I have read that every artist, painter or photographer returns again and again to the same place to gain perspective, and to respond to what touches him or her about it.  Kinney Road is more dramatic. Callaway Road is more classically beautiful. The Rouse Farm is more evocative. My many collapsing barns and skanky farms are more atmospheric. But Sheldon Road is simple, and as it winds between my town and Vermont, it captures the setting sun in a very particular way. I have it timed right now. If I get to Sheldon Road by 4:15, I can catch the sun setting on the hills beyond, and it shoots right through those trees and onto the snowy and icy road, and bounces off the treet trunks. It suggests the passage of time, and its fragility.

I had a wonderful lunch with a friend today. We talked about fear. I said I had shivers when I remember how much fear I was in, but am not in so much anymore. You can put it aside, see beyond it  and into your life. It is a space to cross, just like Sheldon Road. It is amazing, I told my friend, how sweet and rich life can be when you choose not to live in fear.  Nothing much is harder than living in fear.

There is no such thing as a perfect life, surely not mine. I remember standing in a field with my camera a few years ago and saying to myself over and over again, I will not live like this, I will not spend the rest of my life like this. That is not my story anymore and I don’t know how it works, but I saw this clearly as I stood in the road (Maria was not with me) and pointed the camera and saw, through my iced up and fingerprint smeared viewfinder, the setting sun on Kinney Road.