Montana. January. 1992. Nearing dark, a winter sky shifts above our heads. On a lonely highway, trees, black and leafless, pattern the mountains as we drive. On the horizon, the earth and sky meld into a complex and glowing white that seems to hold every color behind its surface.

Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth begins playing on the car stereo, providing a soundtrack for the quickly passing landscape. The mountains and trees seem still out our windows, even as we race down the highway. Movement and stillness surround us. It is cold and dark and a little magical.

“The imagination is not interested in two-dimensional reductionism or naively pitting one side against another, dark against light. It is interested in the place where the two sides meet, and what they give birth to when they cross-fertilize each other. That is the heart of creativity.”

John O’Donohue, The Sun, April 2007. Pg. 10