The In-Between

I'm leaving in six months. I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm never leaving. It all feels true at any given moment, especially before my first cup of coffee.

The anxiety of pulling up roots after 30 years in Portland is starting to get to me. I want to go. I need to go, if just for my own sanity. This country feels irreparably broken, and I can't imagine spending the rest of my life constantly wondering how things could possibly get worse, then dealing with the shock - and the sad resetting of my expectations - when they do.

Aside from the state of the country, there's this weird in-betweenness… the comfort and ease of staying put, even with the chaos, versus the joy, relief and excitement of a new adventure.

I've spent the past few years photographing liminal space - that territory between the certainty of sharp, grounded focus, and the uncertainty of time, distance and memory. The blur isn't a flaw in those images; it's the point. I've been drawn to it precisely because I think it tells a truer story than the sharpness ever could. Now I'm living inside one of my own photographs. But recognizing the terrain doesn't make it easier to navigate. Turns out it's one thing to photograph the ambiguity. It's another to live in it.

The practical stuff I can handle. Lists, tasks, checkboxes. Sell the house. Get the visa. Find an apartment. Book Newt's flight. There's comfort in logistics - they provide me with an illusion of forward motion. But the mental shift is harder. I keep waiting to feel ready, to arrive at some calm clearing where the anxiety lifts and I just know. But I'm starting to suspect the clearing may not exist. This fog is the territory now, and maybe for a long time.

So I'm trying something unfamiliar - not fixing it. Just being in it. The blur is the view.