Home ...

Life is different in Italy.  Different to any place that I know. 

Then again, I could say the same of New Zealand, and of Istanbul. 

I know I find points of intersection in each place I go, as well as individual features that make me love those people, or that view.

There are the things that seem familiar and take me home.  And the views that fill me with longing for places I've known ...

Home is a thing I've been trying to define forever.  Is it inside of me or back in that place where I was born and raised.  'My' country or those places where I've felt most welcome.  Or that place where I felt a deep (and inexplicable) sense of recognition and would have liked to have stayed a while, just to see because I feel like I'm still looking.

Some places engage me, so deeply, that I could spend years just attempting to photograph the feeling of them.  The moods, the light, the people ...

Genova's like that for me.

Anyway ... I'm listening to this particular song by Sting as I work here.  On repeat, as I do sometimes.

Palimpsest ... perhaps.

A palimpsest is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been either scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused, for another document.

Source: wikipedia.

I remember being introduced to that word, palimpsest, and its meaning back in university and falling madly in love with the idea of it.  I love discovering layers and traces ... old stories, other stories.

But perhaps Genova's caruggio walls work in much the same way for me.  They tell stories over stories over stories in a way that becomes beautiful.

And Genova's Palazzo Ducale is more tempting than most.  Whoever organises their cultural events is surely nothing less than a genius.  I also missed a Robert Capa exhibition there back in summer ...  I imagined I would return before it was finished. 

And so ... a wall in a caruggi somewhere in the ancient city of Genova.

Antonio Giorgett, & the Angel with the Sponge, Rome.

Sitting down to review photographs taken in Rome, I couldn't resist playing with this one.

I love Bernini's angels on the bridge that leads to Castel Sant'Angelo - it's the building I most love in Rome.

This angel, by Roman sculptor Antonio Giorgett, a student of Gian Lorenzo Bernini is known as the Angel with the Sponge. 

Days of Quiet & Recovering

I have never had so many things go wrong on a journey as went wrong in Italy this time.

I came home skinnier, tired, and feeling a little bit defeated ... ready to tear off my wandering wings, buy myself a dog and stay home.  Writing of life.

But good food, warmth, and simply being home has allowed me to put myself back together.  Helped, I'm sure, by my lovely friend Inge who mailed me a much-longed for New Zealand movie.  I watched it on my first night home and loved Himiona Grace's film - The Pa Boys. 

And so it's Friday.  I picked up a couple of exciting new projects yesterday  ... inspiring me to download the last of my photographs from Liguria.  My new website is back on the table as that thing that must be done.  There was no time for anything creative while in Italy this time ... just a few photographs.  (The book was not completed).

So ... an end to the whining and on with everything else.

Reflections, Rome

The River Tiber, just before the heavens opened and I got soaked hurrying back to the apartment ...

View from the Balcony ...

It's 10 celsius here this morning.  I coughed all night and my throat still hurts but the view from the balcony makes up for a lot ...

It was an unexpected detour and I'll need to sell a kidney at some point, although our beautiful apartment was a huge bargain at winter rates.  I need to link to it at some point but not this morning.  There's a city to explore.