I recently started a photography project called “behind the scenes” where I try to capture moments on my film camera or Huji. I’ve taken photos of haphazard lunches at my desk. I’ve taken photos of getting my friend ready for her engagement. Moments at a museum. Talking on cots. Going through lecture slides. These building blocks compose a life, but they don’t always make it to the forefront.
I’m obsessed with “behind the scenes,” because social media has bifurcated a life that people can see, and a life people can’t. People can easily tune into my feed, but unless someone calls, texts, sends a voice memo, or drops by for a conversation, they won’t know that I ate some fruits with Nutella in between my breaks. No one else will know about the conversations about the future I’ve had with others. I had too much decaf coffee before sleeping and still somehow got pangs of anxiety. Come walk towards me on the bifurcated path and you’ll find out.
Intimacy is coming to my house after landing at LAX at midnight and talking until we fall asleep. It’s talking to each other the next morning during our work breaks. It’s speaking nonstop in the Uber on the way to the Getty museum, even though we chatted for the last few hours. It’s chatting away in front of paintings at the Getty museum until the museum closes and guards kick us out. It’s speaking into the night on multiple bus rides on our way back. These moments become a sacred knowing. Only someone who has pulled back the curtains and chosen to look behind the scenes knows.
Knowing what happens behind the scenes of people’s lives is the foundation of intimacy. Via social media or text, I get to know about a marriage, grad school rejection, and residency match in one sitting. Everyone is on an experience, coming to contact with different realities in a whirlwind. You’ll see my name on my PhD programs webpage. But will you know that I stared at my code for hours on a specific day, troubleshooting? Will you sit with me through the unglamor of it? I’m proud of my friends because of their match, but I’m even more proud because I’ve seen how far they’ve come since I first saw them behind the scenes, questioning themselves in college biology. I’m over the moon for my friend’s marriage, and yet I already consider them married, because I’ve seen them behind the scenes supporting each other through milestones in their lives. By standing with them during the moments that led to these milestones, I feel that we came here together. Behind the scenes is chaos, uncertainty, darkness; it’s intimacy. These moments show what it means to hold someone’s hand while they trample through the weeds, bramble in the bushes, and stumble their way forward. It’s such a necessary part of where people eventually go, and makes the “reaching” that much more glamorous.
We will always continue moving forward, regardless of the infinite paths before us. Can we find our way to each other, sharing each other’s successes as our own? Can we feel our way towards each other, taking each other hand-in-hand? Intimacy is meeting each other where we’re at. The point being that we’re in it together, behind the scenes.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this essay, you might want to pair it with cause and effect, Fleeting, and/or on incentivizing failure.
As I alluded to at the beginning of the essay, here are some pics “behind the scenes” that I’ve captured on Huji:
Behind the scenes moments:
image 1: taking an e-rickshaw back from the market before my cousin’s wedding!
image 2: chatting away with family on mattresses the night my cousin got married.
image 3: a quick lunch at my cubicle while working.
image 4: a protest for Palestinian rights.
image 5: stopping by a diner before bringing my sister back home for spring break :)
image 6: getting my friend ready for her engagement ceremony.
image 7: doing econometrics on a 5+ hour flight ride…
Things I’m reading (and you can too!):
Maybe a little outdated right now, but I really appreciated
’s curated reads on Gaza:“Children in Gaza: Why aren’t we stopping the deaths?” by
“a soft place to land” by
in“On Writing” by
in ’s Newsletter“All the Love Notes!” by
in- in
“What the Taylor concert was really like.” by
inSomething I’ve been thinking about: what if we could imagine a society with this positive feedback loop?
- in
This caught me in my tracks: “Who washes the floors? Who does the laundry? And these are just the tiny little things where you compromise, and you compromise, you compromise. Then all of a sudden, you’re at a place where you’re waking up one morning and you’re like, ‘I thought I married a feminist.’ You’re like, we thought we were going to be so equal and we couldn’t.”
byA couple newsletters I’ve loved:
andA special shout-out to
for curating some awesome newsletters for my reading! Thank you ❣️
And a very special birthday shout-out to Lane!