Remapping the Geography of Joy
“En el río, en el bosque”, all images courtesy of Nicole Lefthand.
Remapping the Geography of Joy
by Nicole Lefthand
My first camera was a Holga Micro 110 Mini Camera. It was bright red with black detailing and my mom loaded it for me -- saying not to open the film compartment. She bought it for me at a camera or pawn shop. At that age and height, they both looked the same to me: a sea of glass cases with untouchable treasures. I was the exclusive photog of my local daycare which was named, somewhat redundantly, A Child’s Playground. I took pictures of my whole world, ceremoniously winding the film between shots. EVERYTHING seemed worthy of documentation. One day, it wouldn’t wind. I opened the film compartment thinking I had blown though the roll and, of course, exposed all my shots. Being a photographer was hard.
That daycare center is still there off Candelaria and Carlisle. It still has the beige brick, dark wood shingle siding and a bright blue canopy over the playground. Kids are still there pumping themselves on the swings by the picket fence and flying down slides warmed by the sun. The majority of my first memories were in Albuquerque as my mom was finishing her degree at University of New Mexico. Being a three, four, five year old kid at the time, I’m surprised at how vibrant my memories are.
I’ve lived in Albuquerque on and off throughout my adulthood with a variety of intentions. To me, it’s still a magical place. My most recent exodus back to this city has me once again marveling at it like a kid. Everywhere I go, I’m partially seeing it through the eyes of my childhood self BEFORE. Before being stunted by neglect, trauma, and abuse. My memories after beginning school back home in Fort Defiance are dim and disconnected. I’ve likely been disassociating since Kindergarten. The reason I value the memories from my pre-K years is not just because they were some of my first ones, it’s because they are evidence I was really alive once. I was still in my body then.
“Lithium Carbonate”
My current life here has been an exercise in re-living the sensations and sense of wonder of that time. This exercise has included going to Wienerschnitzel for the first time (the one we passed by every day but never went to!), riding my bike down streets I’ve always been curious about (with no training wheels!), stomping those spikey poof balls that fall off the sycamores, eating peaches from trees, taking pictures of every roadrunner I see, laying in grass at the park, watching how the sun cuts through the clouds and allowing myself to be vulnerable and grateful enough to be moved by it. For the first time in years, I am really feeling what it is like to be human.
Conventionally, this is inner child work. It’s so simple but so difficult. To stay right here right now and value nothing more than biting into a plump peach and letting the juices run down my chin is hard work. Every anxious and fearful thought in my head has to be abandoned so I can just enjoy a peach. To my brain, there is no scarier prospect. With every sensory or kinetic activity I do, my brain is working overtime to make sure that I am not present in my body. Perhaps this is a habit of growing up in an unstable environment that I couldn’t escape so I learned to leave through my thoughts. I learned to ruminate over every possible worst case scenario so that I wouldn’t be disappointed when the worst happened. As a result, I’ve been a lifelong pessimist. Shedding that self-protective lens is elusive work. Sometimes I can catch it and throw it out; other times, it sneaks in through the back door and is suddenly speaking for me, expressing a point of view much harsher and dichotomous than what I actually perceive. “Sorry, my brain hijacked my thoughts again” isn’t exactly the formula for making amends after a social faux pas.
The best part of rediscovering my sense of wonder has been taking pictures every day. It does feel like being on the playground with a 110 film camera again. I regularly kill my phone battery finding beauty in seemingly benign subjects. It makes the world look different because, eventually, everything looks worthy of a pretty picture. My entire environment is alive and I am there to experience and document it. It helps me live. Literally. I’ve driven by amazing scenes, parked my car as fast as I could, and ran back to take a picture. I’m not running from something anymore, I’m running to something.
The “geography of trauma” is a term that has been used in trauma studies circles to describe both the physical “site” of a traumatic occurrence as well as the way in which trauma transcends space and time to live in the human psyche. It is both here and there. My goal in reconnecting with the self that I left in Albuquerque nearly thirty years ago is an act of remapping my geography of joy. I’m coming home to myself by returning to the last real home of my self. I’m not trying to figure out where things went wrong, I’m investigating where things went right.
