I loved photographing these guys.
So happy after their marriage …
I gifted them a cd full of the photographs I took of them.
Days like these ...
7.30am, and I roared up to the supermarket. Dad had run out of tomatoes, and he absolutely requires them, on toast, as part of his morning routine.
Mmmm, the supermarket doesn't open until 8am.
I wandered along to the main street cafe I used, pre-coffee machine and sat there a while, reading.
I was the 3rd one in those supermarket doors this morning ...
I’m listening to Jack's latest song, and really liking it..
The foto: I was talking to Dad, in the lounge, after a rainsoaked Sunday and noticed the sun glistening outside on the flowers. I had to, at least, attempt capturing something of the beauty …
Mark. Dad's Cat
Slowly, slowly, I’ve been winning this timid boy cat over …
Tonight, he was sitting there in the sun, on the couch. I saw the photograph of him, about the same time he saw me quietly lift the camera.
I had a split second, maybe 2, then he was gone.
I have since had to apologise to Mark, profusely …
A Smaller, Quieter Life ...
My days here, are so different from those beautiful days back in Genova.
I miss the bars, and the lovely people who worked there, making the best coffe in the world.
I miss the noise of the city, and the quiet of the medieval centre.
I miss the musicians, and the everyday presence of ancient places. I miss passing by people whose faces look like faces painted in 400 year old paintings. I miss good pasta and sauce, pizza and walking.
I miss the Genovese.
BUT, I am learning to love hanging my laundry out on Dad's old clothes line, in the garden that smells of roses and all the other flowers he has there. And it makes me so happy to climb into my bed when thesheets smell of fresh air & sunshine.
I love the sound of the birds ... one of the only sounds as I hung out my laundry at 7am this morning.
I was always passionate about driving ... about wandering, and so I am happy to be driving again. Even if I enjoyed the kilometres I walked on Genovese footpaths, and the buses and trains. And I'm not sure how to avoid weight gain, other than via that boring path called self-discipline.
Reading. I have just finished 3 books, one after another. Reading late into the night, just as I did as a child.
My espresso machine is making me happy, I just need to go find 'the' coffee.
I love 32 celsius days (yesterday) and sitting here in the kitchen, back door open to the garden, and working.
Mmmhmmm, I called the plumber today. The bathroom tap is broken and it has leaked for days now.
Another thing to love, after a life lived in Europe, I phoned the plumber at 8.50am and he said, 'Okay, I'm doing a job just round the road, I'll come to you after it'. It was the same with the washing machine repair guy. That's quite marvelous really :-)
Here I am, just trying to find my balance again, in this smaller, quieter life that I'm living.
Buona giornata ...
Foto: these chairs, were just there, in this ancient ruin in Genova. I had my photograph taken in one, and couldn't resist the beauty of this still-life moment, Genovese-style.
The Things An Imaginary Princess Might Do ...
A woman who imagines she is a princess might arrive back in New Zealand, after so many years spent living elsewhere and, before she does almost anything else, she fails to resist the espresso machine being sold for below cost …
And is she ashamed?
No, she is not.
(Although she tried to be …)
I made my first espresso this morning, using Lavazza coffee, and it’s all been worth it.
Breakfast has long been my Holy Moment. It’s the only meal I truly love. Finding the precise ingredients, to make it Holy, in every country has been the Thing.
I love an espresso, I love good bread for toast, and butter too. And I’ve managed it in Turkey, in Belgium, in England and Italy but I was slow here, and suffered through some terrible coffee.
Life seems quite beautiful this morning.
What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte, 2013
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
