What did I want to tell you this morning? Ah, it was about the time my therapist said to stop chasing after moments. I had never been to a therapist before, but knew I needed someone’s help to piece me back together after an atomic disruption of a relationship that never should have happened in the first place. For a relationship that had no passion, that one ended in a lot of trauma.
Anyway, I have always loved the anonymity of travel. The ability to disappear into a city where no one knows you, has any expectations of you, any desires of you. Where people who know you, who want something from you, they can’t reach you, and so for a moment, you are utterly and completely free. And so that’s what I was doing. I had a ticket to Montreal, because I wanted to get somewhere where I couldn’t understand the language, and that’s as far as my finances could take me.
So my therapist said, “Carolyn. Go find a cafe, and I want you to sit. Take your camera, and just sit there. Look at people. Be in the moment instead of chasing after it all the time.”
That was over 20 years ago.
I remembered this, because I have this blank bulletin board outside my office, and I knew I wanted to turn it into something that was interactive, instead of your typical space for announcements. So I decided it was going to be an art exchange, similar to one that was at Gather, a place that carried me through the early days of motherhood. I was digging through my recent photos to seed the art exchange, when I realized, over the past year, I don’t have those moments anymore. I have pictures of my family, sure. Lots of those moments. But I don’t have those moments that I need, those moments of self. I’m not myself without them.
