Paperweight

As a disabled man with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a sad sense of familiarity. After all, I’ve been on lockdown for years. I’ve spent months at a time locked in my room, healing from medical procedures or succumbing to the pain of my own broken body.

And so, as the world around me began to experience something similar to the lives that I and so many other chronically ill people have known for so long, I found myself able to be a source of comfort, and a guide to those whose foundation had disappeared beneath them. I became especially close (though always six feet apart) with a former lover who had “ghosted” me the previous year, and for a while we were able to be a deep source of comfort to each other; she could distract me from my physical pain, and I could distract her from her mental anguish. It was a beautiful partnership. And yet within me, one paralyzing fear – one certainty – remained:

That when the day finally came when the world was back to normal, I would once again be alone.

And so I wrote “Paperweight” – the song, and later, this film – to channel my fear, grief, love and hope into something meaningful. This is what Paperweight means to me:

Paperweight is to try so desperately to hold on to something – and someone – who cannot be held onto. It is the attempt to keep her with you. It is the fear that she will leave.

Paperweight is the moment in time, frozen yet passing nonetheless. It is the instant where you can pin down happiness, however fleeting. It is the certainty that it will not last, and the turning of the page.

Paperweight is the fragility of the human body – as revealed by the pandemic, and as known by those of us who were sick long before it started, and who will be long after it ends.

We are, in the end, merely the weight of paper. Our hearts break; our bodies tear. We are a leaf in the wind. We can hold on to each other – but only when the other is willing to be held, beyond a series of moments. And only if she holds you back without holding back.

This film has been my paperweight. It is what has kept me grounded through a year of pain, joy, loss, and confusion. It is what I chose to make out of all those things. For the only reason is the one we make ourselves.