Going There (2020)
The last few days I've been exploring my archives - something I've done many, many times for clues of who I am and who I was. Revisiting the origins of my photography: the first times I got a roll of film back and realized how I captured something so beautiful and special. Chefs Kisses. Muah muah muah.
Recently I've focused more on the photos I took from 2020-2023, many of them unshared. Those years I see only images of myself where I felt ugly. Where I tried to create the illusion that I was beautiful, I tried to prove to myself that I wasn't ugly. It failed each time. The change in my appearance did not surprise me. From March 2020 onward, I became extremely reliant (shamefully so) on Uber Eats. At the time I didn't know that I was reacting to isolation and fear the only way I knew how: binge eating, sleeping as much as fucking possible, smoking weed, pulling further away from my friendships, from myself. Limiting and cutting myself off from the potential of joy. I remember feeling in the first year how pointless it felt to call anyone and to have a conversation where we catch up with each other. I didn't feel worthy of connection, of joy. I couldn't muster the energy to even try.
Each day felt monotonous, eerie, quiet, slow. My point of view stalled, frozen. For the first time in my life I had stopped. And I liked it. Since I was 14, I was documenting a lot of my life through my camera and journal. It started out passionately; but by age 27 a lot of my photography came from a self-enforced obligation to create more "content". I posted my work online consistently. From Piczo to Livejournal to Myspace to Facebook to Instagram to my own Website. I wanted people to think of me and my name when they thought of a photographer. The more people that saw my work, the better. Keep shooting, keep posting. Shoot. Post. Shoot. Post. It felt so good to clear my mind of that "obligation" and to instead, rest.
So, of course: there were positives. I appreciated the break, the silence. On those first little neighbourhood walks where we had no destination, the journey became one where we admired flowers and old houses. It felt lovely to notice these things. I lived in Little Portugal in a fairly lively spot and seeing the sun rise on my left and set to my right, painting the pavement along the way with little interruption from cars or pedestrians. Paint yellow, turn off the light, repeat. Rise, set. *~Small whistle of wind blows through your city and bones, eerily~*
My belly swelled from endless bowls of pasta and a shameless supply of treats. What am I? Someone who denies myself treats while also being depressed? No. I refused to deny myself pleasure through food. Getting stoned helped me relax and laugh a lot more than usual to "Unhhhhhh" on Youtube. When I held my phone (so stoned) I would scroll and type and it created this delicious sensation in my body that made my hands feel incredibly light, almost floating. You know that trick where you take 30-60 seconds pushing your lowered hands against a doorframe, and when you release, how your arms float up? That's how it felt. It was like soft clay. Play-doh with no crinkles. A bubble around my little phone - my one connection to community. I craved those layers of pleasure every day: food, comedy, weed, phone (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, repeat). What I didn't know at that time is how (much more) radicalized I would be on this side of the pandemic (2025).
......To be continued!!
Love you lots,
Al
PS: Post dedicated to my new witchy pal Amy ♥
