What do you do when life as you know it comes to a screeching halt?
Start a podcast.
My name's Kelley Lynch and I'm a photographer—at least I was until March, 2020. I had this awesome job traveling around the world, taking photos and collecting stories (kelleyslynch.com). Thanks to the pandemic. It looks like it's going to be a while before I get on a plane again. But even if I can't travel, I can still do the other part of my job—the part where I talk to people and ask them to help me make sense of the world.
In my personal life. When I have trouble figuring out which end is up, I call my friend Cindy, who lives across the street from me in Washington, DC. For the last ten years we have been walking and talking almost every day. Cindy is a student of history. She always brings interesting perspectives to conversations that might be dangerous with anybody else. Conversations about politics, religion. And given that Cindy is African American, conversations about race.
This whole podcasting thing started in a conversation we had during my 14 day self quarantine. It was late March and I had just returned from six weeks on the road in Mozambique, Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Stuck at home, we decided it was a good time to start a pandemic project. It has now become part of our new normal.