A Recipe for Dreaming

The streets in Genova pull me out into them ... I can spend hours walking there, lost in the now.  I am missing those days where images came in through my camera lens as a deluge of colours and textures.

In New Zealand I was the kid and later, the woman, who disappeared constantly ... on my bike or in the car, with my dog, I was off, in search of a place to dream.  Rivers, lakes, the beach or, more simply, a school field.

In Genova I find that space more easily in a cityscape than anyplace else I've lived so far.  It used to be Nature, now it seems  that this remarkable old Italian city can soothe my soul.

David Lange, a Kiwi Prime Minister, speaking at the Oxford Union Debate,1985

I have to share this beautiful moment in New Zealand's history ... I wanted to put it someplace so I can go back to it sometimes.

We were so proud of him, that country of mine. 

Anyway, let me quote wikipedia, to get the story right: David Lange was the 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. He headed New Zealand's fourth Labour Government, one of the most reforming administrations in his country's history, but one which did not always conform to traditional expectations of a social-democrat party.

He had a reputation for cutting wit (sometimes directed against himself) and eloquence. His government implemented far-reaching free-market reforms. Helen Clark has described New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation as his legacy.

Lange made his name on the international stage with a long-running campaign against nuclear weapons. His government refused to allow nuclear-armed ships into New Zealand waters, a policy that New Zealand continues to this day. The policy, developing in 1985, had the effect of prohibiting United States Navy ships from visiting New Zealand.

This displeased the United States and Australia: they regarded the policy as a breach of treaty obligations under ANZUS and as an abrogation of responsibility in the context of the Cold War against the Soviet bloc. After consultations with Australia and after negotiations with New Zealand broke down, the United States announced that it would suspend its treaty obligations to New Zealand until the re-admission of United States Navy ships to New Zealand ports, characterising New Zealand as "a friend, but not an ally".

Erroneous claims sometimes suggest that David Lange withdrew New Zealand from ANZUS. His government's policy may have prompted the US's decision to suspend its ANZUS Treaty obligations to New Zealand, but that decision rested with the U.S. government, not with the New Zealand government.

The Oxford Union debate shown below, went out live on New Zealand television in March 1985 showcased Lange, a skilled orator, arguing for the proposition that "nuclear weapons are morally indefensible", in opposition to U.S. televangelist Jerry Falwell. Lange regarded his appearance at the Oxford Union as the highest point of his career in politics. 

His speech included his memorable statement "I can smell the uranium on it [your breath]...!"


Nora Ephron, and good advice

Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady.  I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.
Nora Ephron, Wellesley's Class of 1996 commencement speech.

a little of this and a little of that ...

 

Life has been busy, with days tumbling over one another and to-do lists that seemed impossible.  The knowledge of things left undone was pressing down on me.

I knew that I had to wait.  That there were things to be done in those weeks leading up to us taking my daughter and granddaughter to Frankfurt.  And we had the lovely Australian called Jobe staying with us in that last week.  A Tasmanian, and a friend of Jessie's, he ended up helping her with the packing and cleaning here in this Belgian life, in-between visiting Bruges, Brussels and Antwerp.

Saturday rolled round and exhausted, we 3 New Zealanders and the Belgian packed ourselves into the car and began negotiating the roadworks that hugely delayed our 4-5 hour journey between here and Frankfurt. 

It was hot.  The rental car didn't have A/C.  One series of roadworks saw us take 30 minutes to crawl 3kms.  We were stuck in it for 45 minutes ...

But Frankfurt is beautiful.  It's not my beloved Genova but the city planners have bowed to Nature, seemingly respecting her.  It's clean, it's pretty and it was okay leaving my people there. 

Home again, and the itinerary for the 2 and 5-day photography workshops is done.  I have projects and plans all over my working desk here, forcing me to move my book work upstairs to the now spare big bedroom.  The step children have gone home ... it's just about me and my work.  Well, there is 3-storeys of quirky Belgian house to clean and reclaim but that can be baby steps.

Summer comes and goes here, on a daily basis. We can go from an ordinary 15 celsius kind of day up to 29 celsius, almost in the blink of the eye.  Gert's rhubarb is going crazy ... actually his garden is.  There are parsnips and silverbeet seedlings, raspberrys, and the herbs are ferociously wild.  My Jasmine and Lavender are pleasing me ...  actually, it's not bad outside, in the tiny pocket-sized Belgian backyard.

And I have a title for my book on Genova that is so unbelievably perfect that I shall keep it completely secret until publishing. 

I'll leave you with a photograph of Miss 7 and I messing around with the camera in Central Station, here in Antwerp sometime last winter ...