Sustain
Rose: iPhone
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
(Rachel Carson)
Our ability to sustain ourselves seems to have been thrown into question.
As our capacity to manage public healthcare eclipses more enduring problems of climate change, ecological decay and socio/economic injustice, we find ourselves staring into the fundamental questions of our community and purpose.
Changing circumstances will require each of us to undergo our own personal shift. Critical issues of identity, competence and relationship will accompany processes of social transition as our experience of uncertainty and risk is accompanied by grief, stress, anxiety and depression.
Some of us will have faced existential crises before and might bring that particular wisdom and maturity to our conversations. Others will bring less sure-footed, youthful energy and, though fear will not be the only thing of which we should be justifiably afraid, turning away from pervasive modern individualism and towards community, connection and service will help us to steady nervous, faltering steps.
Yet we will each need individual coping strategies.
I made these photographs in the midst of a burnout that left me barely able to lift my head for weeks. As I slowly found the energy to move again, I nurtured recovery by returning to a sense of creative participation in the world around me. Photography helped me pay attention, notice my dissociation from life, slowed the clatter of my internal narrative and re-connected me both outwardly to the world and inwardly to my own experience.
Now, as I navigate new questions, I find myself returning to the image files, revising and reworking them in a way that seems to invoke an embodied memory of recovery.
I’m remembering how I began to rediscover myself through journalling, blogging and on-line media; coming to terms with a voice that felt reflective and melancholic, but also considered, determined and resolute. I treasure the way my writing and imagery brought me into human connection with readers, and welcome new companions as I continue to reclaim my narrative and self-publish my work. In her beautiful essay on Loneliness, Olivia Laing says, “I found that art was among the richest consolations, and that voyaging into other people’s worlds by way of novels, paintings and films had a magical capacity for making me feel connected, seen, met.”
As energy continued to gather, I got on my bike. For more than a thousand miles, I pedalled to feel the sun on my face and just watch the world roll on by. On most days, I would begin by dragging guilt and grievance behind me but, after and hour or so moving through countryside, feeling air in my lungs and the ache in my legs, my mind emptied and the healing would cycle its own path through my body.
I’m not sure that anyone fully recovers from burnout and the same might be said of the transitions we now face. Our experiences leave scars but also bring learning and awareness; an appreciation of life and everything it has to offer.
So, for now, my coping strategies remain part of my everyday discipline and practice.
Creativity, voice, connection and movement.
Each brings an aesthetic; an experience of beauty that develops our resilience and capacity to sustain ourselves through times of difficulty.
I respectfully and gently commend them to you.
Notes:
When Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring she was suffering with cancer. Two years later she died. Carson argued against the ‘control of nature’; an assumption that she believed was hopeless and dangerously arrogant. Published in 1962, the book examined the indiscriminate use of harmful pesticides and was, of course, fiercely opposed by the chemical industry.
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” is a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address. I can imagine that today would welcome a speech that commits so clearly to truth and candour.
Olivia Laing was a ‘Twitter find’ for me; her writing is beautiful. I’ve just put ‘Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency’ on pre-order.
Finally, a big thank you to my friend and Twitter buddy, @SiobhanHRSheri, for the inspiration of her incredible gelatine silver prints by photographer Bruce Rae.
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