In the JFK airport this morning I read an account of Peter Lanza's new life, since the day in December 2012 when his son Adam killed his own mother, himself, and twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Andrew Solomon writes that, for Lanza "It’s strange to live in a state of sustained incomprehension about what has become the most important fact about you."“But it’s real,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be understood to be real.”' I think we all have moments like that-- real, incomprehensible moments that can't ever be explained.

It's been a heck of a year-- a hard-hitting year, a year of huge changes that split my heart open and made me even more empathetic than I ever thought possible. A rich year, a sad year, where the world suddenly became a much bigger place. I left my job at the Virginian-Pilot, with the greatest photographers in the newspaper community, for a chance to go after some big projects and personal dreams. I broke up with a great love and packed it all up, dog and all, to move west with friends and try out a new life. I'll be in San Francisco for the next year or so, and I'll be back on the blog-- thanks to Katie Barnes for bugging me about it. Please don't be a stranger-- I've really missed it here. There's so much to share from the last year. I'm excited to get started. . .