Rhea Endoso
New York, US – Instagram
“A Mighty Tree in Brooklyn,” Black and White film, my Grandfather’s Nikon EL2, 2016, Bedstuy, Brooklyn, New York. This was my view from the kitchen when I moved to New York. I moved, couldn’t find work, so took a minimum wage juice and smoothie job, rejection after rejection of applications. That winter was a dark time, to say the least. Yet through the four seasons was this view, this tree, I felt, sustaining me. Sprouting bright-green hair in spring and summer, painting itself brown and yellow in fall. Returning to a stark and resilient nakedness by the following winter. Hello old tree, we meet again, a year has passed, and I am moving. Some years are not our best. We are stripped of our comforts and what we think we’re worth, instead find ourselves tested by life, perhaps forces unknown. But we continue; move through seasons slowly changing form, not noticing or being present. Yet all around, nature lives cycles of transformation. Shows its presence and lessons. Now- amidst the pandemic, I hope the destruction of nature moves us towards reverence. That apartment view is now another tenant’s. Many more will come, and go, and it will remain. A Mighty Tree in Brooklyn.
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