At some point in the future will come the last time I walk into a room and curse because I've just stepped on a hard plastic toy. This will be nice for my feet, but I think it will be less so for my heart.

I'm not sure I can think of a more mundane, cliched thing to take a picture of than a cloud, but here we are. Sometimes it's OK to just take a picture of something because it's pretty, even if there is no deeper message.

She actually has six teeth now, but I'm still not used to her having any. Come to it, I guess I'm still not completely used to having her at all. But this is how time plays tricks on us all. One day your daughter is being born, the next day she has six teeth. I'm sure tomorrow she'll have kids of her own.

Shorts and t-shirt because it was already warm by 9:00 AM. Watching TV because, well, it was morning. Jason almost certainly watches too much TV, and somehow the fact that he doesn't watch more than I did at his age feels like a thin justification. So it goes.

You would think that being engaged in working on a photo series about things left behind would make me a little more aware and less likely to forget to clean up, myself, but it doesn't seem to have worked out that way.

Somewhat tangentially (though relevant to the photograph, I suppose) we've been redecorating lately and have hung a number of canvases of my images in our living room and kitchen. I'm not quite sure how I feel about having my own work on my walls, but for the time being, anyway, I can't really afford anyone else's.

As much as my younger brother and I are friends now, the main memory I have of our interactions growing up is of us fighting. Often with words, sometimes with fists—occasionally, even in song. So when Juliette and I started talking about having a second child, I had a little apprehension about how Jason would deal with it.

But as it turns out, they really do seem to love each other so far. They have their squabbles, sure, but Jason is mostly caring and conscientious toward his sister. And as far as Eva goes, you can see from the picture that she adores her big brother.

That smile—the one she gives him when he plays with her—it wasn't something I was expecting, but it's one of the best things in my life.

I'd like to be able to say something insightful here, but to be honest, what's going through my head right now is this:

Digging, digging,
This is how we dig the ground
In our garden, in our garden.
Digging, digging,
This is how we dig the ground
Early in the morning.

On Saturday we took the kids to Liberty Station to have lunch at this bakery we like and to play at the park nearby, and along the way I got this, which is the latest candidate for my "Stochasm" series. Now, what attracts me about this picture is the same thing that attracts me about all of the other minimalist photographs I've done lately: lines, curves, colors, textures, and light. I can't help thinking about this one differently, though, because the subject is so obviously what it is, and there isn't any clear way for me to divorce the visual elements from the context implied by the subject.

It's so easy to read the image as simply patriotic, as the upward angle and the lighting and the implication of motion imply a certain majesty—but this isn't really my intention and doesn't encapsulate my feelings about patriotism in general and America in particular, which are complex. I have always loved my country and so much of its history, have been proud to be related to veterans, have had a profound respect and admiration for the idea of America, but as I've gotten older I've become uncomfortable with the idea of nationalism, especially insofar as it gets in the way of relating to others with simple humanity.

None of this complexity is in this image—it is, as I said, an image of majesty and power and awe and beauty. I'm not sure I can even imagine a single image that captures the way I actually feel, at least not in a way that's nuanced and subtle. So I have this quandary: I like this image and think it's beautiful, and insofar as it is a good example of the aesthetic I'm looking for with this new series, I think it works. But I don't think it really represents me and I'm not sure how I feel about what it says, and I'm therefore not sure how I feel about finally including it in the series.

I always hate giving up on an image I like, but I guess that's how it goes with this whole artist thing. I keep hearing that you have to be ruthless when editing your own work, so if something isn't right, don't keep it.

Still, I think I'll hang onto this one for at least a little while longer. Just to see.

This weekend I had the opportunity to contemplate what it means to be within arm's reach of a lion. A sleeping lion, to be sure, but a lion nonetheless—and close enough, and with few enough impediments between me and it that if I had wanted badly enough to know what it's fur felt like, I could have found out.

I didn't, though. It didn't seem... prudent.

Bright sun on a bright, sunny, Big Sur morning, and me lucky enough to catch it.