Cross Section of my Day

I wake, I shower and dress, I eat a breakfast of coffee and an English Muffin with butter, and I go to work. I walk a routine through each layer of my day, each section a separate woman, adapting to fit the environment, dressing to suit. I start out reflective, quiet, alone, in my bathrobe.

The front door is a curtain and I walk out on the stage. I am a professional. I wear grey and carry a briefcase to prove it.

Corporate noise swirls around me. I drift above chatter while exploring the scene. My job is efficiently done, pondered and stressed over, given more than I knew I had in me. The gossip of downsizing clings like a fog on the floor and I listen with only one ear.

I've just inserted a new layer of myself between the end of the work day and home. I don't quite have it down but I polish it a bit more every Friday. The necessary presence at a bar, a scotch and soda I nurse well past the Happy Hour conversation. At home I would only drink wine.

Walking back to my building in lower Manhattan, I feel most of the day evaporate off me in strands that drift into the night. By the time I push through the front door, drop my briefcase and kick off my shoes, I am naked and scared.

~

same day, another cross section

~

Carianne Mack Garside
Susan Gibb
Steve Ersinghaus

notes on the project