Are We There Yet?

Anna Queen

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

- Lewis Carroll

After two years of repeating “are we there yet?”, we have arrived. Not back in the before, but also not somewhere unrecognizable. Circling back without completion, we continue to search for the normalcy of the past. For comforts and reliability, in an altered landscape where the unprecedented has become ubiquitous.

Amid all of these various conditions, art continues; steadfast and beautiful, challenging and grotesque. It brings us remnants of home and allows us a moment of stillness, observation, and contemplation. We can look up to those who make art for their ability to process reality and come to some clarity on our behalf. These artists present us with a spectrum of focus; places both real and imagined, quiet moments and jolts of movement, pattern and deep narrative. It is a gift to have the opportunity and ability to see something through their eyes, to have a glimpse of their experience and imagination.

This space is yours—to experience, to perceive, to just be. A remedy for restlessness or a prompt for action, an opening for small impressions that leave a mark. Let’s rise to the occasion and take a collective moment for the now.