Light, Without Instruction

A spiritual presence has always hovered at the edge of my life. Not religion, but light. The kind that doesn’t judge.

It has been an enlightening week. My recent essay in Business Insider and this week’s interview in the Daily Mail’s Lifestyle section landed within days of each other.

Over the past few years, I have made quiet but consequential changes. This week, strangers were invited to read about that process, including the most unglamorous and embarrassing parts. The monotony. The methodical nature of change. The work of continuing forward even when you do not yet know what comes next.

I am grateful that my journey resonates with others. I never set out to inspire anyone. Freedom to create is what propelled me toward change. Writing is simply my release valve. I welcome the recognition it brings, trusting on a spiritual level that it may guide readers toward what matters most to me, the visuals I feel compelled to release into the world. My imagery.

Coincidentally, religion and consequence have surfaced repeatedly in my everyday life. This week, while working on a creative project at my local coffee shop, two women struck up a conversation with me about art, my glasses, and the portfolio spread across the table. It took a moment to surface that they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Gradually, the conversation drifted toward Satan and the consequences of not believing in the scriptures they follow.

What surprised me was not what they said, but how I received it.

I listened and debated out of curiosity, simply because I enjoy theology. Years spent in debt and solitude had already stripped fear of its authority. I have learned that fear of what lies ahead, the discomfort of not knowing, is often what drives people toward faith, as if belief might save us from uncertainty.

My camera has always offered me another way in. Through my lens, light reveals itself without threat or consequence. The conversation ended amicably, with a shared sense of respect and an acknowledgment of strength earned rather than preached.

Then yesterday, a friend stopped by for a nosh.

She is a newer, multigenerational friend, half my age, and an Orthodox Jew. Our connection isn’t rooted in shared religion, but in creativity and the emotional weight we inherited from our mothers. My mother dared me to try, convinced I would fail and return to her domain. She was wrong. Trying gave me confidence. Rachel’s mother relied on fear, using the strictures of Orthodoxy to narrow her world, dismiss her passions as impractical, and frame obedience as her path to heaven. In that way, her mother succeeded.

Listening to her speak, I heard a familiar anguish. The fear of the unknown. I realized that while words help me explore possibilities, my camera is my truest instrument of clarity. I don’t pass judgment. I focus my lens, and in that focus, someone is seen.

Soft winter light moved through my seashore apartment. When it fell across her face, I lifted my camera. Through the frame, I hoped she might see herself clearly, confident and talented, without fear standing between her and her own becoming.

Resolve, I have learned, does not always arrive as certainty. Sometimes it arrives as illumination.

For those interested, here are links to my essay in Business Insider and the interview in Daily Mail

And if the impending snow apocalypse doesn’t wipe out civilization, I’d love to see you at the opening of the APA Group Show at Soho Photo Gallery in NYC on Thursday, January 29th, from 6–8 PM.

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