Measuring Histories

 

This piece measures the countless times I walked the paths between my house and my cousins' houses. Because we only lived 0.5 miles apart at the most, I spent a lot of time with my cousins growing up. This closely-knit relationship I have with each one has undoubtedly impacted who I am and how I have come to regard family today. 

Each of the various paths is marked by a story, and each different color represents a different cousin (8 in total, including my sister). To prepare for this, I called each cousin and asked them to tell their favorite silly, funny, or sweet story of us growing up. From a map, I sketched out the literal roads and corners I walked, then wrote the stories (in my own words) in that shape. 

I talk to my cousins often, but not nearly often enough. Calling them out of the blue was lovely. I was surprised at how many of them picked up the phone right away, how most of them said "ohh, that's so hard to choose one!" in response to my prompt, and how easily I was reminded of the blessing of my childhood spent with them. Putting these memories in physical words and on a physical piece of paper materializes this blessing for me. 

I intend for this piece to act like a little moment, both frozen in and extending beyond time. The paths are not to scale. In fact, the paper is small enough that I can hold it in my hands. Each cousin's personalities and tendencies (things I could only know from spending so much time with them) is held in the color with which I chose to write their story. The stories are all from different times in my life, ranging from age 4 or 5 to 17 or 18. And the black border isolates these paths from the real land that surrounds them. There is a lot that is said on this paper, but it can never tell the whole story. I like to imagine that the blank spaces in between the paths are holding what is not, or cannot be, said. 

The one thing I wish I could change about this piece is the fact that I had to call my cousins. Talking to them, laughing, and reminiscing only makes me wish I didn't live in a different state now. How good it would have been to simply walk over to their house again and talk face to face!