What shall I jot down today? I was thinking of going outside, to the rush-edged ponds near the house, just before sunrise for an hour to see what develops. But it’s an uninspiring morning; dull, flat and gray. Windless, at least, but no sun visible through the clouds at all as I type. No ice to fascinate my camera; it’s a little too warm for that, though one can hope for just a few degrees below freezing before winter bleeds into spring. I do want to sit and wait at one of the ponds to see if a moorhen, or whatever they are, will emerge, instead of flying off in a panic when I approach too suddenly. But in better weather, I think.
A look back on the past 12 months’ personal highs and lows, traditional at year’s start. I don’t feel like patting myself on the back, or commiserating with said self either.
I HAVE been getting ready for tomorrow’s talk at Fotografia Gallery, just below the Opera House off Rustaveli. I stumbled across it while ambling through the neighborhood, went in, met the manager, and we struck off a fine friendship. Definitely watch this space for more news on that front: it’ll become quite active. Writing the talk (called How I Learned to See), pen on paper; rearranging the paragraphs with numbers; separately listing sets of example photographs to illustrate the various sub-themes. Ending up with far too many images, then having to weed out the similar or unsuitable ones, hopefully to leave the best. I won’t have trouble filling the requested 20 minutes at all; on the contrary. Good things afoot there.
I’ve been writing since before I started school, and even have a piece here with me from Grade 1 Composition, when I was six, in Rhodesia. Highly derivative of what I was reading at the time, but also somehow partly me. TV, absent at home until I was 10, was completely unable to steal my attention away from BOOKS, which we had aplenty. Except for occasional visits to TV-possessing friends’ houses for The Six Million Dollar Man, the dread box would have to wait. Good absence.
Creative and other hopes for the coming year? These do include the aforementioned gallery relationship; a “quarter-century in Georgia” retrospective; trying to stay positive, joyful even, in a world not at all getting more conducive to such. Wanting to be a better believer, husband, friend, artist in the various media I use. Hoping for Svaneti not to get more violent, and for Georgia to find her way. Wanting further to synchronize the creative streams I have (especially literary and visual), to see them move into more of a self-nourishing feedback loop.
But how to find an IMAGE, or a few, to illustrate all this waffly rambling in a concrete or abstract way? Something from my admittedly beyond-vast collection of shots from the last 46 years, or something just dreamed up now? Wait, I have it. I’ll fling the fine coffee grounds from the bottom of my mug (usually in hand when I write) into the sink; see what chaos remains in the bottom of the mug; add a pen to link back to writing; and take a few detail shots with my phone camera. Done. Upload them to Google Drive while I give this piece a second look-through; then I can download them onto my laptop and attach them to my email to the Editor.
Okay, I’ve finished describing a few nothings or almost nothings. I’m sure real inspiration will hit in time for next week, when I’ll have something much more concrete to deSCRIBE than all this fluff. That’s X minutes of your life you can lever get back, dear reader. Forgive me… and either abandon me in disgust, or dare to hope for better from me in the near future. I’ll stop now.
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
