After losing my husband, his absence loomed over our bed. I escaped into a room where south-facing windows gave me a great view of the moon each night. When I awoke in the night, I laid there consumed with anxieties and unable to sleep, and the moon kept me company. Her light in the darkness offered me hope. 

As every full moon arrived, I learned its special names, and snapped photos of the moonrise. I learned to photograph the moon because my phone camera made such a mess of moonlight.

Most days along the California coast, the inland heat pulls low clouds onshore from the Pacific. It's the blessing of fog. Some consider low clouds an obstacle to a good photo of the rising full moon. But I loved how the moon lit up the sky in colors reflected off the moving clouds. 

I made “The Moon Was So Strong She Pulled You Up” during the Pink Moon of 2021. The Pink Moon is also known as the Sprouting Grass Moon, or the Egg Moon. All these names suggest the fertility of spring. This aligns this image with my series, Emergence, on recovering from grief. The title is a line from Italo Calvino’s science fiction short story, “The Distance of the Moon.” It describes well how the full moon lifted me up from the depths.