Out on Flanders Fields ...

And the struggle to return to Belgium continues ...

Belgians are all surprised by, and talking of, the long grey sunless winter continuing on into February.

Did I mention ... no sun, tons of greyness, and loads of pollution as all of Europe passes by us on our highways?

Anyway I've been busy.  I photographed the most delicious Belgian wedding on Saturday.  Truly lovely people and I hope to get permission to post some of those images soon but Sunday and Monday ... Oh My!

I was back out on Flanders Fields attending the reburial of a WW1 soldier from New Zealand ... he was recently discovered and although they did all that they could, and came close, they were unable to identify him for sure.

But where to begin because it was about so much more ...

Saturday night, just after the wedding, there I was at Central Station in Antwerp waiting for the talented London-based New Zealand, soprano Carleen Ebbs.  Gert and I spent a enjoyable evening with her before Martin, from the blog Messines 1917 picked us up, early Sunday morning.  We were heading off to  Flanders Fields, through snow, to participate in the reburial of the New Zealand world war one soldier.

The moment was captured by Belgian television (I am there at around 8 seconds, completely oblivious to the cameraman, as I planned my next shot).  New Zealand television was there too.  I only appear in the Belgian clip  and had to laugh, as I had no idea I was being filmed but do have a photograph of the cameraman filming me ... I discovered it today.  I was photographing someone near him.

But first there was Sunday, the day before the reburial.  Martin OConnor and I went wandering with some New Zealanders based in London.

It felt like a time of privilege as we were introduced to a little Maori history and protocol and I was allowed to photograph this man as he made his way through the cemeteries.

Anyway, below is a random series of photographs taken over those two days ...

Tot later!

Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, Italy

Planning and developing has kept me quiet here, as well as playing tag with exhaustion and flu the rest of the time.

And so to announce, with much pleasure, the first Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, in partnership with the extremely talented and inspirational Diana Baur.

Come take a peek  ...

Re: the silence here

Cold/flu in the building, and the misery that is winter in Belgium, has kept me quiet here lately.

Never again will I go to New Zealand in December and return to Belgium for January.  It's like night and day ... and not in a good way.

On wandering ...

‘every journey outside my known world is a form of often painful, sometimes euphoric spiritual growth. I have to break out of the exoskeleton of safety I’m constantly accreting in order to be born into a new world — soft, vulnerable, afraid, eager, porous. I hate it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

Nikki Hardin , an extract from Longing Not To Belong.

I loved these words.  I thought to myself, I know that feeling.  That's how it is for me too.

For awhile, back at my childhood home, there was a gap between the hedge and the wire fence and there I was, that creature you see scaling the wooden gate, slipping out into the incredible world of the school next door.

And I think I remember the mix of fear and curiousity ... the need to wander that made me escape anyway.  A need that still overrides my desire to stay safely inside my known worlds. 

I imagine all kinds of things before I leave.  The night before, there  I am, wondering why I do it ... Cairo, Istanbul, Italy, and America.  But wander I must.

I love leaving.

On the other side of the ohmygodwhat haveIdone pre-departure thinking, is that sigh of happiness as I settle into the airport bus and it leaves.  There is the delight in arriving at Brignole in Genova, of opening the shutters, buying the flowers, and settling into a different life, so full of noise and colour.

And on the other side of leaving there have always been marvellous experiences ... like the market that ran all night just below my balcony in Cairo, or the gypsy festival in Istanbul where I wandered with friends, wandering Flanders Fields with prime ministers and actors.

On the other side of fear is Life in a form that I love.

And I go, knowing that it is entirely likely that I will have times when I sink into the dark pit of despair and anxiety for a few hours, where going outside is impossible, where I am left wondering what the hell it is that pushes me to leave and step off into other worlds.  But I always recover.

Sometimes with a belly-laughter-inducing-Mr-Bean-style story of what happened while I was in that place of fear.

I'm the biggest baby in the world sometimes.  I find myself in situations that are retrospectively hilarious but challenging while in the midst of them.  The ambulance in Genova was sobering but it's a story that can't be told with me giggling throughout.  The heat-seeking missile attack over Singapore is another that comes immediately to mind when reminiscing this stuff.  And the taxi-kidnapping in Cairo was also gut-wrenchingly amusing, and should I ever decide to share it here on the blog ...you might agree.

You see, I was a writer before I took photographs ... or perhaps I thought I was a writer before I decided to become a photographer but then again, I had always been a photographer.  Maybe that means that I am a story-teller because surely both paths lead to the same place in the end.  I live with an Imagination that is as big as the Sun ... at least.

Mostly I have learned to live with that Imagination, to laugh over the stories that (don't really) happen along the way, and to leave anyway ...