Privilege

Sezane top
Mango skirt (similar)
Mumico espadrilles (c/o)
Mango handbag
Vintage scarf (similar)
RayBan sunglasses
Hart + Stone necklaces (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: Saint-Boniface Cathedral – Winnipeg, Manitoba

If the worst thing that happens to me this year is that I find myself bored of photographing my outfits in the same places time and again, that speaks to my immense privilege. So many people have lost so much – life, loved ones, livelihood – as a result of the pandemic. I’ve lost the ability to board a plane and get away when the novelty of my current location wears off. Which is to say that in the grand scheme of things, I’ve lost nothing at all.

But privilege doesn’t mean that you haven’t experienced hardship. It just means that certain things, like your skin colour or economic circumstances, haven’t made your life harder. For me, that’s absolutely true. I’ve always had a financial safety net and options that are inaccessible to most people. But I can be grateful for that while still feeling profoundly sad that the thing I loved the most – travelling the world and writing about it – was an early casualty of COVID-19.

In the time since our return from Chicago in February 2020, I’ve often pondered the way the time keeps moving forward despite the fact that many of us have little to show for it but hours of television watched and a constantly increasing number of takeout meals ordered. More than once, I’ve questionned the relevance of continuing to show up in this space with nothing to say for myself beyond the fact that yes, I am still waiting, sometimes patiently, sometimes less so, for the life that I knew and love to become possible again.

I’ve wondered, in the meantime, where I fit in. If I fit in at all, as a travel writer who’s been (semi-)permanently grounded. But my privilege – I’m still employed, busier and more successful than ever at work, in fact – allows me to continue to add to my wardrobe. The only place I have to wear my clothes right now is home. But I keep coming back to document that, anyway, because it’s the only thing I know how to do…

…and because I don’t want this space, which I’ve loved so much and for so long, to become another casualty of the pandemic. It may not feel particularly meaningful right now. In fact, I can be completely honest and say that it doesn’t feel meaningful, most days, to show up and share photos of yet another outfit that I wore on a walk to nowhere in particular, simply for lack of anything else to do. But someday, I hope, it will again. Someday soon, I hope, I will be able to move from watching others travel the world to feeling safe enough to do it myself. What a joy – and a privilege, truly – it will be to share that with you all again.

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