Chapter 15: Remembering
The first time the light came to me.
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“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.”
— John O’Donohue
Throughout my 16 year long photography career, I have made the light both a father figure and a lover. Sounds a little off, but what modern relationship isn’t?
With light,
I am more than infatuated.
I am more than obsessed.
I am attuned.
I am kin.
I have learned to be both light’s mirror and echo, doing the dance in the world that the light does in me.
What I can tell you is that the light has given me everything I did not get from the places and people I was supposed to get it:
The light has given me warmth.
The light has given me comfort.
The light has given me delight.
The light has given me safety and security.
The light has given me companionship.
The light has given me witness.
The light has reached through lonely airport ceilings, smudged and smeared, sliding grocery store doors, leafless tree branches, and wrapped me in remembering. Remembering what? Light’s own language. The language that touches, sustains, and transforms all, but uses no words to do so. The light has knocked me to my knees in awe for its subtle, scooping gradation into shadow and descent. From the ground, bent and trembling, I have watched my own wails turn to thank yous on my lips as the light illuminates for me where my gaze has narrowed.
In my day to day life, the light feels to me an all seeing gaze; knowing me, witnessing me, beholding me even more so than I behold it. Unlike a lover, it never turns away. Unlike a father, it never misses who I am.
I remember the first time the light came to me. Our relationship did not start with a feeling, but with a lack of it.