—Wendy Sacks - Immersed in Living Water (2011)
Artist’s statement:
“While working as a pediatric emergency physician, I carried a camera to document ill patients. These images were used for teaching and documentation. Photography combined the grief associated with sufferings and sometimes deaths. It also dealt with the wave of despair which can be overwhelming. In order to maintain professionalism and composure, separating self from distressing emotions was unknowingly interwoven into photographs.
I had to leave medicine while in my mid thirties due to severe arthritis and a connective tissue disease. Although I missed caring for my patients and working in medicine, I had to come to terms with the fact that I could not care for both my family and my patients due to my limitations. Because of this realization, my leave of absence was no longer such sadness for me for being disabled but instead it became an opportunity to become a mother with freedom to express love and joy. However, I began to find that I was bound by the physical limits of my debilitating disease. Simple tasks such as laundry became increasingly difficult as my joints deteriorated, needing reconstruction and replacement one by one. Photography, though, was less burdensome, even therapeutic as it diverted and refocused my attention.
As a mother, I brought a camera back into my life to capture my own children. To perform some of the activities of daily living, an occupational therapist suggested I bathe with my young children since I could not lift them into the tub. Eventually, I brought my camera to the tub. When I looked through the lens this time, life and death looked different to me. Through the lens, I remembered my world of medicine, I remembered the children who were sick and had died in my care and the children who had healed, the children whom I barely had time to mourn or celebrate while working as a physician. Overwhelming feelings sealed away in my subconscious began to emerge.
Water has become my medium of choice by chance. It has become a medium for physical and emotional healing.”
This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.
// Looper//
I had a reoccurring dream. I always have them in the heat of troubling weeks, when I am overworked and haven’t had enough time to be quiet.
I was sprinting towards a temporary shelter. By now the sirens had started and skidding trucks full of bullet proof vests were screeching to a halt out front. I feel responsible in some way. I feel ownership and authority in this place. I’m wearing a white coat and people know my face.
I grab four suits from the armored trucks and maneuver through the crowd of worried and confused faces to the family that I am looking for. They don’t know that they died the last time I had this dream. I hand them the bulletproof suits and say, “Wear them and your family won’t die this time. Sorry,” before rushing off again.
I rush past the shelter people who are leperous to acquire enough of the suits for their families. The gravity of the doom calms me. I know there is nothing I can do. I am sweating and drunk with adrenaline. I shut the door when I get to my quarters. I am furiously packing and burning sentimental belongings into my mind, knowing that I cannot take them. Something terrible is coming. It is everything. I pack for the impending tsunami. So I bring a backpack that I can use as an inflatable. And then I remember the massive earthquake so I pack my hiking boots as well. Remembering the government warfare reminds me to pack that hidden gun.
And there’s nothing else. I forget about family ties and friendships. There is only survive now.
// Idea Pregnant//
I had a dream that my hands soothed and cooed over six month belly. I walked with a slight waddle to meet an old friend. She looked excited. We were celebrating the growing baby. I obliged with curiosity as she drove us into a sunny suburban neighborhood. She looked pleased with herself. I was curious.
I pushed my weight off the contoured seat of the car to follow her into a friendly house with an orange tiled roof. But the door opened and fluorescent painted men met us with gawky eyes and cheeky smiles. Music throbbed in waves. Blacklight ushered us as I waddled after her. She assimilated naturally. She winked at the glasses handed to her and giggled at the paint gropingly smeared on her. All of them were men. They all laughed with drunken emptiness and sold themselves to us.
I was confused. How did I get here? Why am I pregnant?
// A Dream of Hunger//
I had a dream that I was voracious. I sat and consumed, still coveting bitterly. But the more that I took in, the hungrier I became. My hunger consumed me. The more I consumed, the more my hunger longed for fulfillment.
(Source: girlfriendmagazine, via likeneelyohara)
(via dustjacketattic)
// Dreams of Falling Out//
I had a dream that I was driving away away. I drove into a reoccurring dream. I drove into a familiar complex with cars aggressively packed in. The housing towered and leaned over me while I cruised to find a spot. I came to see a friend that my heart would be glad to see. It was always tricky walking up those uneven and treacherous stairs. Shifty, birdy eyes peeked out from curtains to watch me. I ignored them to focus on the tricky stairs.
I stepped inside and greeted my bustling friend. She had a baby on her hip and chores to handle. She buttered me with overly excited and thoughtless small talk. It was nice to see her anyway.
I left feeling like an intruder to meet at an amusement park. I don’t remember it being flashy or fun-looking. But we got into a wide and rectangular boat anyway. The ride jolted slightly when it started and we started to loop upside down. I went to grab the restraints to find that we didn’t have any. No one panicked. Gravity lifted me upside-down towards the floor. No one saw me hanging on by my perspired hand. “No,” I said it with conviction so that I felt myself wake up a little. The boat hung upside down and swung side to side until I let go. I fell with a small exhale and a thud. The boat finished its loop and flew on. It didn’t hurt. I was only embarrassed and afraid that I was dead. My arms were contorted and broken, so I stayed face down and embarrassed that I had been the only one to fall out.
// I had a Dream of Pulling Teeth//
The week after a visit to the dentist, I fell asleep in the middle of the week and climbed a cylinder tower with a straight staircase to the garden rooftop. I found a former acquaintance waiting for me. He was so arrogant that he didn’t talk. He just stood there with a strong jaw line and crossed arms. He pursed his lips and chin. I didn’t care. He led me to his pretentious loft with glass walls and snooty 360 view. The city glittered from far off like lit bokeh in photographs. I tried to ignore my awkward and arrogant acquaintance. He looked at me cross armed.
I drove home in a rebellious looking top down and wiggled a loose tooth. I looked up to find myself at a public bath. Like the ones they had in ancient Greece. The walls were white and slick with condensation. The room was full of nude, bathing women. My loose tooth fell out. And then a molar. They all began to slide out in turn. I had a handful of teeth before I could understand how it was happening. I stood there amazed and invisible to the bathing women with a row of gums instead of teeth.
