2011 Concept

I have an idea for a photography project.

I am going to take a picture of my window everyday. Today I start, the day my aunt is put in hospice. I will take a picture of my window, from the same spot, until her funeral.

My reasoning follows as such... now maybe this is just me but I always find myself looking out my window. In the car, in my room, in class. Why is it that people look outdoors to day dream? I think its our attraction like bugs, to natural light. I think its a look into the unchanging. I could zone out in my room but I would be distracted by the clutter or looking for bugs or thinking about chores. When I look out my bedroom mirror all I see is the weather. Rarely do I notice the change in the trees until leaves trees are bare or covered in snow, and I think, wow, when did that happen? How did I not notice that?

My aunt was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 21, less than a year older than me. Before the disease took over her life she had a husband and a son. Now she is in her sixties, her husband divorced her when her ms took a turn for the worse (her son remains close, my cousin, and he is good. He is a police officer. ) and she is taken care of by her eighty something year old mother. By the time she was forty, the age of my parents and most of my friends parents, she was already confined to her mother's house. Over the years her condition has grown progressively worse. My 20 year old brain cannot even comprehend what it must be like for a mother to outlive a child.

My documentation of my escape is rather dark. What I do to forget thinking, dwelling, crying is to look out the window. To let my mind go blank and look outside, which - compared to daily life activities and how quickly things can take a bad turn- doesn't seem to change that much. People I love are constantly reminding me that life goes on, that everything will be okay... and thats what I am trying to capture. I am going to take a picture everyday of the same scene. I will put the date on the bottom of the picture. The day my aunt passes away I will write that as well as the date. I will arrange the images like a calender. The idea being life goes on, with or without you. It is not the end. The rest of the world carries on and its your job to keep up.