On Going Underground

Processing the shadows

Anaïs Nin, 1939

This year has been a strange year. The fires in January, just days before my 35th birthday, ravaged the city asunder. The cloud of smoke, lasting for weeks on end, ash creeping into hair and eyelids on simple morning strolls, the asthma-like infection taking over my lungs when I took off my mask, stifling every new breath with a noxious cough.