The Joy of Uber Driving

by Yamini Redewill

  PING! Several months later I had a chance encounter with a young woman named Stacy and her boyfriend, Tony. I was driving around Berkeley when I got the call to pick them up and take them to an Ethiopian restaurant in downtown Oakland. She looked vaguely familiar. I wondered if we had ever met. It was when she ran her fingers through her hair, laughing at something Tony said, that I remembered the photo of her by the woman I’d picked up months earlier named Eloise. What synchronicity! I was reminded of my special prayer for the day, which was “to be of service in a new and unexpected way.” I told her about the ride with her mother, and she shouted, “No way!” She went on to say that she had just called her mom to tell her that she had decided to drop out of med school and pursue biological ecology instead and was very happy. She stated she loved plants and animals more than she loved humans and wanted to do her part in helping save the planet. Tony was studying to be a nutritionist, and they both seemed really connected and passionate about their life goals. There was no sign of anything off or unnatural about them. I decided to find the card Eloise left me and give her an encouraging call when I got home (which I did, and we’ve been good friends ever since).

  Another opportunity for my purpose of empowering women and guiding them toward self-love first appeared around 2005 when a friend introduced me to kirtan, which is a traditional East Indian musical meditation practice. A group of about fifteen of us, mostly women between forty-five and sixty and a couple of millennials, met every Wednesday morning in the sanctuary of the Neighborhood Congregational Church and sang our hearts out. Having lost most of my midrange vocal cords to Buddhist chanting years ago, I sang harmony in the baritone range. I also got really good at playing the djembe drum and became the official creator and keeper of the beat.

  One day, one of my closest friends there announced the arrival of Ashes and Snow in Santa Monica. It was a huge traveling photo and video show displaying peaceful interactions between humans and wild animals within a uniquely designed Nomadic Museum. She was ecstatic about it. I booked a ticket, and my life literally changed after seeing it for myself. I was sixty-seven at the time and was contemplating retirement. But when I saw this, a bold proclamation escaped my lips: “I’m not done yet!” I left the exhibition with mascara tears streaming down my cheeks. Gregory Colbert had nailed it! Being from Canada, he had spent eight years traveling the world to film every major wild beast on land, air, and sea, interacting with temple dancers, underwater dancers, child monks, and wise old meditators. He documented the mutual love and respect that can be attained between man and beast, and he did so with artistic acumen unlike anything I’d ever seen. I was inspired not only by the subject matter but also by his sepia-toned, dreamlike photographic style. There was a deeply spiritual and ethereal tone throughout the exhibition. This was a turning point for me. His work can be seen at www.gregorycolbert.com.

  The next time I went to kirtan, I noticed how exquisitely beautiful the women were in their colorful and exotic East Indian dress. In my mind I saw them singularly or together, meditating or dancing on the beach by the water’s edge. So that following Saturday, I had nine of these women in full Eastern Indian–wear gather at the beach at eight in the morning. Thus began my new career of photographing women over forty as “the Natural Goddess.” My first ever goddess photo was taken by my assistant from atop a lifeguard station, looking down at nine of us lying in a circle with the top of our heads facing a gold plate of roses in the center. Our hands were in a prayer, or Namaste, mudra. Inspired by Ashes and Snow, I desaturated the color on most all of the portraits, giving them a tinge of color, like my hand-colored vintage film portraits of children. By this time, I had finally transitioned from film to digital photography and had become proficient with Photoshop tools.

  I felt a strong calling to empower women over forty with my goddess portraits. It was apparent to me that in all my family portraits, most women considered themselves less important in the portrait than their children or even their husbands. I also noticed that women over forty needed reassurance that they were still beautiful and desirable enough to be competitive with younger women in securing a life partner or to keep an existing marriage from falling apart. I dabbled in boudoir portraiture but did not feel that these were authentic representations of women’s true beauty and grace. Taking them out of the studio against canvas backdrops and placing them in nature in flowing gowns and scarves, I saw them come alive and be transformed into goddesses. Much like the women in Colbert’s photos, who were meditating with cheetahs or dancing in the water with elephants, a spirit emerged that far transcended anything captured in a glamour photo. Women have a symbiotic relationship with nature that brings out her true sexuality and beauty. I wanted women to have the opportunity to see that in themselves through these portraits.

  I collected dozens of gowns and accessories from secondhand stores and a couple hundred yards of different-colored silk fabric for scarves and photographed hundreds of women in various locations as goddesses during the next ten years. The first year I created a group of twenty images that I regarded as gallery-worthy and presented them to Reverend Michael Beckwith at the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City. I had been a regular member of that congregation for almost eighteen years. He agreed to let me display my work for six weeks in the halls leading to the sanctuary. They also gave me a space for an outdoor exhibit to market my portraiture to the thousands of members in between services. Thus my goddess portrait business expanded exponentially, and the makings of a book began to take shape as well.

  Over the next several years I photographed many beautiful women over forty, and the ones I thought were the best representation of my art and the purpose of the book I asked for a personal story of an epiphany or transformational experience. For those who weren’t able to write a story, I inserted a poem from Rumi, Kahlil Gibran, Maya Angelou, and several others. Marianne Williamson agreed to let me use three of her quotes from A Woman’s Worth. I also wrote my own poetry whenever inspired by a photo. So this was not only a book of beautiful photos; it contained messages of encouragement from women over forty to other women facing challenging circumstances in their lives.

  PING! Pulling up to a cottage in Mill Valley, I waited for my rider. After a few minutes, Georgia, a stunning blond woman in a black leather dress, appeared with a briefcase and handbag. As soon as she got in the car, she opened her case, which doubled as a cosmetics case, and began her twenty-five-minute transformation (the exact amount of time it took to drive to San Francisco). At first there were few words between us, until she blurted out, “Are you an artist?”

  Shocked, I replied, “Yes, a photographer.”

  She said I reminded her of her mother, who was also an artist. Then we began an animated conversation about her livelihood, which was as an art dealer, beginning successfully years ago with photographic works by Ansel Adams and branching out to paintings and sculptures. I told her that she herself looked like a painting, and I would have enjoyed using her as a model, with or without makeup. She laughed and thanked me for the compliment as she gathered her things to leave. Georgia was so grounded in her identity; she really needed no affirmation of her self-worth.

  The following pair of riders from Los Angeles was in stark contrast, reminding me of the “looking good” culture I left in Southern California for the more spiritual and ecological culture here in the Bay Area. I had come to the conclusion soon after I moved here that my goddess portrait business was doomed, because women here were just not into glorifying their looks for posterity like they were in LA, Orange, and San Diego Counties. I guess being close to the entertainment industry has a more direct effect on women’s self-image. “Looking good” notwithstanding, I, at least, gave women in Southern California a deeper experience of themselves in nature through my photography.

  By 2007 I brought a sample book of The Natural Goddess to Agape when Marianne Williamson was speaking there. I handed her my book, and she gave me an endorsement. Later that s
ame year, I acquired a literary agent named Devra Jacobs, who had some movie industry connections, which she gave to me in hopes of soliciting them for photo shoots for my book. Her reasoning was simple: I was an unknown author, and this was an expensive full-color coffee-table book to pitch to publishers. Having well-known celebrities featured in the book might give her the leverage she needed to sell the book. Meanwhile, I sought out other celebrities through attending women’s conferences where they were speaking. I went up to Stefanie Powers, Mariel Hemingway, and Marla Maples and successfully talked them into doing a shoot. My agent introduced me to Diane Ladd; Connie Stevens; and Brit Elders, the CEO and best friend of Shirley MacLaine.

  Brit, Devra, and I had high hopes for Shirley, and she was definitely interested and willing, but about that time her career sprang into new life, and she was in one film after another, ending up in the UK on Downton Abbey. Also Mariel had agreed, but when we scheduled a shoot, she had to cancel because of work that came up, and later she employed a new assistant who was not aware of our previous connection and blocked me from reaching Mariel again. Another star I had contacted was Lainie Kazan, who was very interested and excited, but one shoot after another was scheduled and canceled because of a cold, then a sprained ankle, and twice for work-related issues.

  I enjoyed my brief relationships with Mariel and Lainie and was disappointed that we couldn’t make it happen. Lainie invited me to watch her perform at a club in Hollywood, and I was so taken with her powerful sultry voice and the fact that she had been a stand-in for Barbara Streisand on Broadway. Her most recent work was as the mother of the bride in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. What I loved about Mariel was her dedication to growing organic food, keeping fit in body, mind, and spirit, and spending time in nature—and her gorgeous long legs.

  I was honored to photograph Diane Ladd twice at her beautiful estate in Ojai. When Devra first introduced me to her, Diane invited me to a fundraiser she was having at her home, and she included my offer of a goddess portrait by displaying one of my framed portraits and auctioning off a sitting by me. She introduced me to many of the stars there, including her daughter Laura Dern, along with Valerie Harper and Della Reese. I reintroduced myself to Larry Hagman, with whom I had worked on Dallas forty years ago. He was still the spitfire character he played on Dallas. A month later I came back with my assistant and some gowns and shawls for Diane to wear as we explored all the possibilities for portraits on her rambling estate. I returned again for some personal PR shots of her in street clothes inside her home. She turned out to be a champion of my work, and we have been in communication by phone from time to time since then. I find her to be highly spiritual and an activist for human rights.

  I photographed Connie Stevens in her spacious backyard in Bel-Air. My afternoon with her was delightful, starting with doing her makeup and hair and selecting her wardrobe in her boudoir next to her bedroom and study. She had been living in this classic mansion with her daughters since the sixties, when she was in her prime and married to Eddie Fisher. My makeup girl commented on the suppleness of her skin at age seventy-two and believed she hadn’t had any cosmetic procedures done to her face or neck. Perhaps it was because of her successful line of anti-aging creams called Forever Spring that she was able to retain the freshness of youth.

  That same year, I photographed Marla Maples with her best friend, Tara Sutphen, a well-known psychic in Hollywood. We picked out a great location at Rocky Oaks Park in the Malibu mountains. At the time, Marla wasn’t that well known, except for the fact that she was a beauty queen and once had been married to Donald Trump.

  Turns out, not only is she beautiful, but she is highly spiritual, with her own group of spiritual sisters. For one shot, she climbed up a tree in her form-fitting blue silk dress and reclined on a branch while Tara stood below her, leaning against the trunk. Marla said she used to be a tomboy and loved climbing trees. Now that Trump is in the news every day, she has also been featured on many talk shows, including Oprah and The View, and in a few TV documentaries about Trump.

  Other stars and celebrities I photographed were Stefanie Powers, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Terry Cole-Whittaker, Arielle Ford, and Lynn Andrews.

  My experience with Barbara Marx Hubbard was particularly memorable. Her portrait was done in a park across the street from her home in Santa Barbara. I brought her a long red satin Mandarin dress, which she loved and looked stunning in. We walked to the park, and when we landed on the perfect spot surrounded by flowers and trees, she stood there majestically and stated, “I feel like Eve in the Garden of Co-Creation.” One passerby commented on how beautiful she was and thought it must be her excellent bone structure. I knew it was her natural radiance that created that impression. She was seventy-nine.

  My day with Terry Cole-Whittaker in Temescal Canyon near Brentwood also stood out. It was filled with magic and laughter. She was like a little girl delighting in being out in nature, dressed in her fancy long velvet duster, matching culottes, and gold sandals. She spoke of her many experiences beyond the veil with her spirit guides. At one point, her age came up, and she proudly announced that she was sixty-nine and a half as if she couldn’t wait to be seventy. She had been a spiritual icon in the eighties with her own TV ministry and is still very active with speaking engagements nationwide.

  PING! Samantha, a very attractive Cameron Diaz look-alike, entered my car. I started a conversation by asking how long she had been living in San Francisco, and she said five years but was ready to move on as she’d just broke up with her five-year relationship. I remarked, “Five years is a long time for a relationship.”

  She said, “Yes, but he is an idiot” and then added, “All men are idiots.”

  I agreed to that and added, “Well, there are different levels of idiocy, and now perhaps you’re ready for the next level up.”

  She laughed and said, “That would be nice, but for now I would like to move to London, or as far away from San Francisco as possible.”

  She seemed like a woman fully in her power. There was not a hint of depression or self-pity in her response, merely a longing for a new adventure. Her level of self-worth became really apparent when she told me about her college experience. I opened up about having gone to UC Berkeley and being admitted only because my father and grandfather were alums, not because of my grades. Thoughtfully, she said, “Well, you could have gone somewhere else.”

  I countered with “Yes, but I was rejected.” She giggled and then said she had been rejected too, from University of San Diego.

  Now, here is the interesting part: she told me that instead of accepting the rejection, she sent a letter to appeal that decision. A letter came back declining an appeal, so she decided to meet with them in person and put forth her case. She understood that nothing might come of it, but she had to at least give it a try or never know what could have been possible. Of course, when they met, they were so impressed by her audacious determination they devised a plan which would allow her to attend as a full student the following semester. I told her that she was a girl after my own heart and that my work was all about women’s empowerment and that I would love to tell her story in my book.

  WHAT A FEELING

  I Took My Passion and Made It Happen

  Still focused on women’s empowerment, in 2008 I wrote a screenplay called The Lady in the Jewel Box about a magical jewel box that appears in five vignettes featuring disillusioned and estranged women over forty. Inside the jewel box are mystical messages reminding them of their original dreams and goals in life to inspire them to do a reset. I wrote a nine-minute trailer and set about campaigning for funds at CEO Space. I managed to raise enough to satisfy the needs of a production company I found within that organization. I set up auditions in my studio and also looked for mother and daughter look-alikes on the Internet for a time-lapse sequence about a teenage ballerina who gave up her dream in order to get married and who finds herself unhappy and unfulfilled at forty.

  After deciding on our fr
ee non-equity actors (big mistake, I realized later), we used familiar locations in Laguna Beach. I was lucky to be in communication with Dannion Brinkley and his co-author wife, Kathryn, who is a dark-haired beauty, and their look-alike teenage daughter, Adriana. They agreed to be in the first vignette and came to Laguna for their one day out of the two-day shoot. Our beach scene was rather dicey, as we didn’t have a permit to film there, and the lifeguard came over to inquire as to what we were doing. There were at least sixteen people making up the crew, actors, and family members, as well as all the lighting and sound equipment. Dannion came to the rescue with an ingenious explanation: he told the lifeguard that a woman’s child had died and that we were doing a video in homage to her child. (We had a child actor in the scene.) From that time forward, filming went on without a hitch for two days. The biggest thing that came of this was an invaluable learning experience that will be useful if I ever intend to write another screenplay and film another trailer.

  PING! I pulled up to a nice house in Novato, and Talia, an attractive young black woman with a tint of red in her multi-braided hair, appeared with a suitcase, escorted by an older guy and his four-year-old daughter. He put the suitcase in the back, they said their goodbyes, and then she got in the front and waved goodbye to the child. She was an au pair from Johannesburg, South Africa, who had just been fired. She was in tears, saying she’d made a horrible decision that cost her the job after only two weeks. I was to drive her to Oakland, where she would be staying with someone from the agency until she could find another au pair job. Moments before I picked her up, I said my prayer and declared that I would be a positive influence on someone today. I managed to say all the right things that gave her comfort and ease and then told her about my prayer. She slapped her knee and said, “This is a miracle from God. Thank you! I feel so much better. If you had been anyone else, I would still be crying and feeling like my life was worthless.” I didn’t ask her what happened, as I felt she would tell me in time, which she did.