Restaurant Window Peeps, 2020

Taken back in the early days of lockdown when even a dog walk seemed like high risk behavior.  streets here were empty and silent and my headspace was holding both grief and euphoria all at once. Achilles Heel is a bar-restaurant I walked by every day but had never been inside. So on one these desolate walks, I pressed my phone's camera up to the dusty darkened window and set it to take the longest exposure. The image slowly and dramatically illuminated on the screen and I gasped.  it revealed this time capsule of a world interrupted, almost vulnerably personal and yet public facing. I felt an immediate connection and empathy (resonance) as it seemed to mirror what happened to my life in prior years. Empty chairs holding space for lost friends, family and community. THere were Vestiges of lives upended, paused indefinitely, basic life expectations dashed.  But at the same time the stillness offered a generous revision stage, a thrilling void waiting to be filled. the entire world was reflecting back my internal liminal state. With All of us in isolation, the fact that we, as a world, function as one organism, our interconnectivity was more visible than ever before. Mesmerized, I began carefully slipping my phone behind shutters and gates all around the neighborhood, and later worked my way into the city as things/I/we opened up.  There was this feeling of epic privilege, of being able to witness raw nature take its course. Often the images appeared almost to be perfectly staged vignettes. I was elated to be looking at all the details of these beautifully curated spaces. It was as if I’d never truly been in such places in all my life, somehow only with a glass barrier between us could I be so present within them.  

In Parallel to what the world was now experiencing, I myself had only recently begun to emerge from a long period of chronic illness. I'd been given diagnoses of a collection of conditions including a hereditary case of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Doctors expectations were that it would only get worse. Portfolio reviews were replaced with shopping a thick accordion file of test results and case history from one healer to another, years of my thirties were spent essentially housebound and isolated. and then, by what felt like magic but is called Mind Body Medicine, I reversed my physical condition... WITH MY THOUGHTS.

The world literally shimmered from the joy of getting my life back. But it was not without significant loss. Simplistically, In order to live as your most authentic thriving self you have to release the ingrained habit of living in dis-ease, which requires internal shifts often at a foundational level. For me, this process had external effects, involving leaving a marriage and moving back to my chosen home across the country, which i did just after New Years in 2020. A complete halt and revision to the plan. A synchronistic cosmic play, a ripple effect on Interior spaces caught in the chaos of transition between inhabitants. Grief + elation all at once. Leaving one state and arriving in another.

Returning, as we've all experienced this to some extent this year, was a gift of renewed appreciation for things once taken for granted.

One of the most exciting steps in my healing journey was being able to eat with other people. Extensive dietary sensitivities kept me from enjoying social meals for many years. It forced me to learn how basic this component is to wellness; the capacity to nourish oneself physically and emotionally involves being connected to other people.The disease and isolation conundrum that had been my private lifeexperience now echoed as a collective one.

I proclaimed at one point while taking these photos, "when it's legal for us to eat in these spaces again, I am going to be healthy enough to do so". And I was. And I have!  That internal thought became physical reality.

These photos serve not only as a historical record of this moment in time but of a transition in the way we are experiencing the world. They show the blurring of the dialectical schism between internal and external spaces, between positive and negative valuations. We are deconstructing the division we've built between the individual and the collective experience.