We are surrounded and enclosed by distances. The distance between ourselves and the world around us. The distance in our relationships with others. Distances we carry deep within us that prevent the corners of our souls from revealing themselves. Whether we are aware of them or not, they define our being.

Continuously, we create, shape, and reshape spaces to achieve either maneuverability or security—impulses that at first glance are difficult to distinguish but pull in opposite directions. In the desire for freedom, distance is created to provide coolness and the ability to breathe. And we breathe. And breathe. Until the air is thin and oxygen-deprived. We become diluted and dissolve.

In the pursuit of security, we create spaces that enclose and stabilize. The insulating layers provide warmth and protection, but bring a heaviness that narrows our gaze to nearsightedness. We slowly sink. Frozen in passive motion, we come to rest onto a soft foundation and lie still.

We live within bodily, physical boundaries with individual circulatory systems and nerve pathways. Without the distances between us, we would merge and become one and only one, thus completely alone in the universe. The distances allow us the possibility to connect with a larger context and to be close to something that is not ourselves.

(2020)