I Finally Have The Time To Search The Labyrinth Of My Mind
A look back at what the pandemic gave to me, rather than what it took away
The first editorial I styled during the pandemic, captured during a brief moment of time when the seemingly endless lockdown was lifted and compact crews were finally granted a right to function, was a direct product of my mind during that time.
I had taken it all in, the fear, the anxiety, the sudden roles I was forced to take on (homeschooling my two kids) and the roles I had to give up; the one as fashion stylist hardest to see go, my method of processing emotions gone for the time being just when I needed it most. I craved a way to spit it all out, before I consumed whole the feelings I desperately wanted to let go.
And then along came this sudden window of time when everything changed and the world of possibility opened up again as the lockdown lifted (we would find out only momentarily) and work would begin again, work that was needed: to pay the bills, to feed the soul.
There’s a lot that I discovered during lockdown, the kind of discoveries that one can only make alone and within the confinement of their home. It’s amazing the places you can go sitting in one place … When I Finally Had The Time To Search The Labyrinth Of My Mind.
And so, this is what I pictured when I was pulling together the looks for this shoot. A woman, discovering the beauty of her own mind. The secret places it has to offer, roaming fields, endless hallways, vast grounds.
Through this story I was allowed to process the anxiety built around the time that was slipping away as the world sat and waited. I was able to find feelings of gratefulness, replacing disdain for the time I was given, to search the labyrinth of my own mind. Time that would allow for the discoveries that I was able to locate as I searched.
Covid has forever changed us; we are all bound together by this truth, found through a mutually shared period of time. By the fact that nobody completely escaped it, that the person we were going into was not the same person who emerged.
But what we haven’t said, what we might be afraid of saying, like saying it out loud would be letting covid off the hook, for wasting our lives, for hurting our loved ones, our business, is that the parts of us that are now different might not be all bad. That the time may not have been a complete waste. That while time was undoubtedly taken away from us, it was also given, to spend with our families, to pursue our hobbies, to sit still in one place.
This story was my way to appreciate what I could salvage of the forced circumstance, to reflect on what was gained instead of only mourning what had been lost.
And as the subject still inevitably comes up from time to time, in conversation with friends or quietly, as I come across the unused masks stashed into the crevices of my bags, coat pockets and glove compartment, I refuse to feel only anger for the time lost, for the fear I felt, for the money I didn’t make during this time.
And will always refer to this period, not necessarily fondly but at least without complete despise, to when I finally had the time to search the labyrinth of my mind, still making good use of what I found there.
” … what we haven’t said, what we might be afraid of saying, like saying it out loud would be letting covid off the hook … is that the time may not have been a complete waste. That while time was undoubtedly taken away from us, it was also given”
“This story was my way to appreciate what I could salvage of the forced circumstance, to reflect on what was gained instead of only mourning what had been lost. “
