I often take photos of the Yellow Barn, which sits proudly in a pasture eight or nine miles down the road from our farm.

I always check to see where the sun is; I’ve dreamed for several years of going by when the sun is setting over the barn and casts a rich and expanding shadow that frames the barn in a special, even haunting way.

This after, we were returning from Albany. We took a close friend to a hospital to visit her husband, who is scheduled for Open  Heart Surgery sometime next week.

She was allowed to see her husband for one hour; then, waited outside for her and found an ice cream place good for waiting. We picked her up,  drove her home.

We both know what she and her husband are going through.

We dropped her off, picked up some sushi takeout, and then drove by the Yellow Barn just as the sun dropped behind it.

I saw the sun and the shadow in front of it; I believed I had seen the photo I was waiting for, symmetrical and beautiful. The sun is rarely so precisely where I want it.

“Do you want to turn around?” asked Maria, ever supportive of any kind of art, and I said, “sure, I would love to.” I jumped out of the car and ran back to stand in front of the barn; I know I only had seconds before I’d lose the sun and perhaps the shadow.

I got the picture I wanted. It is satisfying beyond belief to get a photo you really want and have been waiting for. I always take it as a sign that the angels are watching.

My camera is patient, even when I am  not.