I don’t love this time of year, when the drive home from work in the dark is a twelve mile deer slalom with a pitch-black house at the finish line. When the moon is hiding, it’s so dark out here that I need a flashlight to find the front door. I walk unsteady up the driveway under the kind of disorienting black sky that opens wide above and makes me feel flipped upside down.

But the reward, once I am safely inside with lights a-blazing, is seeing my house in an entirely new (lack of) light. It’s so beautiful to me that I made pictures while a family of coyotes sang against the mountain.

Through my camera, I caught a glimpse of the soul of this house. Despite the darkness, it was shining.