I thought I’d start with a photograph. Though I’ve thought of my photographing this way for a while, I recently titled my folders “Diary” and “Discard.” I’m planning to keep both current, and I’ll review the pictures in each regularly. This is the same way I’m keeping music, especially the harder, more ephemeral stuff. If I keep some attempts organized in this way (Merleau-Ponty said every Cézanne work was an “essai”; Cara called my clatter in the other room a “stance,” warming my heart), I can look at mistakes and successes with a new mind at a later time, having abandoned the one that made the decisions. I can decide how I feel about the mind I had.

This photo of stone steps, a railing, and an ascending trail is from last weekend walking near home in Scarborough, Maine. It did make into the “Diary” folder then. I don’t know if it’ll make into any other category, but it did surprise me when I looked at it. What surprised me especially was that it was one week old. It seemed like a memento from another, perhaps special time. Like if I walked over there today, I would find it changed. It happily reminds me that I am seeing things now as commonplace-if-notable, but—like when I turned the bend at Triglav National Park this hill me reminds me of—I may indeed be living in a special time.