Art is not always about pretty things, it's about who we are, what happened to us, and how our lives are affected.
Elizabeth Broun
Perhaps I have arrived ... finally.
Sometimes I feel like I've lived so many lives.
And occasionally, they collide, in the most unexpected ways.
On Sunday morning, I was wandering in from the car ... back from the babysitting gig in the city, when I bumped into an old friend from my days spent as an Airforce officer's wife.
There was Bridget, walking out from bringing Communion to my Dad, who can no longer attend church.
It was so good to see her. She had been an officer's wife too. We had long conversations, back then, about our real lives ... before those years we spent living on Base Woodbourne.
These days, she lives just along the road, with her family (she kept the same husband :-) ) and so, we have plans. One day soon, after Christmas and New Year, we shall have some of our long conversations again.
Meanwhile, I went back out into the garden with my camera tonight ... and remembered that my camera is the other place where Joy hangs out. I felt like I was losing Joy, and I had no idea what to do, since Genova is about 20,000kms from here. I discovered so many photographs, unprocessed, there on the camera card. That last storm in Genova, Ben Ohau with Dave and Jude, and Dad's Garden.
Perhaps I have finally arrived, here in this life ... I'm taking photographs again, with my camera.
Let's see it.
Back Home, with My Dad
Dad, St. Clair, Dunedin
And so, I am finding my rhythm, in this new life living with my Dad. He’s 82 and was struggling alone.
Slowly we are developing routines, I’m learning what food he likes. He has his ‘office’, through in the lounge with the tv. I had my ‘office’, here in the kitchen … back door open, all set up at the kitchen table he had long since stopped using.
Friday was sunny and so I took him on a trip down memory lane. He particularly loved it out here at St. Clair beach … the beach he had walked to, so easily, as a kid.
And we popped into my favourite cafe, The Esplanade, and he had a pot of tea, with cakes.
We looked for his childhood home but it is long gone, so we wandered out to the little cottage his mother shared with his stepfather, George. I knew it was still there, for sure.
We were home in time to leave for weekly session at the local RSA. His club since forever.
It’s a different kind of life, this small town New Zealand life, but not impossible.
Shooting for Peter Jackson's Great War Exhibition.
Me standing in front of one of a series of photographs that New Zealand film director, screenwriter and film producer, Peter Jackson, asked me to take. Location, Flanders Fields, Belgium. The photographs were used in his Great War Exhibition, in Wellington, New Zealand: https://www.greatwarexhibition.nz/
A Wild Ride ...
It’s been a wild few months of ‘should I stay or should I go?’
Leaving Genova … difficult for me to even begin to contemplate.
I was wanting to stay but suspecting I needed to go home for a while, to sort out my life … find my feet, and work out how to go forward in life, as opposed to simply reacting and problem-solving as each wee crisis unfolded.
And so I booked my flight after those weeks spent living in Switzerland. I booked and had buyer’s regret every day afterwards.
Finally the day came; a 5.30am taxi, a 12.40 Singapore Airlines flight, a 12 hour stopover in Singapore … and onwards.
I left Genova on a Monday, and arrived in New Zealand on a Wednesday.
For those hours and days, the journey was the destination, and I loved it. And then I was home again. And that old and familiar world closed round me, making me wonder if I had ever actually left … as happens.
Tomorrow, I will have been ‘home’ for a week. I’m driving Dad’s car, I’m applying for jobs, I have my cafe … aka, my office, and my friends are all there. We’re catching up. That’s grand.
So begins another chapter. One that involves me getting back here on my website. Back into photography. And hopefully, into a wee cottage someplace on the Peninsula.
Jess and Sahara flew home a month before me. We’re all together again.
Christmas in New Zealand this year.
Ciao.
My Favourite Apple Tree, Switzerland.
My days begin, wandering along a narrow country road. with my tiny Hairy McLary companion, here in Switzerland.
I was heading home actually, when my sooner became a bit of a ‘later’, and I detoured into Switzeralnd, via some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever viewed from the passenger seat of a car. In the best company too.
And that’s where I am … for the moment.