No6: DR DOG - HOW LONG MUST I WAIT?

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

LUCIA AUERBACH

for best reading experience listen to this while reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZ-DEyAZhw

Above my bed hangs a lenticular postcard from The Museum of Modern Art that reads YES and NO. It is just one of the hundreds of postcards hanging on my wall. Mostly from museums, but the art also includes film photographs, polaroids, torn dollar bills, and my friend’s sophomore year school photo. It’s a never-ending project. My closest friends know that any postcard they send me will end up haphazardly taped up onto it.  At the top left corner is a blurry, dark photo of a forest. No audience could be able to decipher it, so it stays hidden on my wall. The dark leaves of the Uinta forest peak out at me every time I look up towards it. 

I started driving to the Uintas at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The isolation and loneliness I so frequently feel were heightened, so traveling to a forest that lacks any interaction and service was the perfect addition. I would wear my bright red boots and an orange vintage blouse while carrying three different cameras. Every photo turned out the same. Trees. No matter the angle, it would always be a towering, natural, green giant. You can see the ones slowly dying due to a beetle infestation, eating the giants from the inside out, hundreds of them, until they no longer tower. You can see the pines and the aspens and the roaring shades of green. The lakes and the mushrooms that you can find if you take four people to the top of the mountain and look under nearly every tree stump. They’re all the same. 

We become too used to our surroundings. The grand forest I frequent is breathtaking to the Joshua Tree native. The beach I grew up on allures the Kansas native. We forget the true beauty that surrounds us just due to mere exposure. But then, there are those moments. Like the blurry, dark moment captured on my dying film camera. The moments that remind you how beautiful everything around you is. 

We forget how beautiful we are. Every waking second of the day we are with ourselves. We forget how special we are. You can see it in the eyes of the old man in the park. Sitting, he watches his dog run back and forth, completely in love with the chase. The man’s eyes are sunken and sad and his blue baseball cap has faded and torn. He has forgotten how beautiful he is. When you become too comfortable, it’s easy to forget. You have to become lost to find yourself again.

I see it in the people I love the most. The beauty they hold every day. Her thought-out compliments, his charismatic smile, her welcoming nature, his dedicated movements… I see their beauty. But why can’t I find mine? Every mountain I climb, every lake I swim, every road I drive, I can’t find it.

How long must I wait?