An Ode to my Body
When I think about home, I think about something that my eighth-grade English teacher told me. She was always bubbly and bright and saw the positivity in everything. But as time progressed, she knew and I knew that San Jose, California was just another stomping ground before I unwillingly migrated to the next place. At the age of 13, I had lived in seven different cities and two different states. I felt that I had really begun to see myself living in San Jose, I had a lot of close friends, and I saw my life beginning to shape. Home over those last 3 years of constant shifting had meant little to nothing. I began to write incessantly about feeling adrift at sea, as time went on, the little cities I saw on the shoreline felt trivial. Without the consistency of everyday life and similar surroundings, without a home, life began to feel meaningless, and I felt like a passenger in my life.
Then at the ripe age of 12, I was faced with the reality of leaving my friends and moving to Sequim, Washington. Sequim was a sweet little town that celebrated an annual lavender festival and was a stone’s throw away from Canada. Like many things in Washington, Sequim was gray and crisp, and I dreaded leaving bright California for lavender ice cream. I think my teacher Miss M. read in between the lines of my quiet protests and she saw the future of what I wanted to deny, that the moving would continue. We got ice cream, I think it might’ve really been one of those fancy froyo places that germinate all over California. As we quietly ate, this bubbly, sweet teacher, who couldn't have been older than 25, looked me straight in the face and said, “Your life is never going to be consistent, you have to be the consistency you need.”
Ever since that day, I became my Home. As my body moved to two more places in Washington, two places in Connecticut, Maryland, and then a few places in Virginia, and now in Georgia- I am home. My body-where my mind resides- is my sanctuary, and it's given me sustenance, the power to create, to be present has become my home.
I created this photo series as an ode to my body, to this vessel that has been and remains my physical manifestation of home. When I see my body, with its wrinkles, stretch marks, and my weathered hands- these marks are paintings on the wall and are pages of the scrapbooks I never got to make.
