My Mid-Life Crisis in Lockdown
The last week before the lockdowns, I photographed what would be my last pre-pandemic wedding. I had no idea what was coming. I knew people were getting sick, but I wasn’t scared.
Besides, a two-week forced staycation sounded kind of nice. It’s not until we went to the grocery store after a birthday dinner that the reality of the situation sunk in. Seeing all of the shelves of canned goods, pasta, medications, and the almost empty toilet paper aisle presented me with a perspective around the virus I had not considered. This was maybe more serious than I thought.
In the final days before lockdown, I was attending a class at the local adult education center (Colorado Free University…and despite its name…no the class; which was about money was not free) the class called “The Art of the Soul of Money” was about improving one’s relationship with money…energetically. I’ve always been a bit of a seeker and willing to explore metaphysics and the woo-woo. Stoicism, the tao of pooh, mycology, daily meditation, and daily writing are what have fueled my spiritual void this past year.
The last day of that 4-week class was different. Only half the students showed up, and we all sat at our own tables with plenty of distance in-between. That last class was powerful and put things in a perspective that I was grateful to leave with. While the class was initially about money, that day, the topic was about the virus…this virus is a reboot, Peter, the instructor, said — humanity needs this time to be still.
In many ways, humanity shone for those first few weeks. We howled at 8 pm for the hospital workers changing shifts. We did yoga, took classes, discovered new interests, and made the most of birthdays using the house party app. We all connected with each other because we were all affected by the virus. In Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Frankl, a Jewish therapist who survived the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, observed that one of the fundamental things that helped the survivors of the concentration camps was the fact that the prisoners had each other to share their experiences with, good or bad. Frankl recollects the times where during grueling forced labor, the prisoners would quietly take in and share a sunset and that through these shared experiences; they were able to help one another survive.
In those early days, I found respite in dog walks…I still do…it seemed outdoor activities were all that there was to do. Strolling through Wash Park in Denver, groups of people would have socially distant picnics. I was delighted to see us making the most of the situation yet also disturbed to see swing sets and basketball courts taped off with caution tape resembling a crime scene.
The two-week shelter at home turned into two months…places began to slowly figure out how to be open, but nothing was the same. Everything was different…wearing a mask or not wearing a mask became political. A selfless mandate meant to protect our most vulnerable became about rights and oppression. The rhetoric turned toward the individual self and not the other, not the collective.
The two months of staying at home began to wear on people, and over Memorial Day weekend George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. While other police officers stood and watched, onlookers pleaded as Floyd gasped for breath. The weight of Derek Chauvin’s knee pressing against Floyd's neck.
Thousands of people took to the streets. At one point, there was a protest in all 50 states. Protesting the murder of George Floyd, protesting the injustice of the Police and their brutality, especially towards people of color, protesting the President, protesting the systemic racism and white supremacy that dominates this country…the isolation of being at home mixed with the frustration of never-ending police brutality on black bodies brought another civil rights movement to the streets.
As a former photojournalist, I struggled between being terrified around the pandemic and the peaceful protests that turned violent at night. Wanting to go downtown to participate and document the events but being afraid was something I could not reconcile. Wasn’t there a pandemic? Weren’t we supposed to be staying at home? Am I supposed to be at these protests? Is my whiteness welcome? I thought we were farther along as a country in terms of racism. Is this my fight?
Generally, the protests were peaceful, but something would happen at night. Things would turn violent and destructive, and we lived only a few blocks from the capital. The thought of the mayhem coming towards us was unnerving. I kept thinking that I should be photographing it, but I was scared. So, in the end, I never went to the protest as a participant or a witness, and this has brought a lot of personal introspection for me, around my duty as a citizen who cares about equity and a photographer who realized he wasn’t the photographer he thought he was or would be.
I thought I was going to be a Magnum photographer when I grew up, and if there ever was a year to demonstrate my Magnum-ness, 2020 was the year to do it. Yet I stayed at home.
This protest/unpacking my inherent racism/turning 40/wrestling with my place in photography was all coming to a head this year, and the best way I can describe it would be a mid-life crisis. It wasn’t the hair dye and convertible I had thought it was going to be. When I began to take stock of the things I had thought I would accomplish at this age, these things had not happened. I wasn’t a Magnum photographer, I had no solo exhibitions, no CV, no grants, no books published by notable publishers…somehow I thought I would accomplish these things…yet upon reflection I really didn't make advances to make these objectives happen. That’s not to say I’ve done nothing. I worked for a newspaper for 5 years. I’ve been able to run my own wedding photography business for 12+ years. I started and ran a camera accessory company for 5 years that I eventually sold. I did things…but I didn’t do the things to advance my career in the direction I thought I would…and that put me into a spiral. Now, what do I do with that recognition?
I also started to recognize parts of my character that are inherent. I have always had awareness around my shyness and the fact that I’m a shy photographer. For the last 20 years, I have been waiting not to be shy. My shyness manifests itself in my mind while I’m walking around looking for photographs. It feels as if the whole world is judging my every move.
“What is that idiot taking a picture of?!” This is what the driver of the car that just whizzed past is thinking to themselves.
It’s frustrating to have no real reason to be shy and to understand that my conceptions around the act of photographing are based on fear and no doubt one of the reasons I wasn’t able to get myself to the protests. I’m still not sure if I’ll ever forgive myself for not going.
While I wouldn’t call it a bright spot, the protests did cause me to investigate and unpack my own inherent racism, so while I didn’t protest shoulder to shoulder, I have been reading and learning and unlearning, there is so much content out there because people of color have been oppressed in one form or another since the country’s inception, since colonialism. The racism and supremacy in this country run deep. It pours down upon us, and we don’t even realize how drenched we are in our own racist thoughts and policies. There is no shortage of perspective on this, and I encourage you to unpack your own racism and white supremacy. You can’t unsee and unlearn this, and if we can learn how to surrender our privilege and create a more equitable country, only then will we be able to make any progress.
A few days before everything would change I was sitting in the hot springs in Glenwood, Colorado the day before my last pre-COVID wedding of 2020. I was reading “The Tao of Pooh,” and the author shares a Taoist story about a farmer. There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors told him, “to have a horse to pull the cart for you.” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. One day he didn’t latch the gate properly, and the horse ran off. “Oh no! What a disaster!” his neighbors cried. “Such terrible misfortune!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. A few days later, the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. “How fantastic! You are so lucky,” his neighbors told him. “Now you are rich!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following week the farmer’s son was breaking-in one of the wild horses when it kicked out and broke his leg. “Oh no!” the neighbors cried, “Such bad luck, all over again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the war. The farmer’s son was left behind. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors cried. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. Like the farmer's story, who is to say what is good or bad and who knows how things will end for me. For us.
COVID has created challenges I could have and would have never anticipated, and as the one-year mark of COVID mandates approaches, I continue on, because whose to know what is good or bad, and as the Stoics say this too shall pass.