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for lo, the days are hastening
Christmas Eve. It’s Christmas Eve.
I won’t lie: this time of the year is hard for me to get through. I struggle to hear vapid music without making comments (You: that damn drummer boy. I am looking RIGHT AT YOU when I bring this up.) (As an example of a comment that I’d like to make.) I am still not over the exact mathematical allotment of Festive Holiday Minutes™ per family that my in-laws tracked (and were so, so kind let us know when we were deficient.). I miss my mom, who died 20 years ago next week. The days are short which makes me feel bleak.
But. I have a million good memories of my mom and I have a loving family. No one (so far as I am aware) tracks my time allocation. We’re past the winter solstice so the days are already getting longer. And these verses from “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” help me see the beauty of the season even through all the things that don’t feel happy or kind or joyful.
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
two thousand years of wrong
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring
O hush the noise ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow
Take heart for comfort, love, and hope
Come swiftly on the wing
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing
So today I will take heart for comfort, love, and hope; rest beside that weary road when I need to; and will listen for the angels singing (hopefully with a drum accompaniment).
San Elizario, Texas
photographed 12.15.2025
sacked
I stepped into the public restroom because…well, for the obvious reason. And a bit of magical light (and one white paper bag) greeted me.
San Elizario, Texas
photographed 12.15.2025
church + grackles
Don Toothaker, my shooting partner and excellent friend, and I enjoyed the town of San Elizario – there are a lot of reasons why but if I try to write them down here, they start to sound trite or maybe a little bit like I’m trying to hard. Suffice it to say, then, that we were in sync with what we felt and what we saw and how we felt about what we saw. And we saw and we felt a lot. The day was beautiful.
Presidio Chapel of San Elizario
San Elizario, Texas
photographed 12.15.2025
bones
There will be more White Sands photos later…but I’ll start with this one.
I thought the dunes themselves would be so interesting to photograph, but (and this wasn’t really a surprise because I am familiar with my work) what I liked the best was the separate life of things in the alkali flats between the dunes. The plants take on otherworldly shapes, there are tiny tracks made by invisible creatures, and there are elaborate patterns on the surface made by the elements (wind mostly, sometimes rain). Ancient ancient dune movement is revealed and it feels as if no human has seen this – this exact thing – ever before.
For me, the experience became one of seeing the tiny landscapes that populated the one that was too huge to understand.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
photographed 12.21.2025
…and His face was turned toward the sun
Jesus had lost his hands (I don’t know what happened), but at least he could face into the sun and watch the dying of the day.
Immaculate Conception Cemetery
Alamogordo, New Mexico
photographed 12.11.2025
One Day | One Image 