a long journey home
a preface
When I was 23 years old, I was working my butt off in landscape architecture school. It was truly one of the most valuable and enriching experiences of my life (in hindsight); but if you've ever experienced a professional design program, you know that the long hours in the studio are shapeless and unrelenting, like flowing water in a stream, dulling over the years any sharp rocks that fall in. I got too tired. The design education wasn't itself the sole reason for these feelings at the time; it was one of many strands in a tangle of mental health and self worth battles. I just choked. I felt myself losing my balance, tripping over battles I had created for myself. Self-suppression: the feeling that one can't speak strongly and courageously through their own brokenness. And when in design school, constructive and useful criticism is the fog in which you live every day and sacrifice all creative energy. It didn't take long for my new learned skill of self editing to slowly evolve into self sabotage. But in the spring of that year, during a walk in the park to calm the soul, I began to see with transparency my own self. It was a long awaited, much needed moment of revelation, reminding me of ancient truths and encouraging my spirit. like all of the young tree buds around me, I began to unfold. That day, an old hope was unearthed. Scribbles, musings, projects, advice, letters, sketches-- all simmering in piles of journals cluttered on my bookshelves all came together with a new voice to tell me: look at all of these ideas. you can do whatever you want to in life. you can redefine success. and you own it to yourself to pursue it.
This personal evolution was inspiring and I felt the urge to respond in big ways. I needed to carve this change into my immediate world, the tactile world, the world where things like chicken, jobs, and jail exist. I wanted viscera. I wanted indelibility. This mark was to be an armor, a counter projection to my self sabotage; the reevaluation of my faith in myself; the signal of my advance.
I dropped out of grad school.
a Masters in Landscape Architecture degree
AND I made my indelible mark in the shape of an inky, black sea turtle smack dab in the middle of my chest
There’s actually very little known about sea turtles in respects to their entire life cycles. Most of what the scientific community knows comes from both data and anecdotal evidence gathered from observing mothers and babies. We see them on the shore; we know where they return. We see them in the sand, we know from where they come. We see them in the reef, we know what they eat. Past breeding cycles, scientists understand that these hermetic animals spend their whole life traveling vast distances across the open ocean, as much as 10,000 miles in one year(1). And while other oceanic animals share this behavior, it is usually done in groups, families; however, the sea turtle travels its whole life in solitude, almost exclusively accompanied by nothing more than deep blue. Can a home be qualified by nebulous, transient space, or where does the sea turtle call home?
In my 27 years already, I’ve traveled a lot; most of that, before the age of 18. I calculated it one time and concluded out that the number of times I’ve flown in a plane is actually in the ballpark of 500. I’ve done some light international traveling, and during college, I did a lot of driving, thousands and thousands of miles. But in my reflections of these journeys, it came to me that the idea of traveling and home go hand in hand, and this is where the life of the sea turtle comes full circle. In my need to liberate and give my 23 year old self the permission to take bold new risks, I inscribed upon my body the symbol of the animal that paved before me a beautiful story of home, self, and context. Home to the sea turtle cannot be summized by one specific location, but rather a relationship of places. Home spans habitats, coordinates with seasons, flows with currents, adapts to randomness, and looks forward. In dropping out of grad school at 23 and starting my first small studio, I was able to invite these notions to become a part of my life, to shape my future, to help me further define myself. Ultimately with this new attitude, I started to feel less bound, I began to stretch out. New successes helped me to re-inflate, and when I was ready, I went back. I finished my masters.
New horizons are calling for me again. It's exciting. Will it be the same? Who knows what I'm about to learn. Luckily, I have amazing families and wonderful friends. I have people that care about me and with which I can share yet another quest of redefinition. Memories of places that I have known and people I have loved will always be the definition of home to me. But like the turtle, I feel in my spirit the meditative calling to expand my habitat.
Thus is born Project Janeway.
(1) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/sea-turtle-facts_n_5505508.html