RE: Happenstance
This is a brief reflection on an earlier blog post titled “Pictures of Happenstance,” which I wrote in early March of 2020.
Very strange things happened in March 2020. Alongside that global pandemic business, a sequence of serendipitous-to-unfortunate events happened in my personal life just days before the pandemic began in the United States:
I was working an unusually sleepy shift at the cafe I was employed at when an acquaintance of mine walked in the door. I say acquaintance because he was a regular at my cafe, but y’know he was one of the really nice ones — the ones that I was very happy to have their order memorized (his was a chocolate croissant and an americano, for the exceptionally curious amongst you) — and he approached me on this peculiar day with an even more peculiar idea. He suggested that I print out some of my photography and bring it into the art gallery that he worked at for a small exhibition. I was dumbfounded, considering at the time I was a semi-recent college grad with a film degree, which essentially meant I had very few prospects, especially any that involved people seeing my work in-person. Thrilled by this opportunity, I “curated” a collection of my favorite photos and hurried home to write the aforementioned article (which reads a bit pretentious to me now). Then, $200 at Sammy’s Camera later, I had my own photography display ready to go! Only the sky was the limit!
Well, just a few days after my exhibit went live, we went into lockdown, and this art gallery didn’t open back up for months. When I think back to that time, I realize I could feel sorry for myself or lament the cruel happenings of the universe for blowing my chances at wealth and glory beyond my wildest dreams, but frankly, the timeline of the situation is comical. Besides, that time brought far worse things to us all than a measly lost photo exhibit. I still distinctly feel a sense of a collective trauma (to varying degrees) with everyone I talk to — that this period was a lost time in our lives filled with newly discovered anxieties and a culture that has shifted in so many directions that things are just different since then— and it hasn’t even been that long, really. Some of us have rebounded just fine; personally, I feel I’m still stuck in a certain purgatory that I’m slowly wiggling my way out of.
Life just sometimes has a funny way of throwing a wrench in our plans when we least expect it. My life trajectory feels to have drastically changed since then. In some good ways and perhaps some ways that I don’t care for too much either. All we can really do is try our best to push forward. Ultimately, I’m not really a photographer. I’m not trying to pursue a career in snapping photos or displaying artwork, but a unique opportunity is always a chance at potentially welcoming interesting change into your life; by all means, interesting change has followed since, just not in any way I could have imagined.
—1/29/2022
