I saw him through the café window, bent over a chessboard he had set for himself. White on one side. Black on the other. His hands resting in his lap as he considered his next play. He was playing alone.

An old woman, bent over, lugging a cart behind her, trudges up a street in San Francisco. She reminds me of my mother, who fought Parkinson’s disease, but never lost her equilibrium.

There was a time before smart phones and GPS when we used maps and the kindness of strangers for directions.

The light changed. The street cleared. He did not move. Groceries hung from his hand. The city blurred behind him. A ghost whispered in his ear.

I was in a bookstore and noticed that nearly everyone around me was scrolling on their phones, except for one older gentleman. What does that say about our attention in this age of digital addiction?

A children’s train, a father and child, and the warmth of ordinary gifts.

I passed an ice cream shop on one of my meditative photo walks and noticed the child’s outreached hand. The anticipation and longing. Because ice cream makes most folks happy. And we need more happiness in this broken world.

We pass each other like this every day, carrying verdicts and losses and private angst, and sometimes if we slow enough to look we catch a glimpse of the weight, and it tells us what we already know and rarely admit, that everyone is fighting something.

On a hot summer day in Las Vegas, with my rangefinder camera along the Strip, she said, “Take my picture,” and her smile was like a light in this world of despair and hope.

I take the camera and the small notebook when I go out walking. No grand design in it. Just seeing what the day sets down. Light on a wall. A coyote crossing the far field.

On that boat, I noticed the chipped paint, the old winch, the chain drifting in the wind. Things most people overlook. The camera insists I don’t.

I took the photograph because the world had gone still around her. Because there are moments when a man understands that time is a river with no shore, and the only thing that holds is the light that finds the ones we love.

Somewhere deep within you, there is an angel.

Beneath the insecurities and comparisons and nagging fears, your forgotten angel longs for release. Everyone has this inner guardian, that sacred part of ourselves that shines with love and kindness and quiet benevolence.

My father used to get excited when I came home from university to visit. My son just came home for Christmas. Now I know how my dad felt.

This is a commonplace book. Fragments and black and white street photographs. Lines from books and passing thoughts. Things seen and written down before they are lost.