That Post Where I Chitchat ...

Lately, I've had a low level buzzing going on in my head, probably caused by a whole lot of must-do's, and it's just not conducive to any kind of work flow.  But you know that already.

I've come here to blog a few times but deleted after just a paragraph or two.  There was no fire, no words came.

Tonight, it's 25 celsius as I write this ... almost 10pm, still quite light outside, with swallows whistling up and down the street like crazy out-of-control children.  I know summer's coming when the swallows return.  I do love them.

Here in Belgium, our team of three have been hard at work on our A New Way of Seeing - Photography Retreats project, fine-tuning and preparing.  It just keeps developing in ways that excite and delight us.  It's hard work but we're having fun.  It's a big old dream coming true.

Next week I'll be back in Genova, and will spend two nights at Lake Como before returning home but more on that once I'm there.  Then there's Norway in August and a photography workshop that I'm so looking forward to there.

Which reminds me ... I met the loveliest woman on the train between Genova and Milan last time I was there.  Her name was Patrizia, I think, she lives in Denmark.  I didn't have any business cards left but she wrote her email address on a scrap of paper and I did the same.  We talked for most of those 2 hours on that train and I did so enjoy her company.  Unfortunately I lost the scrap of paper somewhere between Milan and home.

Patrizia, if you did manage to hang on to my details and do read my blog, I would love to hear from you.

As for today ... I biked over to the Russian tailor.  Dank u wel to Lucy for letting me know about him.  My beautiful shawl, purchased in Genova, needed some of its fringe cut.  It's a little bit long and perhaps a little bit too red on the ends too. 

Dimitrii was lovely.  I explained that I had a history of cutting things that shouldn't be cut and needed him to be doing this thing for me.  Actually mostly it's been my hair that I've cut (and regretted cutting) but it was enough to make me terrified of ruining the shawl if I shortened the tassels myself. 

Actually, I  had my hair in the 'about to be cut' position the other night but couldn't find scissors. It's  really long at the moment, and rather warm here in Antwerp.  To explain, I've had a lifetime of going to hairdressers who talk me into letting them cut my hair short and really, I hate it short.  But once I'm in their chair, I'm weakened by promises of end-result glamour.  Mostly they lie...

So I pick that beautiful shawl up on Saturday and then, I shall wear it whenever possible. I think it will be just right for evenings out.

My head must be clearing though.  I excavated my desk today, its drawers, the cupboard and all storage boxes within reach.  It's all rather beautiful again.  My typewriter has a permanent place but it's an interesting creature.  It has a European keyboard, with the A, M, and other important keys not in the place I prefer them to be.  I make mistakes.  I have a bottle Pritt Fluid.  One needs to really hit the keys.  After a typewriter session, the computer keyboard feels plush and luxurious.  The delete key is heaven.

I have begun packing the cords, cables, and equipment required for out there on the road.  A small pilot's bag is slowly filling with 'other' plugs for the slightly different Italian sockets.  The USB modem is  there.  The card reader, the tripod, the sunhoods for the lenses, and etc.  On Wednesday I will become my other self, the one known as Sherpa Di. 

The biggest news though ... Miss 9 will wake as Miss 10 in the morning.  We are so full of thanksgiving when it comes to that little person.  Today she presented me with a great big hand-made book of her paintings and text.  'Voor Di' is there on the cover.  It's something I'll treasure.  Her art works are stunning. She insisted on reading it to me tonight, translating it as she went.  We finished our most recent book series last night and so it was timely.

I think I may have prattled on a little but I wanted to catch up some.  I've missed blogging.  Actually, I have missed being able to access my mind and write coherently.  Here's to the headache being gone on the morrow and to lucid thought returning. 

Failing that, then I shall just have to wait for Italia to work its usual magic on me.

The photograph ... found in a beautiful village in France.

Home ...

You know, if the truth were known I have a perfect passion for the island where I was born. Well, in the early morning there I always remember feeling that this little island has dipped back into the dark blue sea during the night only to rise again at gleam of day, all hung with bright spangles and glittering drops . . . I tried to catch that moment . . . I tried to lift that mist from my people and let them be seen and then to hide them again.

Katherine Mansfield, Writer.

I am returning to Genova in July and already my head has begun to fill with what I would like to achieve while there this time.  That city brings me alive in a way that no other place has so far.  Perhaps Istanbul came close but Genova has everything ... in just the right proportions. It is imperfectly perfect for me.

Genova, once known as La Superba, is an ancient Italian city (at least 2,000 years in the making), nestled in the arms of hills that are topped by ancient fortresses.  And at the feet of the city you have Ligurian Sea. 

The first time I saw that sea tears filled my eyes.  It had been a long time since I had been anyplace where the sea looked like home.  I was out at Nervi, photographing a Genovese family, and suddenly I was overcome by this strange sense of being back in a place that was completely familiar.

I have been thinking about things and have this idea that if you ever leave the country you were born in and move someplace else, far away, then eventually the idea of returning home can become as strange or as foreign as living in another country.

And so you move countries and become 'the other', living amongst people who are 'the other' to you.  But when you go home you realise you have become something else there as well. 

And so my place on the edge of lives and cultures is confirmed, probably for life.   That said, there is something else that happens out here.  I love people.  I love when they invite me into their worlds.  In Istanbul there were Turkish families I adored because they took care of me when I lived alone in their city.  That experience of being a guest, of being invited inside, to be a part of this celebration or that, here in Belgium, in Berlin during those months spent living and working there.  Cairo.  Naples.  France. Italy.   It's those insider journeys that make this lifestyle of mine so very very worthwhile. 

Lately I've been reading a series of biographies and fictions about New Zealand author, Katherine Mansfield ... searching for clues I think.  Something about her story speaks to me.

She left NZ in 1908 aged 20.  By 1923, she was dead from TB but not before she had revolutionised the 20th Century English short story.  She was a part of the English literary scene at the time and yet very much the colonial from the Antipodes. 

Her masterpieces—the long stories ‘At the Bay’ and ‘Prelude’—are lovingly detailed recreations of a New Zealand childhood, reports from the fringe—the edge of the world as she felt it to be. She wrote as if she’d stayed. Of course these luminous re-imaginings are lit with the affection and nostalgia of the expatriate. They would not exist without their author’s estrangement from the scenes and places and people she describes. They are set in a New Zealand of the mind, composed at the edge of Mansfield’s memory.

Source: NZ Edge.com

I'm curious about her because I relate to her on so many levels.  I feel like reading her story might tell me more about mine.  I yearn for home.  Adore it, am passionate about it and yet ... could I go back and live there again?  I really don't know anymore. 

Ahhh but all of this when really I came to post a photograph I took at the antiques market in Genova, back in May.

Giovanni Tiso, Kim Hill, and NZ's National Radio

I recently had the pleasure of spending time with Giovanni as he passed through Genova.  He was on his way back to New Zealand and I happened to be in Italy.  I wrote of spending a few hours with him, photographed him, and was generally delighted to have spent time with this lovely man.

Back home in New Zealand, radio personality - Kim Hill, has long been my most admired and respected interviewer ever.  She's highly intelligent, wickedly fast, takes no prisoners when it comes to liars and those who would prefer not to give a straight answer, and so genuinely curious. Her interviews are pure delight.

So, you can imagine ... put Giovanni and Kim together in the studio on her Saturday Morning show and it's inevitable that you have something rather divine.  But you can decide for yourself ...

Napolean and Excess ... perhaps.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Napoleon Bonaparte.

I was wandering through the Château de Fontainebleau and found this room.  I've never taken much interest in the things Napolean did however his great big old palace suggests he was an excessive kind of guy.

However I'm reading Eduardo Galeano's book, Mirrors, and this means I am never going to form a good opinion of Napolean.  Not via these pages. 

Galeano's journey though ... highly recommended.

On Portraiture ...

I love the work of portrait photography ...

My idea is that portrait photography is an attempt to put someone so at ease with who you are that they give you something of who they really are.

I think everybody is capable of being photographed in a way that is beautiful. 

It's about letting the real self bubble up to the surface.  It can take time but it's more than worth it in the end.

Jeff Daniels, and some of what he is ...

I first noticed him on The Newsroom when the first of this 'Best Scenes' clip flew round the internet.

Fiction ...

Flying home to New Zealand, after 8 years away, I found The Newsroom series on that Singapore Airlines flight BUT I didn't find it until just before landing.  I didn't ask them to circle.  I caught the series eventually.  And being home was good.

Tonight I found out Jeff Daniels sings too.