Last week I was reminded about the emotional pull that a picture can have. On a trip to London’s National Gallery, my dashing date and tour guide reacquainted me with Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ. As we entered the room with the painting front and centre, a wave of … well, I don’t know what it was, nostalgia I guess … whomped me. 

It's been 17 years since I first learned In Flanders Fields by heart. A chorus of 13 year old girls dutifully reciting; children who had never known war or conflict, who were far more concerned with gossiping about boys than the stories of a war long past. But here I am so many years later, on a different continent, at the place it all happened. 
And unexpectedly, I am in tears. It starts with Atatürk's message. 

Göreme at 6am is still. There's a slight chill, but no wind. The light filters through the sky, inky black softening around us as we stand on the roof of our hotel. At first you can just make out a few of the little clusters, black rounded shadows, dotted around the the outskirts of the town. But then as your eyes adjust to the light, you see more groups surrounding the town and out into the distance. Now and then, you see a burst of colour, a glow in the darkness as one of them is filled with burning gas.