I was sixteen when my dad got sick, and from it I have learned three things:

• Chewing on pills meant to be swallowed will make you wise.
• A cycle of brush fires is better than a static landscape.
• Trauma is not a round trip ticket to hell and back.

This project is about the third.

Trauma isn’t a kind thing: there's nothing built into it that helps you find solid ground after the fact. Everyone heals in their own way: it requires effort and acceptance, and that’s why some folks find it so hard to do. You need to want to get better, but moreover, you need to realize that getting better doesn’t equate to returning to the same state you were in pre-trauma. You set yourself up for dead ends and open wounds when you’re afraid of how you’ll heal. Scars aren’t ugly, they’re just a change in texture.

Post-trauma is as beautiful as pre-trauma, and while that's tough to realize, its also essential. Injuries get stitched, bad teeth get pulled, and you can get a little bloodied- but scars are to be celebrated. You are bruised, beautiful, weary, wiser: closer, in these thousand valleys, than ever to your peaks.

Full series available upon request.