Winter.

Winter is a temporal desertland, its enjoyment expanded only by the warmth of communality: air molecules suffused with the aura of hearty food, the heat of others’ being, and the resonating sound of percussion and woodwind.

Winter is when the externalized activity and rush of prior months is internalized as plans, new ideas and, should one be lucky, change.

In the heat of June, an hour gone by in the quest for a good picture, we happened on a desertland with overgrown shrubbery and drunken graffiti. Dystopian, its setting of blue house, green foliage, and gold russet parched grass framed the textured reds of the abandoned casing in the foreground.

Soon another set designed by nature and circumstance will be sought, this time in the cold light and excess of fallen leaves of that listless limbo between Thanksgiving and Yuletide. Fingers numbly cold against the indifferent plastic casing of my film camera, I will frame a shot. Click.

Should we be even half lucky, the smiles and breath and glances of those who make our lives more beautiful will recur in the summers and winters of our cyclical existence, tinting each day with shades of their idiosyncratic beauty.