Collecting Moss

A posting in the facebook group, Abandoned Spaces in Singapore, got me thinking. The writer said that he may be an abandoned space.

Lately, I am beginning to feel that way too. Like an abandoned space. A shell that has lived for over forty years. There are parts of me that are still functional and being maintained. Then there is the personal side, which has been like an abandoned house. Too many bad memories to want to visit that part of the house. Let nature have it. The place where passions used to run high, where conflict pushed me into depression. It is now strangely empty. The emotions of lonliness, tenderness, jealousy like fading, decaying paint on a cracked wall. Partly hidden by a layer of dust and dirt.

To continue with the analogy. The maintained front of the house, where I am doing my photography and continuing to live... Will it be slowly be overtaken by the decay of the abandoned spaces in me? Or can I wander through the abandoned spaces within me, like I do abandoned spaces in Singapore. Admiring the textures and history, being inspired by distant dreams of the past and future. Drawing on all those emotions I once was too weak to face, but can now examine with a more detached eye.

I am not sure if I will ever let someone else in again. Whether I will renovate the abandoned space within or keep it locked from the public, I don't know. But I am determined that it is a space that I will not deny. For all experience and textures are food for personal research. And I think the role of the work, is to bring to light the emotional textures, to highlight the common experience of being human. Advertising always shows the pretty, the ideal. But humans are so much deeper. And for me, there is beauty in survival, in weathering the storm and having cracks.