Constant States of Conversion

Text and photography by Patrick La Roque

The sun changes everything around here—the spirits stir, people freed by the shedding of their winter skin. As if we all get to be new again, every spring. For a few minutes I just stand on the sidewalk, looking up into the warmth, soaking it in.

These are strange days for me, heavy with what I sometimes feel are a few too many milestones. Last week I caught up to my dad; that is, I reached the age he was when he died. How fucked up is that? To realize you will always, from this point on, be older than your father, travelling a path he never walked? To understand—physically understand— how brief it all was for him...my god. I feel at once insanely lonely and profoundly blessed. 

Milestones? Yeah. No shit.

I guess I'm slowly realizing this is our reality: flux. Constant states of conversion forcing us to re-evaluate what we thought was true. We're the ever-changing light in the city, those moving shadows and shifting surfaces I love so much. 

Transient and forever renewed.