The Weight
The Gifts
With our restaurants forced to close, instead of going to work on a busy Saturday night, Daddy was home teaching the kids how to make his famous sauce.
The Chaos
The Light
Homeschool
Testing
Well it’s all been one great big test hasn’t it? But in addition to our courage, flexibility, and patience, it’s now become the norm for our physical bodies to be tested in order to safely participate in what used to be basic life activities, like returning to work, school, or visiting our loved ones. Things that were once done without a second thought have become mentally, emotionally, and physically complicated. Will these new protocols one day be the routines we don’t think twice about? Only time will tell. The making of these images was a way to work through the discomfort that came with emerging from lock down hibernation and re-entering what felt like a new strange science fiction society. This particular series depicts my children participating in “pool” Covid testing, a new requirement for them to be allowed to attend in-person learning at the start of the 2020/21 school year. As we arrived we walked over tape that now marked one of the different paths/directions children would be directed to walk and stand upon at school to avoid crossing paths or being too close. We passed piles of bagged up school supplies that were left behind by last year’s students who never re-entered the building after the school was closed due to the shutdown. My children then picked out vials that they scanned in, and filled with a saliva sample which would later be tested in small groups for Coronavirus. Just one of many new routines and regulations our children would experience throughout the year. I heard one of my children’s teachers say on a recent zoom orientation, “if you put your arms out and can touch your friend, you’re too close.” Of course I felt happy safety would be a priority as it should be, but the words themselves struck something inside of me. Our kids are being drilled that touching and being close with friends is dangerous, even deadly. How will this shape how they feel about human contact and physical intimacy in their adulthood? Again, time will tell. For now I just pray for the best results possible from our latest big test, the 2020 school year.
The following series of self portraits were taken while getting the Covid and antibody tests before I went to visit my parents and family back home. It had been six months, the longest I had gone without seeing them EVER. It was summer, the numbers had gone down in our area, and the weather would permit us to meet safely outdoors. To further lessen the exposure risk, we stayed in a hotel instead of my parents home, something I never would have imagined happening in the past, but these were the steps we began taking to protect the ones we love. But the Covid testing continued beyond the doctor’s office in so many ways. Conflicting opinions about what’s right and wrong and varying levels of comfort during social interactions, make a test of will, patience, and understanding the greater challenge when navigating pandemic living with people whose beliefs or choices do not necessarily align with your own. My sanity is regularly tested as well as I attempt to function with a germaphobic brain that sees the chance of infection covering every surface, not only in the rented hotel room also seen here, but everywhere, all the time. Never before did I bring my own bedding with me to a hotel, and don’t even get me started on the amount of disinfecting on my part that went on despite the plethora of signs plastered throughout the room announcing how clean and sterile everything supposedly was. Uncomfortable and awkward moments, yes. But well worth it for the time I got to spend with my family, and to know I kept them safe.
This image was hastily captured while standing on line for a Covid test on a cold winter night. My son had spiked a fever, and though he was shaky and barely strong enough to stand up, we were told we would still have at least a two hour wait outside. I carried his heavy ten year old body (to avoid exposure risk in a cab) to the nearest emergency room instead in order to be seen quicker and avoid the line that went down the block.
Every time our school had to close due to positive cases, instead of going in for class, the children went in for Covid testing. Childhood in the time of Corona. Oh well, at least there’s still rollerblading.
Pandemic Party Favors (My son’s 11th year and 2nd Covid-era birthday).
The Distance
My grandmother’s original recipe in her very own handwriting. I can clearly remember the feeling of pure delight I felt hiding under the stairs in my basement as a child, so excited to indulge in the treasure that was one of her famous Whoopie Pies. As I got older she taught me how to make them, and I have kept the tradition (and therefore a part of her) alive every year since she died. They are a piece of home. The taste of a collective childhood; my mother’s, brother’s, cousin’s, uncle’s, aunt’s, and now my own son and daughter. Thanksgiving 2020 was the only one I would not see my family since I left home at 18 (excluding one when I was too close to giving birth to travel). But this was a time when showing love looked very different. Although it hurt, that year by staying apart, we were letting our loved ones know how much we valued their lives and would do anything to keep them safe. I could feel my grandmother by my side as I baked, packed, and sent her Whoopie’s through the mail to surprise my parents that year, and I knew they would too. Love travels. Across state borders and otherworldly realms. Through time, space, photographs, and food. We are not alone.
