As Long As It Lasts

I spend my time thinking about time itself. The quotidian moments; small gestures, beloved objects, shifting domestic light, safe spaces, and sporadic charged moments occupying my mind’s eye, defining my “here and now.” I worry about it all moving too fast.  It's regretfully pleasant thinking about how all of my worst days aren’t so dire anymore and how some of my best days are just faded memories now. I always assumed that when I remembered my past I would see clear knowable faces and important landmarks, but my memory, and my lens, has proven otherwise. Sure, some of that exists but it’s more about the “essence” of those people and places; their spirit

Our bodies are living proof of this. It is a vessel for everything we have been through while existing. An ode to resiliency and a canvas that has been altered by experience. Memories are scars, thoughts are goosebumps, and a bruise is a reminder. The greater troubles leave scars. The smaller, and in no way insignificant, leave without a trace. We can wash ourselves clean of dirt, bruises change color then fade, smoke disperses into air around us, and torn jeans find themselves mended. The act of making photographs allows me to seize those moments, pin them down, and hold time open. .   

I want it all to last. I will miss these days that currently overwhelm me. As a young person, I’ve been promised by my elders that “These are the best years of your life.” Well, to my surprise, I think it might be true. 

Thinking about memories fading has created an unsettling urgency inside of me to suspend time, yet I know that each chapter of my life has been beautifully and unexpectedly transformative. These photographs, these slivers of passage, remind me that that version of my life no longer exists. But they are also testaments of the things to come, the me to come.  Every photograph is, at once, my past, my present, and my future.