There's a beach over in Zeeland, Holland. It's as good as it gets within a short driving distance and so we go, occasionally ... so this kiwi can breathe some sea air and collect some more shells for here at her desk.
Cityscape
After the Fire ...
After the fire in the previous post had burned long and hard, they hooked those red hot tiles out and dropped them into the preheated cooking pit.
As I watched, it occured to me that they almost appeared to be fishing - carefully but quickly completing the transfer.
On Travel and Reading
Travelling, too, is something you have to learn. It is a constant transaction with others in the course of which you are simultaneously alone. And therein lies the paradox: you journey alone in a world which is controlled by others.
Cees Nooteboom, extract Nomad's Hotel, Travels in Time and Space.
This morning I was that woman engrossed in her book as my trams crossed the city. Those first chapters in Cees Nooteboom's Nomad's Hotel were electrifying.
I love revisiting the books on my shelves next to my desk. This one is dated 2008, in my handwriting. I've been to Venice in years since. Cees has some truly divine descriptions of that city I didn't fall in love with.
Zinc light, the painter does not yet know what he is going to do with this day, leave it as it is, add some more copper, a greenish sheen, accentuate the grey, or alternatively flood everything with more light.
This morning, as I read, I realised that I read to travel. When I can't 'leave', I climb into a book and go anyway. But when I travel, in actuality, I read too. I become a devourer of books, on buses, planes and trains, enjoying those quiet alone-spaces and the freedom to read without a long list of must-do things queuing up there in front of me, and people I must give my attention to.
And then, when alone and out traveling, I read myself to sleep.
Returning from the weekend that took me 'home', back to people I understood, shared a humour with, people who reminded me of who I am at my core ... re-entry has been interesting. There is always so much more to understand about the self.
Life as the journey. Perhaps that's it. There always something new.
And my latest 'new' thing was photographing the Hangi, from beginning to end. Here is the magnificent fire that heated the stones that were later buried with the food and cooked it all.
Lenn
I met Lenn at the Peace Village, out on Flanders Fields, yesterday and asked if I might document the story of a New Zealand Hangi.
He said yes.
And what I didn't know was that it's as much about cooking the food as it is about the people involved ... and those drawn in when it comes time to share the food.
In the end I felt extraordinarily fortunate to be there for those hours and I felt my little Kiwi soul fill up and overflow with joy.
It was extraordinary.
Thank you, Lenn, for putting up with my camera and I.
The Hangi Blokes, Flanders Fields
I captured these kiwi blokes taking a well-earned break after finishing up work on the Hangi.
You really couldn't wish to meet nicer, harder-working, big-hearted, highly-amusing Kiwi blokes than these guys. They simply impressed me ... and made me laugh more than once.
