LIKE A GAP IN A RESUME … I CAN EXPLAIN

LIKE A GAP IN A RESUME … I CAN EXPLAIN

These pictures were taken when I was sick - quarantined with the Delta variant of COVID running rampant through my body. Although vaccinated as a requirement for my corporate job, I still got hit so hard with a sixteen day hiatus that was anything but relaxing. I did what any bored, ill human would do, and mustered enough energy in between naps to play with my DSLR. I needed some form of comfort to soothe my lack of physical closeness from the real world. I used rusty planters from my garden balcony as props, and started to do some raggedy portrait work. The creepiness of the images is translated on purpose because that is quite literally how I felt at the time - like a shell of a person. After the novelty feeling of being in front of the camera wore off, I started to write. I was physically fighting this virus, and now my sadness made it an emotional fight as well. I wrote about grief, and stuffed it in the “Notes” app of my phone. I find it cathartic to publish it here, so here it goes. For context : I lost my dad at the age of ten, and it took decades for me to seek help to unpack the repercussions of this set of traumatic core memories. So, this is a short poem of me trying to conceptualize, in real time, the thoughts that had created a messy ball of yarn in my brain, and how I used music as a coping mechanism (as I became a classically trained violinist and went on to play for the following fifteen years) ….

I DEFINITELY CHANGED WHEN YOU LEFT …

The confusion whirred in my brain and wouldn’t subside or rest

The sleepless nights

Trying to navigate this tumultuous plight

The pent up urges to fight

I didn’t have the energy

To form a different ending

My tears saturated my pillow

My limbs would go numb

My sleep wasn’t peaceful

Just wanted to take

a break…

How could there ever be

A light,

A solution,

A way out of this miserable depressed state ?

I wondered … how ? Until I found you

Stradivarius

She began as a form of therapy when my words wouldn’t form completely

At the time I didn’t have the heart to speak my traumas, so I played them

Through her

She knew

She quickly developed into a hobby

A pastime -

Better than crying these silent tears

She became my partner

Helped me sing my pain through her strings,

My fingers

Her bow

I grew

Was able to push through and

Pursue

She didn’t take away the pain

She made me relive it

I synthesized and analyzed

What it meant ...

To deal with death.