This photo is what is resonating with me today: an odd sense of calm that is precarious. I chose this photo because it evokes a quiet tension. In the center, there is a bright, healthy, standing plant. On either side, there are two symmetrical, brown rolls of toilet paper. Simple, almost soothing objects. But their color: both rolls are closer in texture and shape to the trees they were when cut, still raw and coarse. The earthy color of death. They are both made of the plant’s ancestors, stripped and beaten and softened into use. The image is a metaphor for the way we sanitize violence. Symmetrical, it suggests peace. But at its center, the truth: life engulfed by its remains. That’s how I feel today: balanced, but also with something else underneath. Something not quite right. Beautiful, but also lost. The image holds both.