Kaitlin Strange
What strikes me about my life is how unfinished it is.
Time continues to turn and churn with every rotation of this interstellar ball of rock, water, and air. Slowly becoming. Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost”
Katie Fitzmahan Strange. Becoming. 2020.
What strikes me about my life is how unfinished it is. It makes sense. Seems to be a given with the way time progresses and doesn’t stop. But it’s not what I expected.
When I was eight years old I assumed everything would be put into place by the time I was in high school. And at 17 I figured by 30 I would be set in the mold of who I was determined to become. I still hold onto the illusion that by 60 I’ll have arrived somewhere, or will be someone who is more complete than I am today. But, time and again I am reminded that nothing fully stops or reaches completion. Time continues to turn and churn with every rotation of this interstellar ball of rock, water, and air. And we’re just here for the ride. Slowly becoming.
Katie and Huxley Strange. 2020.
It is rare when the hustle, the flow and movement slows to a stop. But in the last year I can recall at least one distinct moment where time slowed to a palatable and undeniable stop. The pandemic brought it on. Lock-down in Barcelona started on March 12th. For almost 3 months the city was silent and still. The only activity in the streets came at 8 PM when neighbors emerged to their balconies to clap and holler for the healthcare workers. Otherwise the city was empty, like a set for a play - waiting for action but empty, silent, lifeless.
And despite these fits and starts and moments of pause, change continues to envelope me and the people around me. My hair grows longer, the grey more persistent, the lines on my face more prominent. Friends grow families, change jobs, move towns. Parents age and slow. The change brings a melancholy with it - a relentless reminder of mortality. I worry about the fleeting amount of time we have together, about not doing enough to fill this time, about making a mark, about being a ‘good’ friend, sister, daughter, partner. I catch myself wishing time away and then thinking what a waste of time to worry so much.
I spent 40 weeks growing a small person inside me. And 6 weeks sustaining and supporting this tiny human. As my body changes week by week, I am stunned by what time can do. How my body grows and shrinks. What creation and development looks like on the skin, the muscles, the mind. And the relief and ease that comes with having an age-old job of supporting life.
Katie and Huxley. 2020.
I don’t need to worry about wasting time, when I am continually doing something just by breathing, eating, sleeping, and walking. I grow a limb here, a toe there. I make milk and I transform energy without thinking twice. All without thinking twice.
The simplicity of the task is refreshing. There is a sense of relief that comes with time standing still. I can simply be and do at the same time. My existence and my actions are tied to an outcome that is more than myself.
Maybe we spend so much time worrying about what we are producing, making, doing because we want to feel like we are a part of something. That we are more than ourselves. What peace we might find if we were able to sit still and find that by simply being and sitting we are a part of a greater sum than our small part.
Perhaps that is what this time of slowing down has done for me, for all of us. We’ve found ourselves the space and silence needed to better understand a universal truth that connects us all, for better or worse. That even without movement, and the fast-tracked passing of time, we are all fumbling through the passing of time. We are all still becoming.
Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange. 2020.
The words are by Katie Strange. The photographs of Kaitlin and baby are by Katie Strange and Maureen Fitzmahan.
Kaitlin Fitzmahan Strange, living in Barcelona, Spain, is a founding member of the Art Junket (2015-2022).
