I’ll save you the time: I don’t have a great answer to this because this entire year has had me trying to answer this. Self care has been a game of trial and error in that things I thought made me feel safe and taken care of, did not. For example, I definitely thought my quarantine days were going to be endless bubble baths and reading all the books I’ve neglected to read- instead I became a butter-churning, bread baking, maniac in the same way that seemingly everyone else had become. I wondered- do I genuinely like this or is this seemingly large scale group activity that we all are taking part in offer me, on some subconscious level, the feeling of solidarity and togetherness that I was craving? What actually makes me feel connected to other people even when they aren’t nearby?
To be honest, I don’t think it was the bread. You’ll notice there aren’t any images in the following photo dump of any loaves of bread, Bethany (my sourdough starter whomst I have since accidentally murdered), or even fancy images of my fancy butter (that I will say– I’ll probably keep making. Real butter, man- it’s a game changer). I thought maybe group Zoom calls would help- but the lag and Brady-Bunch-style conversation and entire loss of the details in face-to-face interaction just widened the gap. I had a paper-mache phase, a deep cleaning everysingleday phase, an embroidery phase.
Then I came back to my photo phase. My sweet, unassuming Minolta XG-1 –just chillin on display next to some more vintage cameras that have survived many moves– sitting and awaiting. A little light turned on and I purchased an irresponsible amount of film, signed up for a zoom course offered by Dark Room Detroit on black and white film development, dusted off an ancient light meter, bought some new batteries. My Minolta had some exposed frames already loaded in there that I, quite honestly, had forgotten about- I’d estimate the pre-existing film to be roughly 8-ish years old.
Here’s what happened, below. They aren’t well exposed or particularly well focused. In fact, this is a load of images that I don’t know that I even need to be posting on here for any other reason than the sheer fact that they brought me some real, honest to goodness joy. The anxious daily deep cleans and bread kneading and pacing around turned into a slowing down, a soft focus and thinking about the literal moment in front of me. For a brief, brief moment there was a distinct feeling of reprieve. I felt connected again.