It all started when…
In the spring of 2020, as the world outside spiraled into the chaos of the global pandemic, my marriage ended. Truthfully, I think we would have separated a year earlier if my wife hadn’t been waiting for her green card renewal. That’s the card that arrives after the government is satisfied that the marriage wasn’t made under false pretenses.
A year and a half before the lockdown I suffered a debilitating back injury at work. I’ve always constructed my identity out of the things I do--playing rugby, working manual labor, taking photographs. My ability to engage with life came to a screeching halt and was replaced by nerve pain, inertia, and insomnia.
While I waited for the state to process my medical claim, I didn’t know if I would ever get my life back. I was sedentary during the day and unable to sleep at night, so most evenings Megan went to bed alone. I started making images and writing her poems as a way to stay close. It would be over a year before I fully recovered.
When the pandemic started and we all receded into our homes unsure of what lay ahead, Megan moved out to pursue a relationship with someone else. I loved my wife dearly, but we were both hiding so much from each other. This work originally started as an exploration of what was left when my back injury took my sense of self. It has since evolved into a catalogue of what remains.
-2021