Some things never change; well, not much.
I know this place. I know its history. My own history is - quite literally - written into the walls.
Living as far away as I do, these visits are much more rare than they were when we spent our summers here, swimming in the lake many times per day, playing cards, reading books, stubbing our toes on the rocks, and messing around in boats.
I thought I would have to cancel this trip to Prague. As my sisters health deteriorated it was looking more likely that I would be staying home. But we're here now, grieving earlier than expected, in a strange country, in blistering hot sunshine that has no place in the world of grief.
I've brought my Domke F-3X bag on this trip, but forgone putting a smaller bag in my luggage as I often do. At times that's felt like a mistake as I've been carrying a bit too much kit. X-Pro2, X100F and the X70 are in there, as are the 50/2 and the Samyang 12/2.8. A camera bag always feels twice as heavy an hour after you leave the hotel. The X70 charger is no longer working, so I’m on my last battery and after that the camera will staying in the safe for the rest of this trip. Lucky I brought the WCL-X100 for the X100F, so I'll still have a 28mm.
The light is so much better here than in the UK and It's a welcome distraction when I get in the zone shooting street photography for a while. But we're taking the morning off and I'm writing this by the swimming pool. The kids are playing with a GoPro and Fe is lying on the lounger next to me. It's strange the way normal life goes on, but I'm glad it does. There is an odd feeling of guilt though. Guilt for being on holiday so soon after my sisters death. Guilt for leaving my parents behind at this time. But mostly just guilt for being here, having a life and waking up each day.
I love my Kage buddies. I really do. I see them as brothers. We've been through a lot together.
I've helped Patrick fend off Gulls in Brighton, I've helped Jonas help a stricken damsel in distress in Cologne, I've even shared a rather incongruous experience with Bert in a bathroom in Yokohama.
However.
Imagine my consternation, when, excitedly opening up Monday's Chronicle to see what Pat had posted to see..... swimming pool pictures.
I mean. Come on, man. I shoot weddings. All year. Weddings. Then, I have a whole month in Spain where I shoot (mostly) pictures of my kids in the swimming pool.
So that's it. The gloves are off. No more brotherly affiliation.
Here are my pool-plops. And a bit more. I'm spending a month in a very remote part of Andlucia. Some liken it to Mars. It is a bit. But if I had to be stranded on Mars, I'd be happy with a pool, a GoPro, my X-E3 and my family.....oh, and a LOT of Cruzcampo beer.
Between my two of my son's football practices we immersed ourselves in nature, friends, family, sand, barbecued food and 36 hours of living the life.
Ca sent le feu, le fer, le foin. Ici à Castelroc, on marche sur les traces de combattants, on vit l'espace de deux jours au rythme des forgerons, des passes d'armes et des prouesses équestres...
I’m reading David Lynch’s Room to Dream these days, a co-written biography/auto-biography—a very peculiar, yet fascinating literary object that alternates between two voices. I was probably eighteen when I saw Eraserhead, as part of a late-night show at the old Théâtre Outremont in Montreal. Part of me was shaken but mostly I just sat there, completely riveted and transfixed. Lynch’s work made entire universes possible: the darkest and most surreal visions could be unleashed unapologetically. We could weave tales beyond our earth-bound senses. The movie was a license to reveal ourselves.
I’ve been on a steady trajectory for over a year now, reuniting with the obscure and the abstract. There’s certainly nothing in it for me in terms of work opportunities, but for some reason I feel less and less interested in precision, both in words and imagery. I keep reaching for dreamscapes, compelled to break up what I see...as though I now need layers to understand reality.
This weekend—tentatively—it was water.
Black sun piercing the veil.
Shapes like explosions.
Finally vacation time. Finally time for family.
We drove through Europe. 1900km+, it took us a couple of days to get here, improvized hotel stay et all. But now we are. Here.
In Croatia. This is a first for our family, but it probably be the last. This place is amazing.
We do what we usually do. Live simple, enjoy it all. I am so ever grateful.
My sister lost her fight with cancer at 4:47 am on Tuesday 17th July 2018. She was 55 years old. Joyce was diagnosed with a brain tumour back in November 2016 and despite 6 months of radiotherapy, 14 months of chemotherapy, cannabis oil and honey imported from Israel, one tumour became two and it was clear treatment was not going to work.
Joyce kept her sense of humour right to the end, she never complained or showed any sign of self-pity, but a stroke changed her permanently and made communication more difficult and then finally almost impossible. At the end it was although everything but her lungs shut down, each breath a fight for survival. In the last few minutes of her life, she managed to open her eyes. She was surrounded by family, each of us holding on to her, making sure she knew we were there. Finally, her breath slowed, a few more breaths with longer gaps in between and then silence. She was gone forever.
July 24th, 2018. The funeral was today, exactly one week after she died. We couldn’t believe how many people showed up to pay their respects. It was a sea of faces, some I knew some I didn’t and some I should have known, but didn’t recognise. As requested by my brother in law, Joyce’s coffin was carried by her three brothers and three sons as her favourite singer Andrea Bocelli played in the background.
I've been asked so many times in the past week how I and the rest of my family were. I say that we’re ok, we're getting there. But the real truth is that we are all hanging by a thread right now. My brother in law, their three sons, my two brothers and our other halves, we’re all hanging by a thread. But my parents just buried their only daughter and that's just not right. It's not the way it's supposed to happen. I don't know how they're supposed to move on from this.
So we are all hanging by a thread. But we’re a close family, and if you twist and intertwine thread it becomes rope, and rope anchors the ship, it holds down the tents in a storm. As I write these words I look down at my wrist at the piece of climbing rope that’s been there for almost a year. I realise that it's the stuff that keeps us from falling.
Click on each picture for the caption
It's 6:30am on Thursday.
I've had possibly the busiest three weeks of my life, both professionally and personally.
6:30 is actually late for me. I'm an early riser but today I have a family photography session locally at 8am and I found myself dozing thinking about that and the many other things I need to achieve today.
This weekend is my light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. After Saturdays wedding I escape to Spain for a month, so expect my next set of journal entries to be as such inspired by the Southern Spanish events around me.
Each morning I check on the children, I walk to the kitchen, I rub Buddha's head out of superstition and I think about making coffee.
