Sometimes I forget to breathe. 

Sometimes, I can feel the space around me weigh down on my skin. Like I’m six feet beneath the sea's surface, simultaneously floating and feeling the immense pressure of waves crashing overhead. Involuntary reflexes kick in, I hold my breath. 

These photographs reflect on feeling breathless and out of place, similar to how I have often felt over the past two years as I worked to find connection among new communities in a new city. I’m frightened by the truth that I can never really know someone else at the depth I know myself. I wonder, Who am I and who am I to you? Through my eyes, the connection between strangers begins with a splash, a forceful break in the social “surface tension” that keeps each of us separate and uninvolved. Breaking that surface tension is a vulnerable act. In doing so, I expose my soft underbelly to the unknown depths below. In doing so, I voluntarily enter a breathless state. 

Only once the ripples settle into tranquility do I feel that I can breathe again.