Lightness Emblem

     Undressing After Work. Here is the scenario, you’ve just worked a 12 hour shift on Black Friday at a retail store at the mall. You drag your exhausted shell home and into the bathroom. Slowly you remove your uniform. First the hat comes off and you can feel the pores on your head sighing with the delight of fresh air. Next come the shoes (oops, forgot to take those off at the door didn’t we?) and again a chorus of appreciation erupts from your swollen feet. As each garment is shed you feel exponentially lighter. Finally the last fetter of clothing falls to the floor and you almost imagine the light cotton thudding like steel. As you stare at the pile of disheveled apparel you think something magical must have happened. Surely the clothes on the floor weigh no more than 5 pounds, and yet, now free of the uniform you feel as though you are Atlas, and you just shrugged. 


     You are experiencing lightness. The emblem I chose to represent lightness is a uniform crumpled on the floor. Many a day have I come home and experienced an otherworldly sensation of lightness just by changing out of my work uniform. The action of taking off ones clothes is simple, repeated daily, and generally mundane, and yet in the context of an especially long day, removing my uniform transforms from a mundane exercise into a blissful rebirth.