So, I leave for New York tomorrow. I’ll be back Monday. It was sort of last minute, in the sense that I knew two months ago that I would probably have to go, but I didn’t want to think about it so soon after getting back from Greece. The very idea of getting on a plane tomorrow is…exhausting. So I’m not thinking about that part of it, just scurrying to make sure I have what I need.
I’m going to attend the winter residency in Brooklyn of Transart Institute. I’m bringing with me a careful selection of the photographs I took over the last year while documenting my mom’s journey with cancer and subsequent death in July, as well as some of my related writings from this site and my offline journal (otherwise known as “Whatever scrap of paper or notebook was handy at the time, in no particular order”). I’m not sure who I’ll be sharing it with, just yet – I have an itinerary, but I’m not sure what my role is – applicant or student. So I don’t know if I’m bringing these materials to show to an advisor or share with other students.
Either way, I’m confident in the work. I wrote about this earlier on this site, but it took me a few months to be able to even look at those photos, let alone work on them and look at them critically, and my overall feeling is simply that I’m glad I did it. I’m proud of the work for a variety of reasons. I look at it now, and I can see the difference between the story in those photos and the story I actually lived. I like the perspective it gives me on a tragic and difficult situation. I am proud of myself because the camera wasn’t a tool I used to distance myself from what was going on, but in fact, another way in which I tried to reach inside the situation and understand it from another view. It helped me be present and aware of how painfully real and beautiful things were.
I’ve always wanted to see New York.