6 Feet Apart

I don’t think anyone imagined 2020 being like this, keeping 6 feet apart from each other, not having normal in-person classes, and staying inside almost all day. Along with a pandemic, the crumbling of the rest of the world & economy is there too. In this image, my mom and my younger brother are standing apart from each other while wearing masks. I decided to take this photograph at a school that’s been under construction since I was young, since it shows how things take a long time to be repaired. This school is walking distance from my home. I have seen this building almost every single day on my way home, and I’ve always wondered when it would finally be finished. The day I took this picture, I actually saw a construction worker’s car leaving the premises. Finally, this place is being fixed up!

I know things take a while to be put back together if they are deeply damaged. For example, people are fighting for their religions, their people, their rights, and themselves. People are making their points through actions instead of words. The BLM movement has been a really big part of 2020, and to make change, some people would loot businesses. I live in West Philadelphia, and some places that were raided and looted happened very close to my home; this hurts, because these are places the community go to shop and live their daily lives. It brings sadness that people have to show their feelings through this type of action. If nobody listens, they have to take action. Still, my family supports this movement, because equality between all races is right, and everyone should be treated as an equal no matter their status, skin color, or ethnicity.

When I took this picture, the weather was chilly, and the sky wasn’t as bright, which caused the color of the image to be more dull. I was satisfied with this, because this year hasn’t been very bright from the pandemic and the personal and political conflicts we’ve faced. It has been a year for change and coming together, and hopefully things will be fixed so we can live normally next year. 2020 has been a building that’s been in repair for far too long, and slowly we’re working together to put it back together.