Time keeps jumping around, and I don’t know quite what comes next, life nor writing wise. Not to mention how inappropriate I would have felt creating content this past month that centralized anything other than promoting black voices, learning about racial inequality, and discussing news and necessary legislative changes. I’ve been doing that through other channels, but not here.

A few months ago I bought my first film camera. It cost less than a disposable, even with a three pack of 35mm film added. I shot two rolls of film at school, one at home. The disjointed-ness of it— photos of my college friends, a club-party-faux-prom, Cambridge buildings, with photos of my parents, New Hampshire sunsets, and high school friends a requisite 6 feet apart feel somehow more accurate than the photos I took digitally. Interspersed with screenshots of recipes and graphs and articles, those pixelated photos tell an overly complete story. If time is disjointed, any narrative without that stuttering start and stop falls short of feeling true, even if it captures the whole story.

There’s also the waiting game of film, which I’m learning to like. Not remembering what you shot, no expectations. I bought the camera initially for spring break (ha!), but best-laid plans have a way of going awry, and this was no exception. 

I’ve taken thousands of photos of myself over the years, most of them embarrassingly available for everyone to see. These are just a few more, grainier, more color-warped, less posed than usual, of the place I’ve called home for so long, even when it’s not quite the right word anymore. Photos of “home” are hard not to make self portraits, even with the subject invisible behind the camera.