The New Year ...

I always get sad during the holiday break here in the northern hemisphere. 

I always miss home and family, more than at any other time of the year. 

So January is a bit of a climb out of the dark of a Belgian winter and, clearly, my blogging voice falters too.

I miss the road home (as per the photograph), the big messy familar family Christmas, and summer.

I miss the quiet joy of walking long beaches with my dog, good air, and crazy-friendly people.

Eight years is simply too long to stay away but I rarely understand it like that.  Just as I collapse distance with my favourite telefoto lens, I also collapse or compress the passing of time. 

But the 'telefoto' collapse doesn't work over the big holiday break ... not at all. 

2012 has to be the year I go home.  But meanwhile, all the very best things to you and yours in this new year.

A memory from my last time in Genova alone …

There is something truly delicious about lying in bed here in Genova, listening as the street comes alive … the first footsteps, the quiet voices, followed by louder voices as people roll up the doors of their work place, and the clank of the coffee cups on saucers begins soon after.

I doze a while longer then wake again, this time to the laughter of men on the street below. I imagine them stopping for an espresso at the cafe as they head off to work … friends who meet everyday, on their way, and I envy them their routine for a moment.

There’s music but I nap just a little more … until it becomes impossible to ignore my craving for focaccia. I pull on clothes and step out, almost into a neighbour. She laughs and apologises in Italiano. I reply in French for some early-morning-not-quite-awake reason.

I don’t speak French.
The bonjour feels strange in my mouth and I only recover when I find her holding the street door open for me and I say ‘Grazie’ and smile ... located in place and time.

I have some days without shape or form ahead of me, days where I can organise the creative chaos of my life. I have been waiting so long to reach this place of peace and isolation in the midst of the everyday noise of the ancient city.

For me, wandering is rarely about sights seen. When I was in Cairo I only saw pyramids as my plane climbed up through the pollution and left the city however I met some truly interesting people. And so it is that my idea of travel is more about people and the feeling of place. Barcelona was the first city in recent years that forced me to be the tourist, perched on the outer shell of the city, excluded from everyday life by virtue of being foreign and without people who knew me.

Here, back in Genova, I’m always a little off-balance and shyness hunts me down easily but it is good to be back in La Superba and writing again.

Remembering ...

Nana with her great-grandkidlet back in those heady days of summer.

December 24th finds us hunting down a new oven, as ours died last night.  Could be an interesting Christmas day, I'm thinking.

 

These last few days ...

These last few days have been a psychedelic whirl ... somehow. 

No drugs were taken, I hasten to add.

If I attempt to put past few days together, I would tell you that we had a horrific random shooting here in Belgium, where more than 120 were injured and 5 were killed. I was told about it when it was still breaking news and no one knew what was happening.  It left me disorientated at the end of the day.

Then there was my 17 hour marathon Friday but as it ended with red wine and time spent with a lovely friend, I shouldn't complain.  

Actually, that day was a little surreal, in terms of all I experienced.  Even the train trip home took on an odd quality when a lovely older Moroccan woman next to me started talking and ended up getting me to try her Coco Chanel perfume.  The 'odd' could be applied when you realise she spoke French and Arabic and I spoke English and Nederlands.  No language in common but when has that ever stopped me ...  There was much laughter and family photographs were exchanged and smiled over

Saturday and Sunday were spent in the company of the truly delicious Miss 7, who came out to street Christmas party with us in the evening.  The street party where Gert and I, along with others, spent some time trying to help a guy who collapsed there.  It was a relief when the ambulance arrived. 

We stayed on for a while, catching up with good people, most especially the 'justice of the peace' who married us back in 2006.  Sunday I look at the 'chaos' on my desk (let's not call it mess) and realised I had an Eithopian cross (pictured above), a Turkish prayer bracelet and necklace from Lhasa, all lying next to each other here. 

I love the stories and relics that pop up in this crazybeautiful life I sometimes get to lead.

But mostly, if I had to explain this absence from blogging, I would tell you it's because I've been working on this new website.  The website where there is still work to be done but perhaps I just have to throw out here in front of me.  I always want things perfect and, of course, nothing is ever 'perfect enough'. 

So, here I am, launching this new website.  More work to be done in the days ahead. I hope you enjoy it.  The url should switch to www.dimackey.com but for now, it is here.