Just over a year and a half ago my life changed for good in an instant. I haven’t spoken publicly yet of the accident on the local col that so nearly claimed me, but anyone that knows me personally and some that know my photographic eye have been engaged in an openly lived recovery that could be described as many things but is pretty miraculous to all involved.
After two months in a coma and a year in hospital I found myself returning for ‘hopital du jour‘ by car, alone for the first time and newly autonomous after such incarceration. And of all things, with a camera. I realise now it was the first time I had felt joyous since the day my life changed in the pull of a brake lever. I have constantly described this episode as joyless. I now see that was accurate until the day I started to make these photographs on the journey to and from hospital for day treatments. The time I regained a little of myself lost until that point.
Speaking of it today I realised the importance of the timeline of this strange draw back to a new ‘home’ – the peninsular of my second six month stay at a hospital, held and one I had been so desperate to leave and not return to throughout my stay there.
This turning of the light onto such a pivotal scene in this episode seemed more relevant than ever, not least because of a current new fear shared with all of humanity made that brief period of joyous hope and a simple feeling of rebirth shine out to me as such an important beacon in what had been a part of my life ingrained with a spectrum of feelings – everything from fear, aloneness, terror, hope, dismay, gratitude and achievement.
So without further detour, I’d like to let these images snapped en route to and from hopital du jour show a little glimpse of how I saw the world for the first time on a fresh page of a new journal I understood I had to now write to rebuild a life so nearly lost but literally given a second chance to see.
Thanks for looking.