Changing the Focus

PC: KOBU Agency

Living in quarantine as a college student has been a strange, for lack of a better word, experience. Being in college means being too old to stand by and wonder what “adults” are doing to solve the global pandemic, but it simultaneously means being too young to fully understand the range of problems that people are facing in the world right now. A few weeks ago, I started turning the volume knob down on news about the coronavirus. I felt the world slipping out of control. I read the story of Carina who was killed by her husband in front of their two children and learned of the rapidly increasing rates of domestic violence. I read about the lack of menstrual hygiene products and the choice many families and shelters are being forced to make: food or menstrual products. Luxury tax aside, the price for tampons has increased by as much as $3 in some states. I read article after article, scratching the surface of more stories than I can remember, wondering at the lives of Jose and Michelle and Sandra and hundreds more mentioned in newspapers. That is, until I stopped.

As I said, quarantine has been strange. Even without the newspaper articles, my days were spent proving to friends that I was not sitting passively on my couch, but rather learning new hobbies and puzzling over difficult challenges. While I mostly exaggerate how actively I am pursuing new interests, I have spent some time learning about photography. Although I couldn’t hold a conversation about much more than the rule-of-thirds, I’ve become entranced with focus. Exactly like the human eye, cameras are only able to focus on one plane, blurring everything in front of and behind it. In doing so, cameras take a busy image and make it simple. A camera can transform a field of moving grass into a flower with a hazy green background.  

I opened the New York Times again last night, and read stories about children and kids. I found my flower in the hazy background. Admittedly, it is hard to find a plane of focus, and much harder still to consciously blur out what lies in front of and behind it. But it is what has helped me feel like being a college student isn’t being too old or too young. It’s just right.