In 1992, as an art student in Boston, living my dream as it were, I started therapy because it was free and right near my studio. A random and life-changing decision. This would not be the invasive family therapy I endured growing up; it would be in the context of young adulthood, operating within my own developing boundaries. Unfortunately it led to two years of severe depression while I unpacked my childhood. During this time, when "I was supposed to be having the time of my life" (a quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar), and before the internet, I sought out from libraries artists and writers who's work would speak to what I was feeling. I read The Bell Jar twice, back to back. During an outing with a friend she questioned this decision sardonically, “Isn’t that making you more depressed.” No, it did not. Plath’s voice was the comfort of understanding that I could not find anywhere else. Sometimes I carried the book with me like an adult lovey. And while those two years were extremely difficult I did make the best art of my life.
Before the election results on Tuesday evening, I went out into the city I love, New York. I wanted to give myself an afternoon free of outside noise. I wanted to connect with community in-person. I went to galleries, I walked, I ate at my favorite place, and I took photos. Some of the images are peppered throughout.
Then the results came in.
I like to oversimplify to problem solve. It’s less time-consuming, removes myself from the negative, and gets things done. By that means, there are what I think of as bad moments that are temporary and bad moments that have no clear resolution. The first are easier to navigate because I can keep telling myself they will end, like the six-month period I endured 13 dentist appointments; or when I didn’t make it to a bathroom in time and shit myself before teaching a yoga class; the exactly forty times I've moved; going to Ikea returns on a Saturday; pulling my phone out of my pocket, losing the grip, and inadvertently tossing it towards my feet so that I could perfectly punt my phone down the sidewalk like an offside kick; white-knuckle driving to Aspen, Colorado, through a snowstorm in the middle of the night after waiting out a dust storm in Kansas all day; not realizing an inside-out sweatshirt is just fuzzy enough to accidentally light myself on fire while welding steel back in my art school days; and all those gross, slow-healing, chin and nose blemishes that made me feel embarrassed and insecure.
I survived because somewhere in those bad moments I knew they would end. And it’s a privilege to know that bad moments will end.
Then there are the bad moments without a clear end that I struggled through, like health scares and being arrested. Those bad moments that I had to carry with me every day. This election is one of them. This is the hardest part for me to process, that the worst moment might not have been the results. There is a possible future that could be worse than this bad moment. We’ve been here before and we know, or we’re familiar with history and we know, or we’ve experienced something similar, not through photos or books, but through the handing down of stories and the broken histories of family trees, and we know. Part of knowing is a burden, because we’ll have to carry this knowing with us while we try to continue our beautiful lives, carry it with us while bearing witness to other lives changing, or carry it with us while our lives too change. This bad moment does not have a clear end.
When I think about how I am going to carry this possibly endless bad moment with me forward, I want purpose. Plath’s talent as a writer was a lifeline to me during those two years. I am yoga teacher and we hold the space for our students, and I am a writer and artist and we reflect the truth. Those are my roles and how I feel I can be helpful. Find yours, stay connected, take photos of the things that inspire and move you.
Sharing our voices, keeping our hopes, dreams, and desires for an equal, safe, and negative free society, will help sustain all of us. Especially now.
