The Butterfly Book

The first thing that I did on the morning of the last day of the year was to finalize and order my latest little photo book, The Butterfly Book. I posted a photo on Blip that day of about half of the pictures that appear in it. And indeed you have met some of these individual butterflies before, on these very pages; for quite a few of my butterflies appeared first on blip.

It is always an exciting moment when a brand new book arrives in the mail, as this one did on this very day. My husband handed me the bright orange package, after the mail lady handed it to him. It was the first thing I opened, of course: rip, shred, tear went the box. And then: welcome to a world full of butterflies! (87 of them, to be exact.)

I always dreamed I would be a maker of books, but I thought somehow they would be books full of words. For I was a student of literature once upon a time and always. And I thought I must write some amazing stories someday. Stories that would shine with love, and beauty, and wise learnings. Stories that would give people hope.

But it turns out my books have few words in them, at least so far. A title on the front cover. A few lines of text on the back cover. One quote on the first interior recto page of photos. But like Blip, my books are a place to keep safe what I treasure most dearly: the beautiful things I see when I am out and about in the world. It is apparently the only story I know how to tell; in the end, it is always a love story.

The song: Peter Gabriel, The Book of Love.