Searching for the Light
2020-I remember going on walks in my head on the nights where I hoped that I would not wake. I would walk around vacant towns and empty streets in a world I created for myself. As a response to trauma, I left the present for this world during a period where I was not allowed to leave my home. At times, I would end up sitting on ledges only to see the view of looking down and beyond. There was always this soft glow to the lights in my world; something I had never experienced in the outside world.
When I was sixteen, these walks started happening in real life. My mom had been battling cancer for almost ten years, and in that summer I became too familiar with hospitals. I learned during winter that treatments stopped working. It became terminal and her time in our presence was limited. Soon a camera and the night sky became my company on these walks. They allowed me space to breathe. Space to process.
After her passing, the walks became habitual. I learned that I was able to recreate the light and scenes from my head. It resulted in an archive of places that could not exist tangentially; an archive of emotions and time. Time in relation to light that we could never see with our own eyes. The walks still occur today—with or without a camera— when I need space to process. Occurring at hours of the night where time no longer exists linearly. I hope that through these scenes you are able to find yourself walking through a part of my dreamlike world.