This past February, Heidi – the daughter of a beloved I lost to cancer in September 2025 — texted me to thank me again for a calendar I typically sent to her mother every Christmas. Every year, the front of each month featured a photo of an image I had captured in farmland that year; the back, inspirational quotes. In 2026, I compiled the calendar quotes, “in honor of courageous and inspiring women who have changed the course of our lives, if not our history.” One of those quotes was from Heidi’s mother.

“I just want to reiterate how much I love everything about this calendar,” texted Heidi. “The inspiration, the execution, the effort and intention. I really appreciate all of it. And the fact that it includes mom is even more meaningful.”

Heidi continued, “The part that really gets me is the rootedness in your ‘one place.’ We must go local. I think it is the way through this insanity on the federal level and truly the only place we have much agency. I keep thinking I was made to do bigger things and have a larger stage. Truthfully, my longing for that is likely because of how hard it can be to show up in my physical place. As Eudora Welty says, “place matters.” Sure does. Our places need us – so here’s to showing up. xoxo”

I was very taken not only by Heidi’s gratitude, but also her wisdom. “Our places need us.” In a note I included with every calendar this year, I quoted Ursula LeGuin who urged artists “to seek the irreproducible moment, the brief, fragile story told in one place.” 

That one place for me is the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), comprised of 6,500 acres of farmland less than a mile from my home. Sadly, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), blighted by the Trump administration, plans to “decommission” BARC, a 116-year-old facility, citing over $500 million in needed repairs and high maintenance costs. The first phase of BARC’s closing is scheduled for September 30 of this year. The plan involves relocating thousands of jobs and research projects to other sites nationwide “to better serve constituents.”

This is, of course, bullshit, but I obviously have an investment in BARC because its beauty emanates far and wide outside and inside my heart. It truly is my one place.

In the coming weeks, I will be telling the story of how this became my one place and how, looking back over the decades, so much led me to this place and my discovery of how deeply I care about beauty . . . and always have.

The featured photograph at the top of this post was also taken yesterday at sunrise, 6:21 a.m.