  Antwerp, and its current mania for both roadworks and house improvements that seriously impede any progress along the pathways and tramways I take, is a bit like having my own seriously dark and snow-filled cloud over my head at all times.

And so, on that happy note .... tot straks.

Tram-Napping and Other Things ...

As I write this, the predicted snow is beginning to fall ... sigh.  We were all so hopeful when the temperature cranked up to 16-18 celsius last week.  So hopeful that Spring had arrived.  The current prediction is for up to 10cms of snow overnight.  I hope that they are so wrong and that it's less.

Meanwhile I've been holed up at my desk for weeks on end, or so it seems.  I have had all the photographs from Flanders Fields to process and get back into the world as quickly as possible for any publications that might have wanted them.  I had the wedding shoot too.  They are in-process and almost done.

One of the more difficult things about being the photographer is that your work can go on long after the event, long after those who did their work on the day ... in the moment, are finished.  It's a strange and lonely job sometimes, with 80-90% of the work happening after the event, in some lonely room somewhere.

However the adventures are grand.  And I'm pleased with the results.  There should be more than 200 wedding photographs by the time I'm finished.  Photographs that tell the story of a beautiful wedding here in Belgium.

Flanders Fields ... well, that's always about the people I find there.  Old friends, new acquaintances, and some delightful adventures.

I'm hungry to travel again but I am making myself sit still until I am organised here.  I have spent these grey freezing cold winter weeks organising my working life, exploring new directions, especially writing again. 

Old friends have appeared in my inbox and there was a whole lot of delight over the idea that Murray might pop over to visit.  Murray from those 4 years back when I lived on the airforce base in New Zealand.

One of my oldest friends arrives later in June and that will be grand.  It's been a long time since I've seen him.  And there's a wedding to photograph in France in August ... the photography workshop in Italy too.  The last being the pièce de résistance perhaps.

My life seems like a big old complicated tapestry.  I've been been woken at 5.15am these last few weeks, as my daughter wakes to go out to work.  Then I'm up and out the door, catching trams to get little Miss 8 to school on the other side of the city Tuesday till Friday.  It's a 2-hour round trip and definitely hasn't helped with the winter blues. 

Rinse and repeat, as I'm on pick-up duty Monday to Wednesday.  I'm dragging myself around by Wednesday, dreaming of open-roads and long journeys as I try not to fall asleep on the tram home.

I have been reading when not tram-napping.  Superb books ... two fictions based around actual lives: The Truth About Lou by Angela von der Lippe and Seducing Ingrid Bergman by Chris Greenhalgh.

Lou Salome seems to be a fascinating creature who first came to my attention in Irvin D. Yalom's book When Nietzsche Wept.  I am now pursuing Lou via various means.  The second book is about Robert Capa's affair with Bergman.  I have a few books on him so this dip into a kind of fact-based fiction is delicious.

And I picked up the second book by BBC journalist, Frank Gardener.  The first, Blood and Sand, was a fascinating read. 

Still to come is my big book review of True Vines, written by the multi-talented Diana Strinati Baur.  A delicious novel that came with me across the world when I flew home to New Zealand.  The same Diana I'm putting the Your Beautiful Truth Retreat with in August in Italy.

I love books ... rereading the best again and again over the years.  I've had Isabel Allende's My Invented Country tucked away in my handbag for emergencies.  It's small and packed with wise words.

And that's me lately.  Photography, reading, tram-riding, houseworking, winter me.

The image: a tray of champagne that floated past me at the recent wedding.  Random but beautiful is my idea of it.

Photography & Story-Telling Workshop, Italy

 'When we (Di and Diana) initially sat down to talk about what kind of experience we wanted to create, we were clear and in agreement on almost everything. First we wanted this to be a very small and private women’s event. It was important to us that it take place in beauty and peace. We thought it should be in a place we had to ourselves, so that we could just be ourselves. We wanted good food, wine, scenery, comfort, the potential for creativity, and relaxation.
But more than anything, we wanted to create a space that would encourage woman to tell their stories – through photos, art and words – and to use our combined experience as guides, mentors and artists to provide a mirror to each woman’s intrinsic beauty.'

You can read more about the retreat Diana Baur and I have put together over on our new website ... Your Beautiful Retreats.com

We are so deeply excited by the week we have planned.  We are offering 4 places, and two are already gone.  If you would like to join us in Italy, let me know.

You can wander through the location of our retreat over on Diana's B&B website ... Baur B&B and read the reviews Diana and her husband have received here.

Out on Flanders Fields ...

And the struggle to return to Belgium continues ...

Belgians are all surprised by, and talking of, the long grey sunless winter continuing on into February.

Did I mention ... no sun, tons of greyness, and loads of pollution as all of Europe passes by us on our highways?

Anyway I've been busy.  I photographed the most delicious Belgian wedding on Saturday.  Truly lovely people and I hope to get permission to post some of those images soon but Sunday and Monday ... Oh My!

I was back out on Flanders Fields attending the reburial of a WW1 soldier from New Zealand ... he was recently discovered and although they did all that they could, and came close, they were unable to identify him for sure.

But where to begin because it was about so much more ...

Saturday night, just after the wedding, there I was at Central Station in Antwerp waiting for the talented London-based New Zealand, soprano Carleen Ebbs.  Gert and I spent a enjoyable evening with her before Martin, from the blog Messines 1917 picked us up, early Sunday morning.  We were heading off to  Flanders Fields, through snow, to participate in the reburial of the New Zealand world war one soldier.

The moment was captured by Belgian television (I am there at around 8 seconds, completely oblivious to the cameraman, as I planned my next shot).  New Zealand television was there too.  I only appear in the Belgian clip  and had to laugh, as I had no idea I was being filmed but do have a photograph of the cameraman filming me ... I discovered it today.  I was photographing someone near him.

But first there was Sunday, the day before the reburial.  Martin OConnor and I went wandering with some New Zealanders based in London.

It felt like a time of privilege as we were introduced to a little Maori history and protocol and I was allowed to photograph this man as he made his way through the cemeteries.

Anyway, below is a random series of photographs taken over those two days ...

Tot later!

Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, Italy

Planning and developing has kept me quiet here, as well as playing tag with exhaustion and flu the rest of the time.

And so to announce, with much pleasure, the first Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, in partnership with the extremely talented and inspirational Diana Baur.

Come take a peek  ...

Re: the silence here

Cold/flu in the building, and the misery that is winter in Belgium, has kept me quiet here lately.

Never again will I go to New Zealand in December and return to Belgium for January.  It's like night and day ... and not in a good way.

On wandering ...

‘every journey outside my known world is a form of often painful, sometimes euphoric spiritual growth. I have to break out of the exoskeleton of safety I’m constantly accreting in order to be born into a new world — soft, vulnerable, afraid, eager, porous. I hate it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

Nikki Hardin , an extract from Longing Not To Belong.

I loved these words.  I thought to myself, I know that feeling.  That's how it is for me too.

For awhile, back at my childhood home, there was a gap between the hedge and the wire fence and there I was, that creature you see scaling the wooden gate, slipping out into the incredible world of the school next door.

And I think I remember the mix of fear and curiousity ... the need to wander that made me escape anyway.  A need that still overrides my desire to stay safely inside my known worlds. 

I imagine all kinds of things before I leave.  The night before, there  I am, wondering why I do it ... Cairo, Istanbul, Italy, and America.  But wander I must.

I love leaving.

On the other side of the ohmygodwhat haveIdone pre-departure thinking, is that sigh of happiness as I settle into the airport bus and it leaves.  There is the delight in arriving at Brignole in Genova, of opening the shutters, buying the flowers, and settling into a different life, so full of noise and colour.

And on the other side of leaving there have always been marvellous experiences ... like the market that ran all night just below my balcony in Cairo, or the gypsy festival in Istanbul where I wandered with friends, wandering Flanders Fields with prime ministers and actors.

On the other side of fear is Life in a form that I love.

And I go, knowing that it is entirely likely that I will have times when I sink into the dark pit of despair and anxiety for a few hours, where going outside is impossible, where I am left wondering what the hell it is that pushes me to leave and step off into other worlds.  But I always recover.

Sometimes with a belly-laughter-inducing-Mr-Bean-style story of what happened while I was in that place of fear.

I'm the biggest baby in the world sometimes.  I find myself in situations that are retrospectively hilarious but challenging while in the midst of them.  The ambulance in Genova was sobering but it's a story that can't be told with me giggling throughout.  The heat-seeking missile attack over Singapore is another that comes immediately to mind when reminiscing this stuff.  And the taxi-kidnapping in Cairo was also gut-wrenchingly amusing, and should I ever decide to share it here on the blog ...you might agree.

You see, I was a writer before I took photographs ... or perhaps I thought I was a writer before I decided to become a photographer but then again, I had always been a photographer.  Maybe that means that I am a story-teller because surely both paths lead to the same place in the end.  I live with an Imagination that is as big as the Sun ... at least.

Mostly I have learned to live with that Imagination, to laugh over the stories that (don't really) happen along the way, and to leave anyway ...