I am now living and writing from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Everything has changed since I was shunting through snowbanks in Brookline, Massachusetts. I am in a 200-year old adobe house; not the adobe mentioned in the last entry. All of my stuff is here with me, I'm back in the West, waiting for a new job to begin. While I have written much about "the losing" (chrissy hynde), I am now living out the finding.

I should have had an artist-explorer along on this journey; these vistas are meant for record-making memories. The pinon and juniper along the road, the river in its small, stone-held ravine, the new birds, still foreign to me as I wander these new neighborhoods. Somebody should have painted this.

Gettin' ready for the next nor'easter. Trying to melt ice with rock salt, in advance of the next twelve inches of snow. Problem is, the snow's gonna be heavy, and it's gonna stack right on top of the ice that's there now. It's gonna be a nor'easter ice sandwich.

Looks like a wicked big snow coming.

I'm a million miles away, in New Mexico, inside a hundred- year old adobe house, looking for wood to stock the three fireplaces. The viga (beamed) ceiling, the wooden plank floors, the small portal, the mountain beyond. Is this a fantasy? No. It's my home.

A wall without paintings is like a room without windows.
- Anonymous

Outside, it is a still, winter day, but inside the Sanctuary, there is a vibrant conversation going on. In the Moose Hill Sanctuary Gallery, three art jurors are discussing the works of forty-five Massachusetts artists. The theme for the juried show has asked artists to address the meanings of sanctuary: not necessarily as a physical place, not only as a refuge, but through personal meaning and expressive understanding.

There are over one hundred pieces of work to evaluate. As the judges narrow down their favorites, the talk grows more animated. Color photographs, acrylic and oil paintings, watercolors, bronze sculptures, exacting compositions and works designed to draw in a viewer -- the range is astonishing, and the quality is fine art with power.

My next journey will take me to New Mexico, by way of Lordsburg I hope. I'll need my trusty boots and all manner of gear, planning for warm and frigid temperatures. First let me tell about my boots, since they are the subject and object of all journeys:

I imagine I'll take and wear my favorite boots, the Vasque hikers that I've had for ten years. When I first bought them, mostly for light desert climbing trails in California, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. They were apparently inflexible, and showed no signs of wearing to my feet. I used to get such acheing pain from wearing them more than 4-6 hours, I would often sit down under the creosote or juniper and just take them off for a couple of minutes. Of course, I liked to do this anyway on a hike, whether or not I needed to. In Joshua Tree, I'd try to time the break with the achievement of a high boulder for air, sun, and panorama.

I'm fascinated by the ads that appear next to my blog, subjects apparently chosen by the Google Machine. For example, writing about the Algonquian Indians of Massachusetts, I got a web link to a dating site for "Indians." Writing the word "worth" gave me a half-dozen links to financial advice. "Breakdown" seemed to suggest project management to Google. This is pretty interesting. How does the technology to search and match work?

And why, since I wrote "Butch Cassidy", am I now getting comments from DVD salesmen? Wow.

Right now, as I sit in the warmth of the house, my eighty-seven-year-old 'cross-the-street friend is out snowblowing the driveway of his seventy-year-old next-door neighbors. Oy.

He loves to work, but this is ridiculous. He loves to be outdoors, but this is over the top. He prides himself on his vigor and youth, but some activities should be out of reach.

Meanwhile, his loyal labrador housemate, April, is enjoying the snow. Everything he plows, she plods along as if to test the new pathways he's making. Occasionally, she bounds off into the deeper drifts of the yard, sinking up to her knees. But she always comes right back to his side. She seems to be keeping watch on his work, just to make sure he's OK.

This is about a Book Project, which will delight you and make you ponder your deep life questions. It's about a nervous breakdown. And it is very pro-breakdown. Here's the breakdown on the breakdown:

I have realized that the preceding entries will make up a fairly good outline for the general narrative structure of the new book project, which will inevitably result from continued writing on my part.

It will be about my breakdown. It will include interspersed transcribed conversations with my doctor -- a spirited, warm and endlessly patient guide throughout my journey. The whole book will be pro-breakdown. Still, the tone will be at times "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it," and at others "Imagine your utter despair on such a trip as this." The up-and-down, tug-of-war is part of the book's experienced voice, and it is also part of the experience of the reader of the book.

Everyone knows the adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words." But I look at "my" book, produced and finished by others, and I am forced to say this:

This book has one "picture" too many. What it really, really needed was one thousand words instead.

There are the two introductory statements by Fox executives (who, by the way, surely pulled from various Photo Archive memos I had written), and by Marty Scorsese. The politics of these choices aside, neither statement provided a theme or helpful way in for the reader. These were not really introductions, alas.

Things I like about "my" book -- the one that I set up, launched, and was robbed of the opportunity to complete:

• The emphasis on pure photographic impact.
• The size and heft of the book itself.
• The more than several brilliant pairings and juxtaposing of images.
• Individual photographs which I had never seen, and which were stunning.
• Tyrone Power as Jesse James in close-up with kerchief over nose and mouth.
• The portrait of the back of Alice Faye's head with hair swept up.
• Pages 200-215, which is most of "Chapter 2".
• Anthony Ugrin's photo of June Lang in air.
• The dedication to Patrick Miller (Patman).

What I didn't like about this book, and what I wish I could have changed:

So, the whole job came crashing down around me. And so did the book project. I hoped to work out a freelance relationship with Virginia King, the Company, and the new Supervisor. I hoped that I could continue on in some capacity after I got over the shock of being removed from my job, my work people, my creative center. That never did happen, for many reasons. Instead, I got a job as a deck hand and moved to a private island off of Cape Cod. That, however, is another story.

First, I had to grieve over the losses. The worst of them was losing the opportunity to work with a team to create a startling and seductive book of insider photographs. There was no doubt in my mind that this would be a powerful piece of work. I had been anxious and excited about writing an introduction to the book that would be worthy of the project.

Unfortunately for me, my dream book project was taken up by others.