Today there are two photo challenges that I can meet with one photo: the weekly WordPress challenge to find a Happy photo, and Ailsa’s challenge to show animal photos. She has posted some excellent animal snaps to celebrate World Animal Day on 4th October: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/10/05/travel-theme-animals/
My picture does for both challenges. It comes from an album of WWII photos that my father brought home in 1941. Beneath this one he wrote ‘Syrian Bint’. The dictionary tells me that ‘bint’ is colloquial and perhaps offensive, but then, its origin is Arabic, meaning girl or daughter. So I’ll leave it as it is.
I’ve been reluctant to respond to the theme of ‘mine’ – it struck me as a request to show how self-centred and unsharing we can be sometimes. However, I’ve just realised that I have something I’m pleased to call ‘mine’ because I’ve been using a borrowed one for 15 months. I don’t need to hang onto it very tightly: it’s one of those things that no one else would ever want!
In June last year I began working on the translation of a story, reading from a library book which I was the first to borrow since the 1980s. The story was so good that I soon tried to buy my own copy. But it’s such a peculiar title and edition that my worldwide search turned up nothing. Until 2 weeks ago. I was reminded that persistence pays.
Here’s the library book I’ve been using, printed in 1980:
‘Un Hiver à Majorque’ in ‘Oeuvres Complètes’, George Sand, printed 1980
And here’s ‘mine’, the edition which rewarded my relentless searching. It came from a bookshop in Geneva complete with an old folded 1920 invoice between its pages. I was thrilled to find that the book is the original of the library version, meaning the page numbers are the same and I don’t have to rearrange my notes.
‘Un Hiver à Majorque’ and ‘Spiridion’, George Sand, printed 1867
My book is so fragile that page shards are appearing on every surface where I work with it. But it’s mine and I don’t have to return it to a library. Every one of its readers from the past 145 years is inspiring me as I translate its words for a new century of readers.
I have no idea what season it is in my photo (or rather, my father’s photo), but I’m guessing that in this boy’s part of the world it’s always warm enough to climb a tree. In bare feet! The photo suits not so much a foliage theme as a trunk theme. But if the boy climbs for long enough he’ll get to the foliage and more importantly to the dates.
20th Sep – Looked at a lagoon and a lizard on a log.
Frill-necked lizard, Korora Bay, NSW
21st Sep – Saw four dead gum trees on the clifftop boardwalk in front of a mansion with million-dollar views. A huge Council sign says: “These trees have been POISONED”.
22nd Sep – After 14 months of searching for an out-of-print book, I’ve obtained an 1867 edition, its spine broken, back cover torn, but entire.
23rd Sep – Heard on a documentary that enough sunlight falls on Australia in two days to power the whole world for a year.
24th Sep – An author sent me a manuscript to read and is eager to know if I’ll translate it. Oh yeah!
Another photo from my father’s war album. Table Mountain in Cape Town looks like a good place to be solitary (unless you’re with troops on their way to war).
This nurse wears the military uniform of Queensland nurses who joined up in 1940 and 1941 to accompany troops to the Middle East. I don’t know her name but I hope someone sees the photo some day and recognises her.
My father praised the nurses in his poetry. And when he returned home and married my mother, he wanted their first child, my sister, to be named after a particular nurse who had cared for him in the army hospital in Kantara near Cairo.
Some people, she says, observe a minute’s silence at midday, but that time has already passed for me. It’s just after two in the afternoon and I’ve just received her email. Still, I can observe it with my photo of two white figures on the steps of a white church, Le Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, in Paris. As I stood watching this scene (2 years ago), it was mid-morning mid-week which confused me when I saw the bride. She posed for so many shots that I wondered if she were modelling. If she had indeed just been married, then her husband must have been a very patient man.
The other figure that looks like a white statue isn’t. He’s another very patient man.
10th Sep – Early in the afternoon, went to a beach where there were 4 people on the sand and 3 in the water. Late in the afternoon, went to a Point recommended for its sunset, where 4 people were watching it and 3 were gutting fish.
Zenith Beach, Port Stephens, NSW. The figure on the sand is me.Sunset, Soldiers Point, Port Stephens, NSW. The figure on the rocks is a stranger.
11 Sep – In a park, beside a sign declaring it an alcohol-free zone, a group of people were drinking tallies under an old fig tree.
12 Sep – Currently reading or listening to 4 novels: The Brothers Karamazov; The Pickwick Papers; Spiridion; Le Bouclier rouge. Sometimes I confuse the plots.
13 Sep – Had coffee in a converted church called ‘The Flying Nun’. The woman behind the counter looked like a man and the man looked like a woman.
14 Sep – On a small truck with ‘Outback Queensland’ plates: Bugger this. I’m goin piggin.
Ailsa has been checking out textures during her road travels: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/09/14/travel-theme-texture/ She’s asking us to show some textures from our own travels. I thought of the bubble texture on these beach rocks at Apollo Bay in Victoria:
Everyday life for a soldier in Egypt in 1941 included some pretty unpostable activities: rifle practice, wrecking tanks, sinking ships, covering the bodies of dead comrades in the desert. However, the activity in this photo looks fairly harmless. My father captioned it ‘Shufty’, which comes from an Arabic word for ‘a look’, as in ‘take a shufty at this’.
Three curious things I’ve considered: What are the tubular projections behind the men? What is the Egyptian boy doing? Why is one man naked while all others are clothed?
One hot October afternoon I ate ice cream in this café because I liked the red awning (red is my favourite colour). On the left, a waitress is clearing a table. It was mine.
Of course, you’ve seen part of this photo before. It’s my header.
