ISSUE 008

an oceanic feeling

April 13, 2024 | Directed and written by Ella Wahlquist, with photography by Elias Dickson

I sit as I contemplate the vista above my head. A black, blanketed sky. A few pin-poked spots of light. I see those before me, and I see those who will come after me. I see my own impermanence. I see the space where a chapter of life has ended, and a new one is beginning.

It is as if stars stop altogether, yet also start to spin faster. They were there when I was born, and they will be there when I move on. They were there during the first move out of the house, where a life was packed in boxes, a final kiss was pressed on the forehead, a door was shut. There were few moments of vacuity. The eternal silence catches up to me here.

Those before me look up and see the heavens. They explain the dust of light as a fiery plane we only catch glimpses of. They see the planets as moving around us. They see it in numbers and fractions. They see it in swirls of inspired color.

They watch them move, but they also find moments of stillness — a guide that points north, a symbol of strength, a twinkle of hope.

How many epiphanies have been found in this position? In this thought? What posture do I imitate? The same one that discovers gravity? The one that sparks a revolution? The one that shapes my life?

Is it the one that grasps a last breath, his essence of life ministered across a divine abyss?

Is it the one that shouts into the void that only has this ancient expanse as an ear? The one that believes their life to be ruined?

Is it the one that has experienced all experiences, her vision filled with memory?

Is it the one that contemplates the sky in its entirety? As an entity of good and bad, dark and light? The sky of balance and justice?

And suddenly, in this space, in the gap between the stars, 

at my most primal vulnerability,

I do not feel so alone.

This is a web-exclusive Issue 008 project.

Direction, Writing: Ella Wahlquist
Photography: Elias Dickson

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