the epilogue

Several people have suggested that I produce for Snowdrop (if not for myself) a photo book about her adventures in Paris. Oh, do I agree that this is a worthwhile project! When we play and she adapts to being home again, I can see that without words to describe her experiences, she is a child of the today. What matters is what is now. Wouldn't a book of her trip remind her of what mattered then?


Still living in a different time zone, I wake up at 4:30 and begin the project of crafting a book for the little one. With interruption for coop opening at dawn and for a few weeding hours. And of course, for bloom spotting.

Today, let me spotlight the most difficult flower to photograph -- the white iris. It's blooming profusely along the driveway and it is so beautiful that it leaves me speechless.






And here's the wild indigo -- typically the flower pods are blue, but I have a few yellow varieties that are stunning in this transition period of late spring.






And of course there is breakfast. On the porch.





\Now back to the book project.

I have created photo books using blurb.com and I have come back to this site for the current book project. I am impressed how much easier it is to work on this now! I forge ahead, the world be damned.

But not for terribly long because in the late morning I am again with Snowdrop. (Ah, she clutches her lego rocket from Paris...)






We both have changed since the time before travel: the trip was a significant event and she seems months older than when I last played with her in her own home.

She is at once more serious and more playful.






I feel she is still tired from her great adventure and so I guide her toward quieter play...






But in the end, she shows quite a bit of spirit. Ask her to dance and she'll bob up and down with a vengeance!

Toward the end of the day, her mom and I take her for a longer walk around the lesser lake. I feel very tentative about this: will she protest that the walk does not end with a pastry? A bread store? A park?

My worries are preempted by a cloud burst. No, I have no umbrella. Snowdrop gets wet, we get wet. It's as if we needed that -- to rinse off the last bit of post travel displacement before we plunge into a Madison summer.

In the evening, I finish the book for Snowdrop. Sixty five pages of photos and text. Too long! -- you'll say. Maybe. Though in many ways, not long enough.