View from the Mont-real

A fine day at the old port nestled under the shade of a tree. I can't quite get used to the idea of a port without the sea, the salt air and the rhythmic rise and fall of the tides. I've seen photos of this place covered in snow too, hard to believe on a beautiful day like this.

My parents, who love going on holiday to new places, always take loads of photos. They have books and books full of these photos. When I or my siblings look through these albums it's difficult to stay focussed, since the photos themselves are not remarkable. To see them as photos for the sake of a beautiful image would be missing the point though, because the photos function as triggers for stories or micro-memories, things experienced along the way from one place to another and back again. Usually looking through one of these books is an invitation to listen to my parents recall their adventures. One day I will try reading them alone.

There are a few through-lines in these books like the Janice-and-flower-garden series. Every few pages you will see a picture of my mother centered in a flower garden in full bloom. The subject remains the same, but the subtle differences appear in my mother's face, her sometimes disapproving smile as she waits for my father to take the picture or to hopefully take her out to a restaurant. The flowers change of course but the real interest for me is this relationship between flowers and my mother, which my father insists in photographing.

I spoke with a journalist recently who said she had read my entire blog, which I found slightly alarming because I had never considered that anyone would ever read the whole thing. In fact I have never read the whole thing (considering that I started this project in 2007), and somehow she had an objectivity of my time spent inside the little house in a way that I had never been privileged to. Every narrative is made up of microscopic images or sensations that only only come together to form a memory once they are strung together to form some cohesive story.

These photos from yesterday at the old port in Montreal were mostly taken after conversations with the person in the photo, each unrelated apart from the fact that they were framed by my window. Yet here there is some kind of narrative totally unrelated to the individuals. For me the photos are little markers that remind me of conversations or reflections.

Make your own story...

Summer of 2011

I use the word summer with a touch of irony. The days were long but I honestly haven't seen this much rain in a long long time. The images from three festivals in the summer of 2011 have been sitting in my computer gathering dustbytes(??) for the past few weeks. Mostly this is due to a new project I was working and that stole all of my reflection time. Well now that is all done and it's time to look back and see the last few weeks that were. Always looking back over photos it's like walking past that person in the street whose perfume reminds you so much of a certain time or place. These photos bring back not only the people but also the conversations, sometimes the weather, sometimes tastes and sounds.

The house is now on board a ship - in fact here is the ship (honestly) it's a cargo ship called the Maersk Patras and it's taking my house all the way from Antwerp to Montreal. There is something so impressive about the idea that it can cross through all that water, flying seems to be so easy since you look out the window and there seems to be nothing between you and your destination, just space. This photo isn't recent so you can't see my house on there but presumably it's still sitting upright and keeping the water out.

I will fly to meet it in a couple of weeks. In the meantime here are some images and the odd word from the last few weeks.

Mulhouse

You get a certain view of the world from this height. It's hard not to feel lightly optimistic.

Mulhouse - what a delight. I had no idea what to expect but Mulhouse was alive with friendly people - was it the coming of summer? Was it something to do beer there? Perhaps it had something to do with 5o billion feathers falling from the sky as part of the gigantic performance in the town square. I've never seen anything like it - I found those damn feathers in my clothes for the next two weeks.

Here are some notes from the people of Mulhouse... some things to watch out for; excessive use of colour, multilinguistic phrases, Elvis alive and well, a proposal for marriage, a boat. What did I tell you?

NAMUR

Namur en Mai - only it wasn't May it was June. Is it just me or does that sound weird?

Well here are the best of some images of folk I met in Namur - definitely not your average Belgian city, it looks more like the south of France and speak with people it felt like we were another country from Brussels.

Enough said... he didn't get my bonbons!

And this is Lorraine - author of two fantasy books - in fact she gave me two of them to read. In all honesty I've started and not yet finished. But it's in French so it's a bit slow going for me. I promise I'll get through it though!

Here's a link to her books

http://www.servicedulivre.be/fiches/d/dossogne.htm

And let me introduce you to Christelle - she came back a couple of times and chatted. This is a picture of her, gift in hand - some very delicious Belgian sweets. I hope she won't mind if I share an email Christelle sent me a few days later. It was great food for thought.

Bonjour Stephen,

I’m sad I wasn’t able to pass and say goodbye to you on sunday afternoon at the “Namur en mai” festival.

Your performance is quiet interesting. Beside the social and the human aspects, some could consider the ecological side of this dream of getting an individual suburban house, with a one foot square garden, a familial car parked in front, and a friendly dog in it. In France (I speak about France because I’m French, even if I live in Belgium) so, in France, it’s about one department per ten years that disappear under concrete and tar. It causes enhanced flooding risks, reduction of cultivated and afforested surfaces, water cycle modification, pollution, and so on. Without being a convinced ecologist, I wonder about the sustainability of such a dwelling project that involves a lot of concrete but finally a small density of inhabitants/m².

Maybe we should think twice about the life goals we aim at, for our personal lives of course (do we really have to get this to be happy?) and for our children’s lives too (well, I do not have any children yet, but if, one day, maybe, nothing’s never sure… hum… well, for them, I guess it will be better to still have forests to walk by and look at birds, and fields with wheat, than kilometres of white and red houses with a large black street between).

If one day, anywhere in the world (in Belgium, or not very far from, or even very far from), I see again the tiny red roof of your tiny house, I’ll come, go down on my knees, and say hello. I hope this day (if it happens) you’ll still have some tea to share (then I’ll try to find biscuits to go with).

Christelle, the false Belgian woman with a handful of real Belgian strawberry sweets.