I feel the need to explain myself. Put the past decade into some perspective in order to go forward. Many people know me from many different walks and times of life. I’ve shared what I can, the best I have been able. Many of you realize that I have had long term chronic illness and disability which has totally transformed what I am able to do in life on every level.
Prior to my initial crash and burn which actually began back in 2010, I had a thriving commercial photography business based in Ojai, Ca. which served Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and New York. I was performing with my band The Seraphim Rising and recording and releasing an album and I was creating fine art and exhibiting my work. My star was rising as they say. Then, my star imploded.
I suppose, I’m a singularity now.
Time Will Tell | Holga Journey Roll 6 | True Travelers
We arrived in Santa Fe on Wednesday March 18th, 2020, a day later than our travel itinerary had planned, but we made it safely in our largest of Penske moving trucks with a Subaru in tow under the strangest of conditions, so we were incredibly thankful.
There were a lot of travelers on the road. Everyone was getting to where they were going to wait out the virus. Some towns were already boarded and shut, appearing abandoned. It felt a little like Stephen King’s The Stand.
We unloaded our truck filled with everything we owned into a storage facility Thursday morning. It began to snow a little. We had managed to time our passage over the mountain on I40 just right. Stocking up at Trader Joe’s we settled into the two week quarantine in our temporary condo we had booked for two and a half months. We had planned to explore the area and find a permanent rental. Exploring was going to have to wait. We set out instead to find a long term rental ASAP and thankfully secured one within two weeks. But the quarantine was far from over.
So, once again, everything changed.
All Illusions Turn to Dust | Holga Journey Roll 7 | True Travelers
It feels as though the life I’ve been waiting to return to is gone. I stuck a pin in so many things. Explored identities, imagined futures. Now I am here, and it is what it is. The world has changed a lot while I observed from a distance in my garden refuge. Practicing non-attachment and accepting my condition. I experimented as I could with different forms of media. Doing only what I was able, which was very little, but it was something.
It’s been a long time of very limited ability. Impossible to explain to people who haven’t experienced it. We do not deal with long term chronic disability in the United States. We do not support. We do not offer help. Most people are oblivious to this fact. And most chronically ill people are extremely under equipped to advocate for themselves. So we disappear.
Because we frame things within the context of war, we are familiar with the illusion of a clear beginning, heroism and a clear end, even if that end is death. We do not wish to accept or even know how to exist with the long term chronic condition that may endure for years or decades and that requires a wholly different approach to life. We do not want to change our system of work and finance, change our expectations or relinquish them. Heroics is the narrative. Overcoming. But what if heroics and overcoming are very different than the action packed adventures we consume on the screen?
Into the Deep | Holga Journey Roll 1 | True Travelers
Faced with this understanding and this history, what action is to be taken? It’s time to get back to normal. Make that money, spend that money, burn that gasoline. Get caught up in the latest drama. But don’t change. Don’t change anything. Just keep running full speed ahead, because deep down you know. You know when you see the beggar in the street. You know this is the deal. You are not allowed to be sick. You are not allowed to rest. You are not allowed to have your own existence. You are not allowed to live in balance with yourself and the universe.
And maybe for many, they don’t notice. Their body does not react to the poisons in the environment so intensely. They were not born with certain inherent weaknesses. Perhaps they caught Covid and had no discernible symptoms. But aging and illness comes to us all eventually, if we live long enough.
It’s daunting really, to communicate effectively. I wish to advocate for more understanding of our condition as a whole, as it is all connected. That is quite overwhelming as there are so many people and so many influences. Yet, in principle, it is also quite simple. Health and balance. Often the catchiest descriptions are the least accurate.
What I have to convey doesn’t fit the narrative. It doesn’t support privilege having more and better privilege. It doesn’t support spiritual bypassing or fantasies about life after death or heroics. It’s about a state of mind.
In the present moment.