Sharing Space in Rock Creek Park

By T.J. Kirkpatrick

In the face of isolation and uncertainty, we went outside and found each other. Throughout the pandemic years, Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Park provided a respite from the drumbeat of overwhelming loss. It was a common ground that reduced our sense of solitude and loneliness, and offered the gift of beauty or joy in the midst of turmoil. I lost much of my freelance photojournalism work during 2020 and 2021. In the midst of an impending divorce and reckoning with my career, I ventured into the park in search of connection and purpose. My camera of choice was intentionally slow—creating an excuse to spend time in conversation with strangers while I set up—an old accordion-like large format film camera perched on a heavy tripod that was hauled all across the park’s rugged, varied terrain. The crush and bustle of daily news fell away, replaced with the stillness and elemental wisdom of ancient American beech or chestnut oak trees—some old enough to have witnessed the founding of our nation. In a period of physical distancing and ongoing political polarization and separation, I observed a reflected desire for connection in those I met throughout Rock Creek Park. In that civic infrastructure—those gathering places that simultaneously belong to none and all of us—neighbors and strangers alike found the space to meet and talk, or sit and listen, or simply share in each other’s presence in the context of the larger world.