For a long time, I was not here.

People often ask me about working as a nurse during the pandemic in New York City. I don't know how to respond because I remember almost nothing.

I remember the words of encouragement from drivers as they took me across the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn.
I remember picking up a contract position on an understaffed unit, in addition to working full time as a researcher and going to graduate school because working compulsively was easier than dealing with my grief and heartbreak.
I remember digging my nails into my arm and locking the car door on a ride to the beach with friends because I was desperate to spill onto the asphalt. 
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For a long time, I was floating outside of myself. I could not be with my own family so I cared for others - in many ways, it grounded me and saved me, gave me purpose. I am forever grateful to the workers who shared these experiences with me, in hospitals, vaccination clinics, and volunteer services. But I learned that I could not heal myself through healing others. 

What follows is a creative record of regeneration. I emerged from this dark valley and found myself on an isolated beach in Puerto Rico, collecting sea urchin shells. The shells became my sacred talismans and spiritual relics. They allowed me to open a portal and build a new world and personal language. I approached the endeavor as a clinician and scientist by gathering data within parameters, with detachment from the result. Creating this work was a practice in discernment, finding the patterns and story that made my new universe. 

Timing and cycles proved themselves as divine. Observation, creating, and loving are processes and practices. If you are here, I am also here. 
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