The tension between slowing down and keeping up the fight; between becoming useful and being left the hell alone; between caring less and caring so much more. That’s what how this feels. Like springtime in Seattle: the tension between two fronts.
There’s a season for all things; a time for expansion and a time for contraction; a time for exploration and a time to make up your mind; a time to think and a time to act. That’s how this feels. Like an inflection point. A nonlinear timeline in the upper-left corner.
A friend asked me that on Saturday, before heading down to the big rally.
“Yes.”
Later, over lunch, I caught a quiver in my voice as I told another friend how I was feeling about bringing my whole self into certain spaces; how I didn’t trust those spaces with that wholeness.
Not that this is anything wholly new, and yet, the stakes feel like they’re getting higher just as the spaces keep getting narrower.
I tell myself I’m skilling up. My body responds with anxiety.
Coming back to the same themes and spaces again and again; I used to hate that. I used to find that uninspired. But now it feels appropriate. It feels tender and full of meaning. Because nothing is ever the same way twice. Not those places, nor how we see them. Or maybe that’s just how it feels as our lives get smaller.
Expired film often makes for ghostly images, and this feeling comes through more acutely on this roll. I wanted to show dad around and ended up pausing for the quiet moments that I wouldn’t normally think to capture. This combination of chemistry and intent led to some impressionistic frames, some barely perceptible like faint markings on a burial shroud.
I think that not knowing that this roll was black and white helped. I was drawn to bright, springtime scenes, but only caught their shadow. There’s a point along the mourning road where those two have to meet, somewhere on the corner of joy and sorrow, at the intersection of hope and finality. That’s what I see in these fragile frames.