Checking In is a series I first started while home during the early weeks of pandemic lockdowns, back when my only interactions with a wider world were morning walks with my dog Percy. 

One morning, Percy and I came across a turtle huddled in a ditch far from the nearby creek they usually call home. We hovered over the turtle, Percy sniffing, me watching, to see if it would suddenly notice its unfamiliar surroundings and start trodding back to the water, but no inspiration struck. Opting to let nature be, we continued on our way home for the day. 

For the next two days, we returned to the same spot, checking on the turtle. For those two days, the turtle stayed there, resigned to its corner, tucking tighter in its shell when its strange observers arrived. On the fourth day of our daily check-ins, the ditch was empty, only a track of matted grass where our brief friend had been. 

Coming home from these walks, I wondered how the turtle perceived me and Percy: strange visitors towering above, punctuated by the bright morning sky. In this series, I imagine similar visitors to our own world. They are uncanny because of their unknown purpose, disrupting our world but never venturing too far from their own. Checking In invites questions about those brief encounters—moments where presence is felt, but motives are not necessarily understood.