Humility, wrote Thomas Merton, is absolutely necessary if a person is to avoid acting like a baby all of his life. To grow up means, in fact, to become humble, and cast aside the illusion that we are the center of things. True humility, is, I think, one of the rarest traits that I encounter in human beings.

I can think of few people to whom I might apply that word. It is something for which I truly strive because I believe that only the humble can really be open to true human connection, and learn to listen and put their own fears and needs aside. I’m not there, but it is a place I would love to be.

I’m heading to New York City for the day. We are taking Maria’s mom to New York for a special birthday celebration. I hope to see my daughter there.

It has been about five years since I pointed a camera to a farmhouse on Kinney Road and opened my eyes to the light and images and shadows of the world.

That night changed my life. I have not seen the world the same since then and an abandoned milkhouse on a country is a radiant place for me when we drive by and I see the late afternoon lighting coming through that screened window. Maria, who is as humble as she is good, can sense my twitch now and says, on her own, “do you want to stop,” and I nod and she pulls over and I jump out of the car – nearly rushing into traffic as always – and she takes out her sketch pad and draws while I nose around for the best angle to catch the fading light.

We have pulled over a thousand times in a thousand places and never – not once – has she been annoyed or impatient with me. I am so appreciative of that.