Here are, in no particular order, pictures of a recent past that have been sitting in a folder waiting to be published. They show how disconnected I am right now. They’re not even that good. The subjects might be, though. I mentioned in my last post the doubts I am having about the whole blogging process. You don’t have to read on, I’m posting this for myself. These shots make me think. And dream. They remind me of an elusive reality which I am trying hard to materialize these days.

We begin not in Camargue or Greece but Knysna, South Africa.

Then, it’s Park Slope, at the end of a botanical afternoon.

Back to South Africa, somewhere in the Karoo...

Then New York again. If there’s a red phone for presidential emergencies, this must be the yellow phone behind the yellow line for those who have the blues...

But then again, the best remedy to the blues is exercise, no matter where the gym is located. Here, the yellow line of a garbage court of the NYC City Hall. Notice how happy the subject looks. That’s thanks to Momofuku’s Nigori.

Next, botanists obviously have a sense of humor. Interrupted growth? Where is the fern?

But someone has to photograph those rarities. With passion.

Passion being what drives one human up the Skeleton Gorge ladders and a few dogs to the slopes of Table Mountain and Silvermine.

Those are Gin & Tonic cups, by the way.

But the view is usually worth it.

So having sweated all the way up, one decides to freshen up.

Back in New York again, blissful flower bath. And the sweetest picture taken by a very willing butcher in his own store, at his own request - but he must have had a background in tourism.

It sounds like a movie title. It isn’t. It was a real Monday night, end of a trip and dawn of a week, as so many things in life morph from one into another... We walked east from Cobble Hill, leaving Henry Street behind and following Union Street towards and past the now ritual Gowanus bridge and its nearby strange sidewalk garden, and on to Park Slope. The air was crisp and we moved briskly, looking around us with pleasure, noticing small things like hints of spring and touches of tasteful caring on doorsteps. We turned right on 5th Avenue and kept going for a couple of blocks to the corner of Caroll. And there it was. The odd little lobby stuck out onto the sidewalk, antechamber of Al di Là’s cavern. As we eased through the outer door, we gave way to a lady stepping out while talking on her cell phone: « I don’t think we should eat at Al di Là, she was saying to someone invisible, there’s an hour wait to get a table. » We looked at each other, incredulous. This was Monday night, not Saturday.

But we pushed in, brushing past the heavy curtains that completely isolate the dinning room from the street, and were immediately immersed into the warm ambiance of the place. There stood Emiliano, greeting us and looking a bit discouraged as he smiled apologetically as if to say: « I know what you are going to ask, and you know what I’m going to answer. » We did know, but we asked any way. The room was buzzing with activity, conversations were loud and happy. « About an hour, he said. It’s so busy tonight. You could wait downstairs. » Neither one of us had brought a phone, but we headed downstairs any way, back outside and around the corner, to the low-ceiling little room they use as an overflow dining room, a bar, and a narrow waiting area.

At first, we felt like the last two onions squeezed into an already tightly stuffed turkey. No way to approach the bar, nowhere to sit, the waitresses looking frantic. But we’d been there before. Soon, as people having arrived ahead of us managed to grab a seat here and there, we were able to order our ritual glasses of Prosecco. Having claimed those, we retreated to a corner by the window and stood there toasting to us, and to them. When a couple sitting at the bar gave clear signals of preparing an exit, we made our move to replace them. But just as we took possession of our 2 square feet of bar space, the word came from above: our table was ready, no later than 20 minutes after we’d arrived. Maybe 15. There was magic in the air. Our drinks took a shortcut via steep inside stairs so that we wouldn’t have to carry them in the street; we walked back outside around the block, through the curtains, into the main dining room and sat down. Sigh. We had arrived.

Al di Là is a tradition. We’ll always come here once in a while and melt. « I love this place, says Marie, it has seen me through a lot, from way back in the beginning. And now you are here. Happy ending. » She is somehow wrong, though, it’s a happy beginning. But she is right to like Anna and Emiliano’s restaurant. There’s something in the air, here. Intangible, but very real. And the food is just superb.

So we picked up our menus and the wine list. Well, the wine is generally Marie’s baby. For my part, I had a rendez-vous with gnocchi and nervously glanced up and down the page, worried they might have disappeared. No, there they were, Malfatti, Swiss chard and ricotta gnocchi with brown butter and sage. I took a deep breath. Choosing a dish to compliment the malfatti was superfluous, but I did any way, because a hangar steak sounded like a funny choice for an Italian resto. Marie made love to her spring salad with peas and pea shoots and then had slow-cooked beef cheeks with green garlic and Jerusalem artichokes. Time flowed slowly, along with a bottle of pino nero. Eating at Al di Là is like embarking on a broken time machine; you know when you arrive but never really know when you’ll leave... In any case, my resolution is now strong. These gnocchi are the best thing I have ever eaten and next time, I’ll order a triple serving and nothing else.

We finished dinner by sharing an affogato di gelato. And then, still hypnotized by the company and confused by such delicious food, I think I messed up the tip. I’m quite happy doing maths while flying IFR but staring into amazing green eyes, it’s a whole other story.

We finally stood up and, having fetched our coats, headed for the door. Emiliano was eating dinner at a small corner table, alone, and gave us a smile and a wave as we were leaving. We waved back. Until next time...

It was about tradition. Reinvented in Brooklyn some time ago as East met West, this timeless French classic still makes for the absolute best opening to any day. Café au lait et croissants, façon Constantia.

A perfect blue sky would already be spread over Cape Town like a giant, crispy-clean table cloth thrown upside down over our mornings. It would rarely be much earlier than nine or ten o’clock, unless the day called for serious action in which case we might be brave and stumble out of bed at eight! Birds would be singing happily in the luxuriant garden and the flowers planted by our bedroom window would send a sweet cocktail of perfumes drifting into the room.

9 Sun Valley Avenue is a long, low-lying, adorable house with a garage at each end and a long corridor spanning the entire length with rooms scattered on each side. Very Hobbit-like, I’d say. In the front, facing a small cul-de-sac, is a small porch over the main entrance. On the night of big gatherings, candles in lanterns are hung under its roof. And in the back, perfectly hidden from curious eyes, is the garden - cornerstone, so to speak, of the place. Tasteful, beautifully designed and deeply loved, it gives the house its soul and turns it into a retreat for which one can’t help longing. A small pool sits in the lower corner underneath tall trees and at the opposite end, an even taller tree domes over the brick platform on which the main table is set for banquets. And groom inspections.

Finally, linking the house to the garden like a bridge between two mighty empires, is the terrace, where our days would begin. But first, breakfast had to be prepared in the dimly lit kitchen where Selina would probably already be busily moving around. Espresso would be brewed in the Bialetti, milk heated up, croissants touched up in the oven, butter sliced and covered away from flies, homemade apricot jam readied, extra toasts goldened, and this would all daringly be ferried to the table outside on a painted wooden tray, extra care being taken not to trip on the loving fauna.

Because you see, at number 9, there is always a pet available to dispense undiluted affection and good vibes. For those uninitiated readers who might wonder, here’s a brief description of the local menagerie: there’s Ben, the black lab, largest and softest of them all. A big bear with amazing patience who endures the annoying playful bites of Ted (see below) without ever flinching, but lets it all out when it comes to protecting the house, or its contents. Then there’s Maggie and Ted, the halflings. Corgis, they are. Long, caterpillar-like dogs with a sweet character and sad eyes. As Maureen once put it, too much body for not enough legs. Ted gets dirty, Maggie stays clean. Maggie chases a ball, Ted chases his tail (and Ben’s ball(s)...) Then there are the felines. Adorable Kehdi is mostly blind and responds to human voice like a parrot. She has a sweet thing for shoulders, in which she firmly digs her claws and then proceeds to inspect the world from above at her host’s pace, probably considering herself saved from said world’s many threats. There’s Andre Khamel, hilariously named by Henri after a defeated French opposition lawyer, a name choice that beats even my very own childhood Pompidou. There’s albino-like Spook, very old and fragile, soft as silk and looking like an owl in her pale ashen dress. And there’s Mr Wellington, part-time resident, the biggest of all cats with the weakest character - it must have been a trade off...

So there on the terrace, with Khamel lazily sleeping on a chair next to us and the corgis as footrests, we would begin our day. The southeasters, blowing strong at that time of the year, would only reach Constantia in the form of a nice breeze, gently brushing past the poplars of the nearby green belt in a long hush whisper. The green and steel-blue leaves would flicker above us and make the garden come alive. But even more alive, in the distance, would be the table cloth cloud, flirting with its mountain, caressing it gently while descending along the slopes, perfectly sharp white line against the immense blue sky.

We’d sip our coffee and dip the croissants, looking around, taking deep breaths, talking in a low voice about the day to come, planning a hike, a visit to a beach and penguins, a trip to the Karoo, an excursion into government land or lawyer practices, a scouting of antique jewelry stores, a shopping mission at Woolworths, a fabulous picnic watching the southern sun set, some lunch or dinner at one of many wonderful restaurants, an upcoming reception, or just un-planning life-changing events and joking softly about it...

And then the days would go by, as fast as scenery on a train. Never two alike, ever-changing, rhythmic, too fast. Punctuated by gorgeous lunches and sumptuous dinners. By noon champagne and late afternoon martinis and wine, always. By biltong and snoek pate. By power failures and the coughing of the generator. By flowers everywhere and custard cream on malfa pudding. By wild games with the dogs. By stories and by memories. By trips outside and trips backwards and inwards. And when the night came and doors were locked, and the house fell silent, we would go on, whispering about the day’s colors and smiles, about pictures in our heads and memories stored, muffling our laughs and already thinking about the next magical moment: breakfast on the terrace.

It was summertime by 33 degrees south latitude and 18 degrees east longitude, but on that day, a howling wind from the southeast sprayed the coastline with a winter coating. Sand flew, horizontal and abrasive, and the ocean was like an endless field of whitecaps, fluffy white flowers on a bed of blue grass. So the dogs played in the sand and had a blast while we got sand-blasted. But there was more in the air then just salt and sand. There was... something. And Cézanne would have loved the light.

And then there was fish & chips. The dogs got a chip each, but that’s a secret.

Picture the middle of nowhere. Then move away from it, slightly. Turn around and face sideways. Look behind you. Blink. Look again. You’re there. It’s Prince Albert, Karoo. South Africa.

A lonely main street lined with a few miserable shops and some restaurants. Tall trees recently chopped down to the size of tall cacti. An unforgettably dry golf course frying under an unforgiving sun.

You look for an internet cafe and are directed to this strange multipurpose store that serves bad coffee and supposedly good pies, sells souvenirs, is staffed by an exiled Peruvian and hosts the only public internet-equipped computer station in town, perched on the upper level of a large room where the warmest air is guaranteed to collect.

But then you find the Dennehof Guest House, hidden on a dirt road on the periphery of this odd oasis. You check in. Mimosas. Cypress trees. Prickly pears. It could be Provence. Your room is charming, occupying an small free-standing house that might have been a mill. It looks old and rustic. The outside walls are bleached. Inside, everything is warmly decorated and welcoming. You sit on the terrace and have a drink. You think, this is great. We have arrived. Two nights and two days of doing nothing, in the best company. You could get used to it.

Of course, doing nothing is not in your character. So the next day you decide to go on a 120 km dirt-road trip. And at 5:00 am you catch yourself swearing at a rooster. Still, what peace and quiet.

An interrupted white line rushes by me with a boring, hypnotic but fascinating rhythm. The trance is shallow, though, and easily broken by a change in speed or a nervous tick in the driver’s wrist which instantly bring me back to reality. Seven people is too many for a single bloody car, even a Honda van. I feel like a sardine in a can and can’t escape the dullness of our destination, a trade show in Seattle. We have agreed to declare at the border that we’re attending a simple reception in order to avoid paying the stupid annoyance tax. NAFTA my ass.

Upon getting there, we run a few errands - and yellow lights, pay visits - and parking, setup for the show and check into our respective hotel nests. Nearby Pike Place Market isn’t too busy but fish throwing never stops, to the great delight of passers by. Our show starts late in the afternoon and we smile and bow for over two hours, exchanging business cards and forced compliments, promoting the baker who puts bread on our respective tables, looking for extra butter, to ease things in. A crowd roams by, like seaweed carried by a strong tide, wandering about and wondering why they bothered. Oh yes, it was for the food. Which smells rather good to the right, but is left out of bounds for the hunters, who will get their treat later on at the Edgewater. For now, let the preys feast and let us pray they will fall. In our nets.

Then comes the call. It’s my fault because it’s my initiative. But caring knows no schedule. There’s no reason, that’s the reason. Time and distance are grinding away at the substance of life. The lights go down. The show is over, inside and out. I follow the herd to the cocktail, hunters only. There’s pizza and burgers and salad and beer and wine and beer and wine. And wine. Whining too, but in the best of spirits. The hunters can let go and arm the rifles, and shoot at empty space, and tell hunting stories. Booze flows, pizza keeps reappearing. Tongues get agile, mouths are big enough to accept feet, but nobody any longer cares. Cheeks are now bright and eyes shiny. Then those turn red, and slightly blurry.

I’ve paid my dues, time to escape. To retreat to the darkness and let it match my mood. They drive back, shame, they shouldn’t. I’ll walk. I need the fresh air and the neon lights and the sea breeze and the time alone with my thoughts. Camera across a shoulder, I follow the waterfront, taking the night in, eyes wide open but half turned to the east where sleep must have taken over and brought rest, if nothing else.

Neons, headlights, stoplights, my head is light, too. It must be the wine, or the whining. Gossip turned sour. It always happens at that time of the party. I take deep breaths to cleanse my mind. It starts to rain. I won’t be able to sleep, might as well have a coffee, after all this is Seattle. The warm cup in my hand feels like a lifeline, a compass and a map. It steers me towards the Vintage Park Hotel and away from the night. The streets are empty. I must have stayed out longer than I thought. Will it matter in the morning?

There’s another appointment, a last call of duty, to be fulfilled. We are to pay our sister tower a visit. The Space Needle is a big sister, humbling, impressive, like a splinter in our minds. So near and yet so far. No matter how far one has walked, there always seems to remain more distance ahead than lays behind. It must be one of those optical illusions.

Later, we hit the road again, after a ritual stop at Trader Joe’s to gather groceries and food for the soul. In my near future, across a few hundred kilometers, a border line and some traffic, towering over my day, is Voice Over IP, the skypescraper. It’s not that great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing, and it usually helps lachrymal glands, too.

Bad, moody pictures, hand-held, cheap lens, low light, high ISO, too much grain, it can’t always be HDR.

Sometimes, I talk too much. « Talk » as in « write », I mean. Learning to shut up (the keyboard) is my number two goal in life - number one being to master my hatred of ticks, of course. So I will try to shut up now, and ask you not to read but just to look. The pictures speak for themselves and the context has been blogged about very thoroughly on 66 Square Feet. Long, beautiful beaches, some waves, a hot day, a picnic, the best company. Peace.

...

Ok. That didn’t work. You see, between the time I wrote « Peace » and the moment I was going to start posting pictures, I started thinking about beaches. Wondering about them. About what makes them so special. And I began revisiting the beaches I’ve known, here and there, under different suns and at various latitudes. There really were so many but a few always come to mind first, winners of a mysterious contest of chemical and neurological associations...

For instance once upon a time, in the southeast of France, was La Salis beach. That was Antibes, Côte d’Azur... First and last and always an corner stone of my youth, la Salis was flanked by a beautiful little fishing harbour full of adorable pointus, typical Mediterranean open-deck fishing boats, and tucked right against le Cap d’Antibes which separates Antibes from Juan-les-Pins. East of Antibes, no other sandy beaches for a long way; pebbles take over and the water is rendered murkier by an exposed shoreline and the proximity of the Var river mouth. To the west, Juan has a famous beach, orangy sand and trendy waterfront. Then nothing but reddish rocks and cliffs until Cannes and the famous Croisette.

La Salis is where I learned to swim; at age 7, I took part in the Nice Matin-sponsored swimming event and got my Diplôme du jeune nageur for the kilometer swim in open water, starting from the largest of two patches of offshore rocks called la Grande Grenille. A zodiac would drive us to it so that we could swim back to the beach under escort, in breaststroke, peeking down once in a while at the blurrily unnerving blueish bed of see grass that lay some ten pristine meters below...

We spent pretty much every summer day at la Salis, after a 30 or 45 minutes walk from home. We’d cross our train track at la Badine, follow Avenue Foch to the sea, turn right and away from the old city, pass le Moulin des Pugets and its gigantic terracotta jars of olive oil, and eventually arrive at the rather crowded beach. We had our spot on the beach, right about in the middle, or maybe two thirds from the beginning, carefully chosen after close investigation and later returned to in the name of safety and familiarity - and because it was near the nicest of the three little food shacks that sold pan bagnas, mariettes, anis popcicles, Orangina and all kinds of candies. (It took years for Coke and Sprite to make it to the French market. Fanta was always there.) We would comb the beach in search of coins and other treasures in order to finance our expeditions to the shack.

The sea back then was still plentiful and, for lack of better knowledge, I admired my dad bringing back sea urchins which we cut open on the spot to eat the salty nail-size bite of orange matter inside, and octopy which he then had to flip inside out and beat to death on a rock to tenderize their flesh. My heart still bleeds at that thought and I have an unpaid, everlasting debt to the specie which I have tried to acquit partially by educating divers over many years of teaching diving. But the bottom line is, we just didn’t know any better. Just like today, still, many people and cultures don’t know any better and are jeopardizing the very survival of our planet.

Then followed so many others. I fell in love with the little beaches at the end of each of the coves in les Calanques de Cassis, near Marseille, where one could rest lazily after a morning of intense and spectacular rock climbing on the white limestone cliffs that plunged right into emerald waters. Then there were moody and foggy immense beaches on each side of the cold Atlantic Ocean, in Biarritz, France, Rockport, Mass. and Old Orchard, Maine. Later, it was the incredible little sandy pools surrounded by giant boulders in the Baths, Virgin Gorda. And the perfect stretches of pastel pinks and blues of San Salvador, Bahamas and Provo, Turks and Caicos or the magical shades of white to deep blue on the sand bar of the Tortuga Island, Venezuela. I had a thing for the black sand and powerful waves of a beach near Puerto Viejo, last village south on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, end of the dirt road, separated from Panama only by miles of impenetrable jungle. I walked for hours on an immense length of pure heat and sand on the Tangier waterfront only interrupted by the silhouettes of camels shimmering far away like mirages. I played rough on the crowded, windy urban beach of Noumea, New Caledonia and visited remote little pieces of sandy paradise near Gadji, Ile des Pins, in the same area. I was attracted by the all-too-famous beaches around the James Bond Rock in Thailand, overcrowded and touristic, yet so full of nostalgic memories and dramatic history. So to repent myself, I moved on to the isolated, untouched and simple Point of Sand on the eastern tip of Little Cayman...

So what made them all so special? Why do we feel different sitting on a beach? Is it the rhythmic, almost hypnotic sound of waves gently caressing it? Is it the comforting warm touch of the sand on our feet? Is it the shells, and the birds, and the ocean smell? Is it the constant temptation to jump in and swim to another world? How do we manage to block off the memories of jellyfish, tar, suntan lotion spread out on fat oily bodies, towels shaken and sand flying in our eyes, raging sunburn, scorching heat and maddening crowds?

Here’s my theory: we were once fish (hello Darwin)! We came out of the water. In all likeliness, we chose a beach to ease up the transition between such two radically different worlds. That’s where we became earthlings. That’s where we left weakness behind and turned into intelligent creatures (yeah, right.) It all happened on a beach. And deep inside, something in us remembers that. Always will. Now that I think of it, maybe we even learned our first lesson, right there on the sand, dripping wet and shedding gills as our lungs were formed. What lesson? The unavoidable fact that « It - just - doesn’t - bloody - matter! »

Back to South Africa. My most memorable beaches now lay near Cape Town and on the Garden Route. The charming company had everything to do with it. I am so incredibly biased. Here are a few examples of why.

Cape Town could be Vancouver’s long lost sister. Separated at birth, they would have grown independently, unaware of each other yet obeying instincts far greater than just their own. They both are tucked in the most intricate way between mountain and ocean. A ride through town is a threat to the neck as eyes are drawn in all directions, each vista rivaling the next.

Like Vancouver, Cape Town is a scene in which many micro-climates compete to surprise you. Strong winds from the ocean collide with the ever-present Table Mountain, forming a strange orographic cloud affectionately called the « table cloth » which rolls down the opposite slope. No matter where you stand in the city, the Table thrones somewhere in the landscape, civilization having surrounded it like a river flowing around a rock.

But there is much more to Cape Town than just a mountain. There are immense sandy beaches, giant surfing waves and windy sand dunes. There are immense cliffs of reddish rock, and baboons roaming them freely. The vegetation is amazingly diverse, ranging from typically Mediterranean plants to rare orchids and tropical species. Weather wise, your choices range from nice to stunning. Food is awesome, international, cheap. Do I sound like a bad tourist guide yet?

But of course, I didn’t go witness the shanty towns. Visits are organized every day, and the stink of it is that in the end, locals benefit from the foreign attention and even maybe from the direct impact of such visits. I don’t know. As fascinating as other people’s poverty might be, my voyeuristic instincts were tamed by so much beautiful natural scenery and I was happy not having to deal with my conscience. The South East Asia lesson is not forgotten.

So this post is about beauty, and may the less fortunate forgive me. It’s easy to record beauty when you are surrounded by it, much less when you can only find it inside of your bleeding heart and everything around you screams of ugliness. This being said, I have seen pictures of the shanty towns that reflect surprising cockiness and even good taste in the middle of all the chaos, once again proof that beauty starts inside and is very much about contrast.

Some other trip, maybe.

There’s something to be said for road trips - small adventures within a larger one, little lives of their own, precious and forever remembered like each kiss of a love story. They are my favorite way to travel. I enjoy the absolute freedom, bordering anarchy, the long, cozy hours at the wheel, rocked gently by the rhythm of speed and hypnotized by the flickering of passing poles and changing scenery. I crave the symbiotic relationship established with the road, becoming part of the landscape, playing an active role in the moment, scanning far ahead for hidden danger, exchanging courtesies with other drivers. I long the humming of the wind and the courageous purring of the engine, and a radio sometimes, playing nostalgic melodies as asphalt stretches back and forth to infinity. I miss the curious and enthusiastic conversations and the silences that follow, as one searches inside for echoes to what the eyes perceive and the mind instantly transforms. And then there are the stops. Like as many camp nights on an Everest ascent, like a ship’s layovers on strange islands, they become a time to reflect and explore and try to understand differences, and draw parallels. They are the calm before the storm, or they might be the storm itself. A chance to exercise sore muscles, and unpack, and establish a very temporary residence. A challenge to unfold an immaterial white flag and approach indigenous populations. Stopping means having time to breathe deep, listening closer for the heartbeat of a community, for the sounds of a different life, for the murmurs of nature. It’s becoming an ambassador and at times engaging in duels. Everything in a road trip revolves around discovery, of one’s self if nothing else. And just as we never come out of such an ordeal unchanged, we end up leaving little bits of our own heart behind, minuscule invisible footprints that forever contribute to the spirit of a place. The question is: our those footprints as beautiful as they can be?

[All picture captions © MarieBokkie™]