My Life Through a Ruby

Why do we love the things we love? What drives our senses, our desires and obsessions? Can we successfully retrace a cohesive trail back to the associations and connections that have unfolded to form our passions? And perhaps more importantly, how might what we discover change our perceptions of who we are?

I grew up with a father who was far better at expressing himself with images than words. He was - and still is - a photographer. I could often be found play acting and hamming it up in front of his camera, at his direction, soaking up all of his attention.

Many of my earliest memories are illuminated by the swirling ruby-red light of his darkroom. I'd squint my eyes and watch as the luminous glow danced like a fairy around my head. This, to me, was heaven.

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There was a wonderfully warm woman in my parents' circle of friends named Rosalind. She had a smile that felt like a hug and she never talked down to me...like so many other adults were wont to do.

She always wore a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. A ring that identically matched the fiery magic of the light in my father's darkroom. A stone the size of a jawbreaker.

Rosalind told me that it was a ruby. And she'd often slip it off of her hand and delicately place it into mine so that I could examine it. I'd hold it up to the light, viewing life through its crimson glow. And when I squinted, its facets refracted the world in which I felt trapped and stifled...and reflected back to me a glorious wonderland of infinitely fragmented possibilities, bathed in a sublime wash of red.

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When I was 11 years old, Rosalind was diagnosed with cancer. The day I found out was the first time I ever saw Rosalind's right hand barren. The magnificent ring was gone. So was her joy, her warmth, her very essence. I didn't recognize this defeated woman.

And somehow I knew. As sure as anything, I knew that the source of her power, her strength, and her very life was that ruby. If she'd only put it back on, everything would be fine. Everything would go back to normal. The world would once again fire up with a transformative red glow and my dear Rosalind would be protected.

But I never saw Rosalind wearing that ring again. In fact, I only saw her once or twice before she died. Before the magnificent light I'd so adored dwindled and sputtered and slipped away.

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My mother went to Rosalind's house the day after she'd passed. All of Rosalind's friends were invited to descend upon the cumulative trove of things she'd left behind and riffle through them, extracting baubles and memories, deconstructing the story of a life no longer in service.

Mom came home with an impressive haul. There were dozens of pairs of earrings. Necklaces and bracelets. Scarves and shawls. Some books and recipes and utilitarian items that I couldn't identify. All somehow immortalized in Rosalind's absence. All suddenly far more precious and profound.

We greedily unpacked the battered old hatbox my mother had used to transport the scavenged pieces of Rosalind's life. Layers and layers. The lingering smell of her drugstore perfume. A palpable feeling of her in the room. Until we finally came to the bottom of the case...where there appeared a faint red glow.

And there, underneath the loose lining, almost completely forgotten, was the ruby ring. My mother handed it to me, explaining that it was the only possession for which explicit instructions had been left. Instead of saving herself, instead of putting the ring back on her hand and draining its life-force in order to survive her battle with death, Rosalind had left the source of her superpowers to me.

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Rosalind's legendary ring turned out to be glass. But it sparked my love affair with rubies. Just as my father sparked my passion for photography.

A year or so before I consciously picked up a camera to pursue my passion, my mother died after a lengthy illness. In reaction and to cope, I started taking photos with my first smartphone of what I called 'life through a ruby'. I'd place one of my coveted stones over the lens and allow the prismatic red light to compose abstract images. What you see here are photos taken during that time.

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Two months ago my father suffered a recurrence of cancer. Thankfully he's fine for now. But that event set this rather strange cognition of mine into motion. I am still in the rabbit hole...with no idea where it might take me next. And while I'm not sure what I'm bound to discover or what it all means, the one thing I do know is this: Everything connects. The tiniest whisper, the gentlest breeze. They all have a place in the story that unfolds and makes up a life.

Somewhere deep in the back of a drawer, I still have Rosalind's ring. But even if I never find it again, her ruby-red light still burns bright within me. And it always will.