Sometimes, New Mexico happens.
How can one contain so many other people, so many other lives—broken memories from another mind? These characters and their experiences don’t belong to me, they never did. Rather, they exist within me, all waiting for that epic release. For their solidification. Confirmation. –And freedom from a host whose own existence flirts between that of the tangible and the transitory.
Coming to Africa, I expected to find that tangible self, the person behind the reflection in the mirror. I wanted to plunge my fingers deep into the murky plasma of my soul, resurface and with a shout, raise the proof of my being to the sun burnt sky. But instead, I simply found another image of myself. A calmer self. A more patient and reflective self. Someone who could be satisfied with a day filled only with a few meals and a long nap. For within all the chaos of West African life, in between the constant scuffle and heady scents of the streets, the calls of “Pure water, pure, pure, pure, pure!” and the raging, unseen heat that causes cement walls to drip with perspiration…there is stillness to be found. A silence that can only be heard when one fully submits to the pull of this culture’s vibrancy, to its life force.
The exhalation ends with the barter for more gasps to come.
Sometimes these pockets come up short.
Sometimes, they’re filled to the brim.
Taken in Accra, Ghana after probably one of the most emotionally distressing days during my 6 months there.
Things don’t seem quite so black and white anymore but I’m honestly starting to miss that understanding I had of the world. It would make things so much easier.
This is my little sister. She is gorgeous, determined and my best friend. I don’t know where I would be without her, or any of my friends and family for that matter. I’m happy because I will be seeing all of them very, very soon.
30 days.
Sometimes I feel like my life is only a rapid succession of photograph stills, a trick of the eye that forces movement out of the stationary. If possible, I would lay all these snapshots out and predict my future based upon the general direction the subjects appear to be going. If only.
Underneath Brighton Pier, Brighton, UK
My name is Kristina and I have been serially depressed since I was 9 years old.
Serial depression is a vulgar thing. It taints even the best intentions of its victims, bringing them to their knees when all they tried to do was stand. It’s something which I’ve tried again and again to accommodate but every time I suggest mediation, it slaughters the therapist and I’m charged for 10 visits instead of 1. I’ve tried inviting it over for dinner, a little wine, maybe a documentary—but all that remained the next morning was a hangover and a single wine glass.
Yet when it leaves me, like a cruel ex-lover, my resentment softens over time. I forget that after he mindfucked me and then turned around to announce in his grand exit that “the only thing I can do is to try to not care about you anymore”, my chest tightened like a balloon and I couldn’t breath for weeks. I forget the agony of coming to after an untrue dream, the numbness of the day and the sweet relief of sleep. I forget the temptation of a dark and quiet closet, away from the task of waking up, away from the task of keeping my eyes open. And because I forget, its reappearance in my life is always traumatizing.
When depression is in, I can’t take your phone calls cause it’s holding up the line. I don’t take pictures not because my heart isn’t in it but because depression has rendered my camera useless by chucking the batteries. When depression is in, all my focus is out. And yet when it is gone, it always finds its way back in.
Over the years, I’ve noticed patterns when it’s around. My need to leave. To escape. To go. And while it provides a temporary relief, it is only but a quick distraction. A moving target which is immediately captured upon rest. But maybe, like a strained relationship, it needs to be confronted directly.
Maybe it needs me to not need it.
market. san francisco. blue. voluntourism. bruises. togo. bitter lemon. coral. ouidah. vodou. motorcycle. gasoline. peace corps. hurt. other woman. snap. switch. blue. bay. gaining. remnant. melancholy. missing. dreams. plans. go. memory. removal. blue and gold. love. leaving. here and there. break. ghana. loose. ache. missing. dreams. plans…
