Photographer52:

That’s just the trouble. I don’t know what happens at the end of my year which will be April 30, 2005. When I started this thing, it was many things. I took myself hostage as a sort of sabbatical from life. I was looking to get famous or rich or recognized or on Ellen. I was looking to get a new camera. So far none of those things have happened, at least not on any tangible scale. But that’s not disappointment. My plans and intentions changed. And, believe me, I am enjoying this.

Meanwhile, it was a sort of social suicide. Not goodbye cruel world. Perhaps see you later cruel world. But it was also a sort of accidental agoraphobia that, like Jell-o, is beginning to set.

It’s also been a bit like a marathon. And I’m already thinking about walking it off.

On April 30, I want to unlock, uncloset, untrap myself. I want to go out and buy my new camera and take a picture of myself in the dazzling light of day in the open, in the world, in the thick. I want to gorge on the outside.

But what I do on May 1, I have no idea. And while I’m sure by then this dry, crusty chrysalis will have served its purpose, I don’t know yet what I will do without it. What did Robinson Crusoe do when he got off his island? I don’t remember. I’m quite sure he lived, didn’t he? What does the exile do when he emerges from his island, his cave, his broken down abandoned warehouse?

Perhaps I can adopt a new accidental neurosis. Perhaps I can turn over this space to any neurotic compatriot who wants to fill it. Well, Photographer52, I’ve got a whole season to figure it out and take suggestions.

SS