This Is Emma Hynes

Imagine arriving at a gate to neither pass through it, or leave. To find yourself at its threshold, and remain. To feel that you cannot place a confident hand upon its frame, and push – without permission – without the knowledge of what awaits you on the other side – without needing either.
Imagine arriving at a gate and knowing that you must not go back, but feeling that you cannot go through it – through the thing that comes next, whatever that is.
Imagine being at a gate so long that it begins to become subsumed by you – that the coiling tendrils of your own thoughts come to bind you to it, and you lose the distance required to open it; to know that you need to – that you must.
Stasis in life is acceptable when it is a state entered into by choice, in the same way that those who arrive at junctures mean to be there; but they are no place for the fixed – they insist on transience, and facilitate movement.
And isn’t that why you have come?
It was not to stay,
But to move on.

By Emma Hynes

This image and story are part of a project I have devised called There Are No Fixed Stars, my creative response to living with COVID-19 restrictions. On 22 October 2020, Ireland’s highest level of protective measures was invoked nationwide for a period of six weeks. Starting on that date, and continuing for the duration, I plan to capture a new image each day, and write a piece inspired by it. The only restrictions are that I take the photograph and write the text within this timeframe. To receive these daily posts to your inbox, you can subscribe by hitting the follow button to the right, and entering your email address. They will also be posted to my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook profiles; I may even read a selection on my YouTube channel. You can follow or subscribe to any of those at the links below. In a time when variety, freedom, stimulation and spontaneity are necessarily inhibited, my hope is to experience these each day through the creation of something new, and that the resulting pieces might do the same for anyone who chooses to view or read them.

Emma Hynes

Web: www.emmahynes.net
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There Are No Fixed Stars

Day One – A Creative Response to Now
Day Two – Suspension
Day Three – From the Perspective of the Dahlia
Day Four – The Writer at Dawn
Day Five – Beneath the Viaduct
Day Six – Nature’s Book
Day Seven – The Lighthouse
Day Eight – Formations
Day Nine – Rebirth
Day Ten – Light Source
Day Eleven –Takeaway
Day Twelve – Vigilance
Day Thirteen – Defiance
Day Fourteen – Exposure
Day Fifteen – Platform
Day Sixteen – Momentum
Day Seventeen – The Point of Shelter
Day Eighteen – The Honest Writer
Day Nineteen – Moored
Day Twenty – Selfhood
Day Twenty-One – Assurance
Day Twenty-Two – Skylines
Day Twenty-Three – All That Is Lost
Day Twenty-Four – The Oblivious Bird
Day Twenty-Five – Horizon
Day Twenty-Six – Intertidal
Day Twenty-Seven – Lifelines
Day Twenty-Eight – Threshold
Day Twenty-Nine – Perception
Day Thirty – Presence
Day Thirty-One – Pathways
Day Thirty-Two – Lunar Phase
Day Thirty-Three – Time
Day Thirty-Four – Safety
Day Thirty-Five – Sometimes the Heart Soars
Day Thirty-Six – Fulfilment
Day Thirty-Seven – Joy
Day Thirty-Eight – Pride
Day Thirty-Nine – Loss
Day Forty – Time to Fly