Thoughts of Home

When I look through the photo gallery on my phone it’s always a bit of a struggle trying to find something specific amongst the 20000+ images I have accumulated on my cloud storage, it becomes a bit of an archaeological dig just trying to get to photos taken last year never mind trying to find things from 2017 (which is only as far back as it goes). I realize I’ve become some sort of image goblin ever since I discovered the ability to store everything from all my devices into the convenient ethereal digital cloud, but how can I not be when my entire life revolves around them. Last night, unable to sleep, I ended up scrolling through some of my pictures from family trips over the years and I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for better times. As I went through hundreds of images taken with both my phone and my Nikon, I realized most of them had never been seen by anyone except for me. Ironically for somebody who works with images so much, I don’t tend to show many of them off outside maybe a quick share with friends and family. So many pictures left in the archives that could definitely have a potential as singular artworks or projects. Landscapes, cities, people all left untouched in my horde of images. Upon this realization I started to feel somewhat guilty for never actually sharing or doing anything with all of them and started to wonder if it would be a smart idea to suddenly change my project completely two thirds of the way through the semester, but I took a moment and realized that would in fact not be a good idea at this stage at all.

Maybe mainly I’ve just been feeling a lot of nostalgia and most surprisingly homesickness, something I never really experienced at this level until this year. It’s ironic really, actually missing your hometown and country after actively hating it your entire life; apparently at the age of three when on our first visit to the town we would be moving to in Italy, I burst into uncontrollable tears because I did not want to stay a minute longer…and here I am nearly 20 years later waiting for the moment to be able to go back. This year I’ve been back once since the whole pandemic started and it didn’t feel like enough time, it was strange realization that my home that I had lived in most of my life was now my vacation place away from it all when for so long it had been the other way around. Surprisingly we were able to go to more places than I thought we would, all of a sudden after months of being locked inside, we had a brief window of time to do as many family activities together as possible and I swear I have never been on more consecutive nature hikes in my life my legs were so sore. For the first time ever, I wanted to be there willingly and I didn’t really want to leave. Eventually of course I needed to come back here and resume regular life of classes, work, social life, adult responsabilities that I didn’t even realize I had accumulated in just three years living away from home. Due to the current situation I haven’t really travelled anywhere since and I can feel the claustrophobia of sedentary life creeping up on me.

This weekend, for the first time since this summer, I’m actually going somewhere with some friends. It will be nice to get away for a couple of days from the confines of routine and everyday life and I’m hoping it will give me a little boost of inspiration before hunkering down with all the last-minute work before the holidays. Yes of course I miss travelling and I’ll take any chance I can get right now for a quick getaway to anywhere even if it’s only a drive away, but despite all the fun and adventure travelling around the world has to offer, I miss the one place I never thought I’d miss: home. I hope I will be back soon even jsut for a little, I don’t want to be stuck away from it for as long as I was last time as I’m not sure if I’d be able having to deal with all of Christmas and New Years on my own. I guess for now I’ll have to be satisfied with pictures, snapshots of memories neatly stored on my phone. Every once and awhile it will give a notification of what I was doing on this day a year or two ago, and it makes me think I we never could have imagined what was to come.

-LAS xo