january 26, 2022
When I was a child, I lived in a subdivision and was homeschooled and rarely allowed outside of parental supervision and generally tethered to my mother. a bike ride down the dead-end street required a walkie talkie so she could always be one click away; this was ostensibly for my safety, but it really was so I never got too far off the leash. The only thing that really ever kept my mind roaming was that my bedroom window faced the one undeveloped area in the subdivision, to the West. It was a simple field with some distant trees; it was just the one place that hadn't been clear-cut to build more identical boxes yet.
I began my photographic career in that field 15 years ago, shooting pictures of sunsets with a Sony Cybershot. I wanted to explore the "distant forest", which really was a stand of trees 200 feet away. I wasn't allowed, but it put the bug in my head that there were things to explore outside of the suburban routines I was allowed to have, and when I took my van trip a decade later, I credited that field with giving me the desire to explore the unknown.
Way off in the distance, visible just over the treetops of the field, were some regularly-blinking radio towers. I don't remember how many, just that I tried to figure out their patterns, kept the blinds open to watch them blink when I couldn't sleep. I didn't know where or how far away they were, but it was comforting to not know: look, Vicki, there is a universe even beyond the field; there is the regularity of blinking lights and steel towers beyond the ennui of this subdivision. It instilled a sense of peace in me when my home became abusive to stare at the distant lights, far away from my subdivision, and know that I can explore those too. Someday.
It's someday, and I am exploring, and every blinking-red light tower draws me in and calms me in a way nothing else can.