This Is Something I Had To Go Through, James Davis

Eastside Trail

Eastside Trail at North Highland

Art is a window through which we see our personal experience. The plaque next to this sculpture reads, “This sculpture is about a particular moment in the artist’s life he was afraid. As humans, we are all faced with challenges, adversity, and fear.” As a person living with Turner syndrome, I live in the middle of something I have to go through. There is no stop and start, there is only through. The other side never comes. Peace and joy and beauty are found in the middle. Between diagnosis and cure. Between fear and courage. Between past and future.

When I see this sculpture, I am reminded that we are all going through things. We are not alone in our vulnerability and shame and wandering. We are not alone in our questions and pain. Our stories are full of through — the other side — never happening. We are deeply familiar with life’s impermanence. In the midst of all that, we are asked to embrace the middle space and be present. I sit here watching cancer patients leave their radiation treatments talking to family members about how many treatments they have left to endure. I watch parents with scared children trying to ease their fears while being fearful themselves. I tell my story three or four times to nurses and aides as I make my way back to the examination room. I understand the depth of carrying questions to which there is no real resolution. Perhaps resolution is found when I surrender and breathe. Perhaps through does happen. Not as an end state, but in the continual process of falling apart and falling back together. That makes sense to me.

This Is Something I Had To Go Through is hopeful. It is made more beautiful by the weather. It sits in nature, the definitive place of through and knowing and ebb and flow. It welcomes everyone, in all our throughness, to rest for a second and then keep walking. There is hope in through.

A Note on my Atlanta Beltline Writing Project

I am practicing paying attention. I am practicing noticing beauty. I am practicing getting in touch with my artist self. I am practicing connecting with the outdoors. I am practicing my inner Mary Oliver. I live in Atlanta, “the city in a forest.” I live on the Atlanta Beltline, an interurban trail that graces the city. The Beltline is part arboretum, part art gallery, part park. It connects shops and restaurants and homes with people of all descriptions. I walk on the Beltline 4 or 5 times a week. I have spent the last year appreciating all that it is. I have personally photographed the images I will share. My hope is to write about it — its art, trees, landmarks, etc.— for the next few weeks as spring unfolds. I want to soak it all in.