Kin and Kindling

| September 23, 2018

…each day It’s about loss…a familiar theme to the tracks of war…along the fields, the woods, the towns. Too many memorials…nearly one per town…too many headstones…row on row… too many lives…so many /so few memories. Rust, blood and petals. Repeatedly I remind myself that my visits to this peace were once the chaos of another’s […]

…and now we have been

| August 19, 2018

Thread Fourteen …and now we have been…and we have returned. The landscapes of France and Flanders…London…have offered of themselves…their connections to us. We have rediscovered, found, observed and, above all, we have become connected. In finding the threads between the thimbles and needles we have bore witness the fabric of history…perhaps patchwork…but ours for all […]

Mrs. Kate Palmer’s Walk

| August 11, 2018

Thread Seven 1922 – Kate Palmer of Victoria, B.C. journeyed to Belgium to visit her son’s grave at Woods Military Cemetery, south of Ypres. Today, 11 August 2018, we retrace Mrs. Palmer’s path and decide to walk from Ypres to the grave-site of Roy Palmer, located some five miles south of the city. It is […]

Upon the Ramparts

| August 10, 2018

Thread Six Each day is a search. Wandering, watching and wondering, with each step, what will appear before us. Some days the image stands out from our first encounter, lingers for the day unless its place is taken by the next special encounter. Words come occasionally at awkward times necessitating notes in an archaic script […]

The Crunch and the Silence

| August 9, 2018

Thread Five The steady crunch of loose gravel beneath our feet announces our arrival to the names recorded here. As we move across from stone to grass the silence is heartfelt…it is respect. A mist upon the horizon, silhouettes at the Stone of Remembrance…the shock of looking upon the Thiepval Memorial for the first time. […]