Disappearing

Columbus, MS

2—15

Bent Tree Trail

This is what’s left of the house I grew up in—a solitary clearing in the woods. There’s also a driveway, split rail fence, and retaining wall I helped make of railroad ties. The place is not completely gone, but somehow held in suspension by an unknown mower. It feels like the forest doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to reclaim what was cut from it.

It is unsettling.

3—15

**Stubborn remnants (2018)**
Mark Sanders

4—15

American Bosch

The place that brought us to this town in eastern Mississippi is also held in limbo. Seeing the factory shuttered made it easier to take in all the other changes to this town over the 30 years since I have been back.

5—15

6—15

**Motivated Seller (2018)**
Mark Sanders

7—15

**Biology–5th Period (2018)**
Mark Sanders

SD Lee High School

It was my first experience of death held in suspension. Class started with me already looking outside and counting the minutes until class was over. It finished with me unable to look away from the tray containing parts of a frog unexpertly removed, and probably wrongly identified by me and my lab partner. This is one of the few memories I have of actually being in class at SD Lee High School. Mostly I remember the transitions: stairways that were ‘one way’ only, hallways where I kept my head down, changing to and from PE clothes, arriving and leaving the parking lot.

Transitions and dismemberment seem like good metaphors for a freshman year.

8—15

9—15

Leigh Mall

I was nine. I’m not sure what my parents knew about the movie. I’m still haunted by the last scene.

There was a lot for a 9 year old to be scared of in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ghosts and disintegration are what impacted me most. And I saw it with my brother and sister at the Mall Cinema at Leigh Mall in Columbus, Mississippi.

I saw Bambi here. I also saw Star Wars. They scared me, too.

**Coming Soon / Now Leasing (2018)**
Mark Sanders

10—15

11—15

Waverly Plantation

The wild formality of the landscapes in the South never leave my mind. Manicured trees, shrubs, and plants that are constantly being reclaimed by the verdant climate, but somehow persisting in the geometries they’ve held for a century. Because of this, weathered is their permanent state; a dynamic ratio of feral to controlled.

12—15

13—15

14—15

15—15

Does disappearing mean something is missing?

I came back looking for how this placed shaped me. Was I always just a tourist in Mississippi waiting for the rest of my life to impact me? The uncanny feeling from revisiting was uncomfortable. The places I remember were mostly still there, but their purpose had shifted. They seemed less lively.

Memory is funny that way. The literal and the dream collide.