When I sit down to write and I see the white blank page, the first words that inevitably come to my mind are, “In the beginning…” I’ve never started a story in that fashion, but for some reason, my mind begins with Hebrew, “Bereshit bara…”

I’m fascinated by the eternal power within the beginning of darkness and silence and the creation that comes out of that void, or as the writer of Genesis says, “tohu vavohu.” I think this way because I feel compelled to create. And because I contain a vast amount of silence. Almost everyday someone tells me how quiet I am. Very many of my thoughts, opinions, and feelings are hidden within myself. I do not know why this is so. It is a mystery to me. I often feel things before I consciously think them. Somehow my subconscious is brooding and I only feel the result of that. Accessing the thoughts in order to vocalize them or to write them is close to impossible. Therefore, what does come to my voice and to my fingers is something pulled from the depths, still dripping with darkness and pulsing with mystery.