Intro
The following is a project that tackles my experience through sound the difficulty of not only living with disability but caring for someone with COVID in 2020. This piece was a difficult one to work on after the actual recordings as on the same day my mother finally tested negative I got news a close friend had passed.
My mother has been ill most of my life and I have always been there as a form support. The roles were reversed when I started showing similar symptoms. While gathering material for this project my mother tested COVID positive and some of these soundbites were recorded before we knew.
I’ve often found that work on illness and disability primarily uses video or images while I’ve always thought about it through sound. I focused on the sounds that I recognize as signs of my mother’s disabilities.
I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when she heard my hip crack for the first time. She was used to the sound but coming from her body, not mine.
She now sits in between tasks and has changed the way she positions her body to get things done.
The result of many trips, tumbles, and breaks.
There was no way she would let us get sick because of her, even if it meant mopping the floor more often.
After the amount of times my mother has fallen due to a wet floor, the sound of a mop hitting the floor has become traumatizing.
I’ve arranged the sounds in the order of her routine before and during COVID.
