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Photographing sadness
Apr. 9th, 2021 03:37 pmWhen I was a kid, sometimes at recess I would sit with my arms wrapped around my folded-up knees, my head down inside the circle of my arms. The posture creates a comfortable, quiet space in which to think, so I liked sitting that way.
But for some reason, the other kids around me always interpreted that posture as an indicator that I was sad, so they'd prod me to ask why I was sad. But I wasn't sad, I was thinking, and now I'd been interrupted in the middle of trying to think.
When I was actually in a state closer to sadness at that age, I would instead be more inclined to run away from spaces where I'd have any kind of social encounter. My main memories of feeling sad as a kid tend to be more strongly tied to lying in bed, sometimes looking out the window at the patch of cedar trees across the driveway in the blue gloom of Seattle winter. Introverted sad. Seattle has such beautiful weather for the mood.
By this stage in life, I have some serious doubts about the strengths and bases of those childhood feelings. Childhood sadness was a formless sadness, a "nobody loves me" sort of thing. How would I know any better, anyway?
-
Today I am sad because S is heading out to California again for a while. The use of photography-based social media sites makes me feel somewhat compelled to think about photos that I could take and share, to be part of the neverending social media feed stream, to remind the formless others that I am still alive, breathing, thinking.
But I think it's hard to take a photograph that would convey this particular sadness, for it's an absence rather than a presence. I've never been big on self-portraits. I suspect there's also something of a fine line between sadness and appearing vacant, dopey, or melodramatic.
I don't want to negate or downplay the importance of S going to California, either, by having my own feelings. This feeling has much more to do with the events that unfolded for me personally last spring, as the pandemic dropped its curtains over everything. S should go, for a hundred different reasons. I simply feel an unexpected level of separation anxiety.
So I guess I will just go and try to record another pre-lab video, and then I will go and clean out some cricket bins, and then I will ride my bike home to the house and do my best to comfort Emma, who both knows too much about my times of sadness, and who can't take photographs of her own sadness or sadnesses, either.
But for some reason, the other kids around me always interpreted that posture as an indicator that I was sad, so they'd prod me to ask why I was sad. But I wasn't sad, I was thinking, and now I'd been interrupted in the middle of trying to think.
When I was actually in a state closer to sadness at that age, I would instead be more inclined to run away from spaces where I'd have any kind of social encounter. My main memories of feeling sad as a kid tend to be more strongly tied to lying in bed, sometimes looking out the window at the patch of cedar trees across the driveway in the blue gloom of Seattle winter. Introverted sad. Seattle has such beautiful weather for the mood.
By this stage in life, I have some serious doubts about the strengths and bases of those childhood feelings. Childhood sadness was a formless sadness, a "nobody loves me" sort of thing. How would I know any better, anyway?
-
Today I am sad because S is heading out to California again for a while. The use of photography-based social media sites makes me feel somewhat compelled to think about photos that I could take and share, to be part of the neverending social media feed stream, to remind the formless others that I am still alive, breathing, thinking.
But I think it's hard to take a photograph that would convey this particular sadness, for it's an absence rather than a presence. I've never been big on self-portraits. I suspect there's also something of a fine line between sadness and appearing vacant, dopey, or melodramatic.
I don't want to negate or downplay the importance of S going to California, either, by having my own feelings. This feeling has much more to do with the events that unfolded for me personally last spring, as the pandemic dropped its curtains over everything. S should go, for a hundred different reasons. I simply feel an unexpected level of separation anxiety.
So I guess I will just go and try to record another pre-lab video, and then I will go and clean out some cricket bins, and then I will ride my bike home to the house and do my best to comfort Emma, who both knows too much about my times of sadness, and who can't take photographs of her own sadness or sadnesses, either.
