Connectedness

Artist Statement

From time to time, we all feel lonely. But am I just lonely in the moment or actually “alone?” Am I lost? If so, will I ever find myself? What do I feel connected with?

I am an only child, and I moved to the US many years ago. After making the US my permanent home some years later, I lost my father. A short time later, after becoming a US citizen, I lost my mother as well, my last immediate family connection back to India.

Though I grew up in India, I have lived over half my life in Massachusetts. When one’s parents live half a world away, there is a constant sense of loneliness. That’s when the desire for connectedness grows stronger. Now, in the wake of a pandemic, nearly everyone understands to some degree what it means to feel lonely and isolated.

One of the definitions of connectedness is the sense of belonging to a community or some degree of interrelatedness with other people. But, to me, connections aren’t just with people but also with the land and places one inhabits.

As I take a walk in the lovely, quiet New England woods the sense of loneliness can be profound. Sometimes the solitude can feel meditative and sometimes melancholic. And yet when I think I am all alone, a stranger will pass by and smile. There are also those who walked the same trails before me. What were they thinking or feeling when they walked here? Is there a common thread in the same spectrum of emotions we all feel - joy, sadness, hope, disappointment, some loneliness? Just like these woods, our hearts hold shadows, light, and, every once in a while, bursts of sparkle.

When I’m in the woods, if I pay attention to the moment, I can hear the birds chirping and the breeze murmuring through the trees. I pause, I breathe in the crisp fall air or the summer wildflowers. None of these sensations can be recorded into my photos, but the gentle glow of the golden hour around dusk in these woods, the magnificent tableaus, can be rendered through my camera on paper.

At this point in my life, I am as connected to my new-found home as to the far away land in which I was born. They are very different places, but each has provided its own beauty and bounty. I am grateful that my work here allows me to say, “I witness this moment. I am here. I am connected.”