On my walk this morning, the snow melted as it drifted onto my face. As I walked over a hill towards the main street, I saw its shops and houses, and beyond them, rising improbably above their mundane architecture, the mountain, white except for dark patches of spruce plantation. It looked huge and strange, as if a chunk of the moon had replaced the mountain overnight.

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Later I perused photos I've taken over the past six years, to organise them, a hopeless endeavour, for there are so many of them. Photos of flowers, trees, and small creatures. Of landscapes in springtime. Of the sea, the moon, and double rainbows. Photos of exhibitions and books I wanted to read. Photos of friends taken in faraway cities. Some of these friends, I haven’t seen in years, or what feels like years, for the emotional distance between them and I.

Why did I take this or that photo? Why was it important? Each subject appears like a lunar mountain in winter, impossibly distant. Every subject: what I wanted to record for memory, what has already slipped out of my grasp, for all of time.

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