Insights & Musings: Finding My Way Back To The Light
I have been quiet here for a long time. A year ago, you may have thought that the silence on my blog just meant I was busy; I never imagined it would come to hold a diagnosis, a major surgery, months of chemotherapy, and a very long stretch where I couldn’t bring myself to pick up my camera.
The Year Everything Changed
At the end of 2024, I was diagnosed with, what I thought was bile duct cancer. The words felt impossible and heavy, as if they belonged to someone else’s story, not mine. Very quickly, life became a blur of appointments, scans, and unfamiliar medical language.
I underwent a Whipple surgery, a complex procedure that rearranges and removes parts of the digestive system in order to remove the tumor. The good news was that the surgeon was able to remove the entire tumor and the surgery went very well. Recovery was slow, exhausting, and humbling; healing was a series of tiny steps forward. I was gaining back my strength and feeling better everyday. I had a follow-up appointment with my surgeon 3 weeks after the surgery and I was staying positive, sure that I was going to get a clean bill of health and that this was just a slight blip in my orderly world. The conversation didn’t go as I had thought. Yes the surgery was a success, yes the tumor was completed resected but the pathology showed that there were cancer cells in the surrounding lymph nodes and that the cancer had originated in the pancreas. I had stage 2 pancreatic cancer. I was stunned, my husband was stunned, everything flew out of my head…I couldn’t even think of a question to ask. Surgeons must be used to that because he just continued talking providing the information I needed…next steps…chemo…recurrence stats…referral to an Oncologist….yada, yada, yada.
After that came six months of chemotherapy, a different kind of marathon, measured in infusion days and side effects rather than miles.
Today, my scans are clear. The cancer is gone. Those are words I repeat to myself often, not because I don’t believe them, but because they still feel like a gift each time I say them.
When the Camera Went Quiet
During those months, my camera sat untouched. Photography had always been my way of paying attention to the world, but suddenly the world felt very small: hospital rooms, waiting areas, the walls of my own home. When I started the chemo I thought of documenting my sessions at the hospital but I didn’t have the strength—or the heart to do so. There was also fear. I wondered if the person who had once happily stood knee‑deep in the ocean for the perfect long exposure was gone, replaced by someone whose life was now split into “before” and “after.” For a long time, even looking at my gear felt like looking at a life that belonged to someone else.
Returning to the Ocean
My way back started with water.
I had planned a family vacation the previous year and didn’t know if we were going to be able to go as it was during my chemo treatments. My Oncologist gave me the green light after my 6th treatment to take a week break, so my family and I went to Martha’s Vineyard. It wasn’t an ambitious trip. There were no long itineraries, no lists of must‑see locations. We took it one day at a time. What I wanted most was simple: time together and space to breathe.
We spent a lot of time at the beach. I went out for sunrise and sunset, watching the horizon soften into gentle blues and pinks. The air was cool at those times, the water calm, and the world felt unhurried in a way I hadn’t experienced for a long time. I had packed my camera gear hoping that the change of scenery would bring back the creative juices.
The first click of the shutter felt shaky and unfamiliar. I started slowly: long exposures of the tide smoothing itself across the sand, the sky shifting from lavender to gold, the quiet line where sea meets sky. As I watched the images appear on the back of my camera, I felt something loosen inside me. I wasn’t just documenting a pretty scene; I was recording proof that I was still here.
Calm, Serenity, and Second Chances
The ocean that week became a mirror. In the soft, pastel skies of Martha’s Vineyard, I saw the calm I had been chasing during months of uncertainty. The long exposures, with their silky water and blurred waves, looked the way healing feels: movement smoothed into something gentle, almost peaceful, even when you know the forces underneath are strong and unpredictable.
Standing barefoot in the sand at sunrise, tripod in front of me and my family just a few steps away, I realized that photography hadn’t left me. It had been waiting patiently for me to come back when I was ready. Each image was a quiet conversation between my body, which had been through so much, and the world, which was still capable of so much beauty.
The photographs in this post are some of those moments from the trip—a stretch of still water, soft ripples catching the first light of day, the horizon fading into blues and mauves. It isn’t dramatic. There are no crashing waves or stormy skies. But for me, it holds everything: fear, resilience, gratitude, and the simple gift of standing there to press the shutter.
Looking Ahead
I don’t know yet what this experience will mean for my work in the long run. I suspect my photography will be quieter, more intentional, more interested in small, honest moments than in perfect conditions. I feel drawn to calm water, to soft skies, to scenes that hold a sense of serenity and presence.
What I do know is that I am back behind the camera, and that feels like a small miracle. I am learning to live in this “after,” to listen to my body, and to honor the days when rest is more important than chasing a shot. I wish I lived closer to the ocean but I have another trip coming up this summer and I’m looking forward to carrying my gear to the beach, setting up before dawn, and watching the world wake up through my lens.
In the meantime I’ve gotten back into my home studio and have created some new pieces in my “Orime No”series and I’m getting ready for the 2026 Artist Project which is coming up at the end of March.
Thank you for still being here, for giving me space to step away, and for welcoming me back. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more images from Martha’s Vineyard and, I hope, more reflections on how photography can hold us through the hardest seasons of our lives.
For now, I’ll leave you with this: sometimes healing looks like hospital rooms and scan results. And sometimes, it looks like standing on a quiet shoreline at sunrise, camera in hand, watching the sky turn the color of hope.
