All of a sudden, for all of us in New Zealand [and around the world] home means something so much more than it did.

Sanctuary. Safety. Refuge. Comfort. Love. Delight. All of those things for sure. But home is also now a place we are required to be in, and not leave, except for shopping, essential work, short walks. Regardless of the emotional landscape within our walls [excepting cases of the horrible violence I hope very few of us have to ever face], we are required to stay put. Screaming children, fighting adults, bickering teens. Whatever. We have lost something essential. A freedom we took for granted. That loss is so heavy that no wonder so many of us are struggling.

I'm in a loving and beautiful relationship, we're in a gorgeous warm dry home, I am financially okay [thanks NZ government], I've got no small children to look after [you parents with small children will need medals after this], my son is safe and secure with his father, my family are all okay, my dog is being looked after by a wonderful woman back in Whanganui. My mental health is okay, my body is fit and healthy. And, crucially, I’m still able to do my work. The thing that offers me such relief and release. I am so freaking fortunate. And my heart still hurts. I”m still struggling. I can only imagine how incredibly difficult it is for so many people.

I sat in the supermarket underground carpark for about an hour this afternoon. I'd gone with my partner to do our shopping. I'd wanted to be out in the world around people more than I'd wanted the food. We got to the queue only to be told it was one person per household/bubble. My partner is the cook so it made sense that he go in. I went and sat in the car and waited. I hadn't brought my phone. So I sat there and waited, and cried. I felt caged. Restricted. A big heavy weight on my chest. As the minutes passed, I stopped my sorry-for-myself tears and did deep breathing and really just slowed myself down. I thought of my mother and the pain she endured when she was dying, how she fought every bloody day to sit in her chair and watch the birds feeding, to wave at the neighbours as they walked by. To text her children and keep in the loop of their lives. I thought how her world got smaller and smaller and how she just kept fighting, and also kept accepting that this was how life was for her now, even with all the new indignities.. This four weeks I [we] am being asked to stay at home is nothing compared to that.

I realised half the difficulty I've been having is that I've been holding so tightly to how things were "before". Things aren't as they were and no amount of wishing will make it so. It's time to let go of "before". To accept that right now my life is very small. That for the next few coming weeks, it revolves around these walls I"m calling home. The beauty of accepting this situation I literally cannot change, instead of struggling against it, is that I can then begin to see all that is lovely right here in front of me. I can begin to change and respond to the new landscape we find ourselves in, and expand and deepen as a result. And isn’t that what I’ve wanted for thirty years? To walk across new internal landcapes, to expand and deepen so I can be as myself as I possibly can, and therefore be able to express something which is entirely my own as a result?

As I've said before: happiness is found in the smallest of corners.

[Home 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]