Passion can cause one to behave in unusual ways, to do things one wouldn't normally do. We have all experienced this. For example, getting up at 3:00 to go fishing. I can't recall doing that myself, but I understand that others do it. Or driving, seemingly forever, for the opportunity to spend two hours photographing a 100 year-old table. That I have done, and enjoyed. Passion.

The serving table from the dining-room of the Freeman Ford house is a magnificent piece of furniture. It has an imposing presence in spite of its modest size and relative simplicity. It is one of the simplest pieces from the Greenes' Ultimate Bungalow period, closer in form to pieces by other Arts & Crafts designers and yet instantly recognizable as Greene & Greene. It is, in short, a masterpiece.

The owner of this server, which is on loan to the Huntington Library, had granted me permission to photograph it for Poems of Wood & Light. I planned to do so while in Pasadena in September 2009. It was a perfect plan. That is, until someone pointed out to me that the Ford server was part of the A New & Native Beauty exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Gamble House. After opening at the Huntington, the exhibition travelled to Washington, D.C. and then Boston in July 2009. I'd seen A New & Native Beauty in California and Washington but had forgotten about the server. So I needed to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Nonie Gadsden, a curator at the museum, kindly agreed to meet me one morning before the galleries opened. So it was that on a September morning I climbed into my car and headed East.

On a map of the United States, neither New York nor Massachusetts look particularly large. Both lay in the path between Columbus, Ohio and Boston. According to Google Maps, the distance from our home (at that time) and MFA is 800 miles with a driving time of 13 hours 2 minutes. My appointment at the museum was for 7:30AM on September 16. I arrived in Boston, bleary eyed, at about 10:45PM on September 15 having taken every bit of the 13 hours and having listened to a sizable chunk of the music on my iPod. I slept a bit, after unwinding, and then headed to the museum.

I feel a little like someone who can say they've been to Denver because they once made a connection in the airport. I've been to the Museum of Fine Arts. I walked from a service entrance to the exhibit, setup my equipment, photographed the server for a couple of hours, packed my equipment and walked back to the service entrance, accompanied the entire time by my very gracious host. I then climbed back into my car and pointed it West. Total time in Boston: less than 12 hours.

As a scientist, I understand that there are certain laws that dictate the way the universe works. Matter and energy are conserved. Bodies with mass impose attractive forces on one another. The distance along a path is the same in either direction. Two out of three. Though I haven't yet published the result, I've disproven that last law. The distance from Boston to Columbus is much greater than the distance from Columbus to Boston. I know this because the drive home seemed to take forever. And I discovered that the maps are wrong. Massachusetts and New York are huge.

In the end, I made it home safely and without incident. The trip lasted about 37 hours. 25 of those hours were spent in the car. I can't imagine too many events or people for whom I would do that. My wife, children and parents. A few close friends. And the serving table from the Freeman Ford dining-room. Passion. It's a powerful force. And it's the reason that I wrote Poems of Wood & Light.