It has been a long time since I have felt like I was home. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to leave the place I was at. I’ve lived in many places because of this, I’ve hardly ever been still, like a river. It’s almost instinctual for me to just pick up and run when I feel this discomfort, the nagging idea that there must be something better somewhere else. I think it’s actually hereditary. I am the last of my family to be in Sacramento, a place we’ve been for three generations. It’s a weird sensation for me to admit that, because I’ve never wanted to leave less. My family is all over the country, but my roots feel deep and planted here. It’s only after having an exodus by living very far from the rivers of Sacramento and pilgrimaging back that I think I can feel this way. No other place can I recognize the way I do Sacramento. I know what street I’m on with my eyes closed just by feeling the curves and bumps on the road, something picked up from falling asleep in the car as a child as our father drove us home. And it wasn’t until I lived in a place unrecognizable to me and me to it, where every street felt new and unfamiliar, did I realize how stabilizing it is to know your surroundings like a childhood friend. That feeling like you know where you are intimately makes you feel known in that way as well.

This feeling is what drives the work I’ve been making as of late. I hope when I capture my subjects, whether they be people, places or things, that it is more than my gaze that comes through the photos, but their gaze towards me as well. I hope that the “knowing” that comes is mutual as well as the love, curiosity, intimacy, and familiarity. In coming back to my home I am able to see it with new eyes, my perspective has shifted, the angle of my vision tilted. I can appreciate the beauty in a place that I’ve seen as both ugly, boring, suffocating, as well as disturbing, amusing, loving, grounding, and healing.