We all hit adolescence and expected the ground to shift, yet we never would have imagined a pandemic.
The news duly focuses on urgency, lives lost and populations at risk. There is also an emotional toll–a younger generation that should be out trying to fly, not grounded.
Bedroom to bathroom, bathroom to backyard, backyard through kitchen to bedroom.
Stella, at 14, is stuck at home. Though she’s lucky–there are much worse circumstances and places she could be–this is the extent of the territory she can explore right now.
Stella has found her escape hatches, her strategies to stay buoyant. She dresses up in cosplay, films herself for TikTok. There is art, emo music, moody makeup. All typical teenager, maybe, but the theatrics of it stand out at a time when masks cover our faces and muffle our voices. As she tries on these figurative masks, I wonder if it helps compensate for the losses of the past year, both personal and collective.
I am Stella’s mother, so I’m privy to her frustrations and creative solutions. But teens often retreat to their rooms when possible, finding spaciousness between four walls to grow as an individual. I’m not always welcome these days, let alone with my camera. This is a different kind of loss, a healthy, universal one, the letting go of childhood.
Escape Hatch witnesses these transitions and bursts of self-expression, the ways to feel fully alive in this unique moment together at home.
