I've mentioned the universe here before, right? And how sometimes it steps in?
Picture the scene: Saturday night, after midnight, Galiano Island. A cozy cottage, the sound of the ocean and of a nearby creek barely noticeable over the rain. Fresh from a long bath, Cori starts getting her camera ready for the next day, which includes futzing around with a recalcitrant memory card. When it was in the camera it was reading as full, in the computer it was reading as empty, that sort of thing.
And then something happened and there they were: some 300 photos from last fall and winter.
I think we both gasped.
These were the photos that we thought had been lost through a technological failure. Photos from last fall, from camping in the summer of 2008 (well, not me…), from the snowfall of last December. Xander's birthday. My birthday. Christmas morning. The baby beluga. We had discovered them missing (there's an odd sentence) on Christmas day last year — we were both crushed, but… we moved on. We thought there might be a way to get them back, but we never really pursued it, as if we were both concerned that, so long as we didn't try and fail, then there was still a possibility that they might be recovered. So long as we didn't fuck it up, there was still a potential for those photographs, those memories, to come back.
And in that cottage on Galiano, a short walk over rocks to the shore, there they were. As if by magic. Photographs. Memories. What had been lost was found.
And as 38 slips behind me, I can't get that thought out of my mind.
i love the way the universe kicks in and shows us that it's still paying attention.
Is your book also published in Europe, It could be that we are family
Garry — Before I Wake is out in chunks of Europe: Poland, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands…