I was told it must’ve been awful for a person like me to spend the large majority of days locked down in a cell. Every “awful” thing is an opportunity for the spirit to rise above.
Words and art by Isaac Wright, published in Volume 22, now available
The truth is that nature cannot be fooled, and every act of the body follows a movement of the heart. I never once stopped climbing, in shackles or courtrooms between states, or sleeping body to body on filthy floors.
The true climb exists external to circumstance; one just chooses to move forward, whatever that may presently look like.
There’s a sort of scratching, of clawing our way forward toward some invisible light. Love lives in that light, all of our broken remains and bits and pieces.
Everything that remains is sacred; everything that remains was meant to go on. It may be that there is no true destination; the freedom is in the climb, inside of walls or out, regardless of time or circumstances. In time, I think we will come to see all we have is the climb.
The best part of my day was the night: homemade coffee, long books, and turning my head sideways trying to find the moon out my six-inch window. My imagination ran marathons dreaming up all the places I’d go and things I’d see when the time came.
It’s amazing what the mind can do when the mind is all you have. I told myself every day, my body was imprisoned, but my mind was not, and that was the mantra I lived by.
I sat down to talk with my father the other day and expressed how tired I was, and he reminded me to remember when I dreamed about being here.
I made us both the same homemade coffee I would there, and we talked, catching up on years and relearning each other. Sometimes it’s the wind, or sleeping in the dark, or the quiet that gets me. I’m longing now to slow it all back down more than ever.
But the dreams seem closer now; they seem more tangible than ever. I think, in a way, I have always been that kid picturing constellations on the walls and climbing toward something largely invisible to others. The days come and go in the midst of battle, and it normally hits you all at once that you’re surviving, and even more than that—you’re living.
You begin to realize that you’re doing it, manifestations are becoming concrete, and the view is coming into sight. All the battle scars don’t look so bad then; there’s some strange and curious comeliness about them. In the end, I think we will find we hold the power of life and death in our minds.
I’ve spent much of the last year contemplating what exactly freedom is, and for now, I believe it’s any moment in time where we can move beyond and exist without fear.
We may think that risk jeopardizes our freedom, but in all actuality, freedom cannot exist without risk.
Freedom knows nothing of past failures or heartbreak; it only knows now and what could become of this moment. So we throw ourselves headlong into the void time and time again, daring to fall but learning to soar.
Hearts beat faster, and eyes grow wider as past and future cataclysmically collide in one moment, overcoming who we have been and daring toward all we can become.
In the end, I fear we have no choice; we dread breaking so much we fail to see how desperately we need it. There is art in destruction, in the falling apart and starting afresh in the chaos of creation.
It may be that when life throws us, time and time again, into freefall, that it is not to kill us but rather to teach us how to live in a new light—exiled to a new existence without fear, living in love, patience, and hope.
Isaac Wright is a writer, photographer, and Army veteran, based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. He recently set a record for the highest selling photograph of all time at $6.8 million dollars, with his piece “First Day Out”. Fifteen percent of the proceeds will be used in conjunction with the bail project to free incarcerated individuals in the Hamilton County Justice Center, where he was incarcerated and held on an unreasonable bond and suffered extensive police abuse.
Learn more about his work at his Instagram page: @driftershoots or his website: https://driftershoots.com/
