I parked in my old neighborhood last week – it’s walking distance from my job – and passed a bush that I used to pass every morning. Every morning when I used to walk past, and again last week, I was mesmerized by the patterns of the leaves, of the way the morning – then afternoon – light hits them, by how hollow and warm and bright and colorful it looks inside this bush.

And I finally understood why I always wanted to take pictures of it.  I wanted to attempt to capture what it would feel like – and what it would look like – to be a bird building a nest in this structure.  (Many of my pictures of plants and trees are attempting to create this sensation of being a small creature faced with these sculptures or structures, attempting to find something that could be home.)

The idea of nesting – of being a bird and choosing to live under the protection of leaves – is intriguing to me.  I thought about the human version of nesting – about the act of filling a home, of evoking an emotional tone, of bringing in light and color and comfortable things – and realized that the themes of safe structures, comfort, and light are always on my mind.  Not a life-changing revelation, perhaps, but I enjoy finding and naming these common themes that run through my life.