PASSAGE

I followed a trail somewhere...

As I was going through all my images for the See the Forest For the Trees series, I discovered a secondary series where I photographed passages. Often is a clear trail or road, sometimes it’s more subtle, like a fairy-tale portal into another realm.

But it got me thinking about passage itself, and how we all go through these huge shifts in life where we veer (or long to veer) off the beaten path and onto a new trail.

My brain is such that I have multiple projects going at all times, and I will not apologize for that, but it does mean I do go off on tangents often and some projects never truly come to fruition. This one though I am hoping to nurture and maybe make a book or zine as an end point. OR save up for an art show (printing images is so expensive 😅)!

I want to join these images of “passages” with my writing, quotes from authors who also wrote about moving through stages, and maybe reach out to friends and family for their own experiences.

I am still attempting to clarify the project in my head, but I want to encompass multiple meanings of the word passage;

1. Passage from one stage of life to another (woman to mother, single to married, youth to venturing out on your own, changing jobs, starting a business, moving)

2. Midlife crisis - This is what helped kick start this as I am turning 40 at the end of this year and I am FEELING IT. My husband lovingly said, hunny, I think you are going through a midlife crisis. And I truly think I am. But is is a passage from one stage of your life into another, or a figuring out of who you are and what you want.

3. Travel (as in those books where someone randomly chooses to travel in order to find themselves)

4. Agency (usually we gain confidence, or agency, after a hardship or trial while in the woods or after venturing into another realm. Akin to Fairy Tales where the young woman gains knowledge and is able to save herself. See Dr. Sharon Blackie for more concise writing on this)

5. Multitudes or multiverses (think Everything Everywhere All at Once)

6. A new way of thinking, shedding of your old thoughts OR a habit

7. Growing up (at any stage in life)

8. Learning

9. Nostalgia

10. Passing of time, remembering

11. Grief, death

Along with my photography, I have started to gather books about these themes. The first 2 are Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust (famously about time, remembrance, nostalgia, memory) and The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife by James Hollis.

Let me know if you have any good books about the passage of time, mid life, memory etc!

Lastly, here are some images I have gathered so far.

Thanks for stopping by, and please do let me know of any good books (fiction or nonfiction) that wax poetic about the “passage”.

🌳