Field Notes From the River
And Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father, and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. — Genesis 26:18
There is a particular kind of work that looks like looking backwards but is not. It is standing at the edge of what is known and reading the soil for signs of water. It is digging again the wells that were stopped up, and calling things by their right names.
Field Notes from the River is a serialised family history and the lines that connect them to the present. It is built from records, photographs, and the gaps between them. Some of what is here is documented. Some of it is reconstructed from what the documents refuse to say. All of it is true.
Not all of it looks backwards. I write as a sojourner — someone who passes through places rather than belongs to them, and whose work is to witness. Field Notes from the Road is its present tense: where I photograph, and why I keep going. It is the same digging. Only the tense changes.
Room to Worship
The last of the journey: a stranger's faith big enough to cover ours, a Sabbath kept with a small branch in Shkodër, an evening in Tirana, and the road that finally led home.
Down From the Mountain
Down from the mountains and across the plains to the old Ottoman bridge over a dry river, then into Shkodër in a downpour that soaked me to the skin. The descent, and the last of the road alone.
Cloud by Day, Fire by Night
Fire in the night, cloud in the morning. On my last day in Theth I woke to a storm-washed valley, walked down to the broken bridge Victor had warned me of, and said a goodbye I wasn't ready for.
Altar of Stone
A last full day in the valley: the stone chapel, the sheep and the land that bind Theth together, an old man's music by a fence, and a final supper of lamb before the mountain let me go.
Living Water
The first evening in Theth: golden light on the Accursed Mountains, spring water alive on the tongue, and a scent in the dark I couldn't explain.
