calendars count

A calendar plays a main role in my book, Seven Days of Daisy, and for good reason. Calendars count, helping us to mark the slippery passage of time. The idea of life cycles from my previous post blurred into this one. With both parents now gone, I'm sifting through dusty boxes of family history. I came across this calendar, thick and small, and suddenly a notation shows up:

In my grandmother's handwriting, she notes: "William Franklin born. 9:43 AM 8 lbs." I didn't know my grandmother very well, but here is something that tangibly connects us, the momentous event of my father's birth. And time and weight, which feel so incredibly important to a mother at the time, yet a detail that generally falls by the wayside.

Fastforward 20 years, and here is another calendar:

In 1945, my father was in the service and my grandmother made note "wrote Wm" on a daily basis.
That these calendars from decades ago were filled with records of everyday detail and saved is a revelation. It tells me they lived a life worth noting and conserving. My grandfather, Roland Hogan, was also an artist, draftsman, and photographer. His tidy photo albums inspire me no end. Just came across this aptly labeled shot:

My Aunt Eleanor sits in the foreground, with my father at the bow. I find an unintended parallel in this scene from Seven Days of Daisy:

 

As I prepare to launch the book, I count seven incarnations of this story.

The top 3 are variations of thumbnail dummies done in the Picture Book Intensive at Maine College of Art in 2002. Next is the faded color dummy that made the rounds to 10 publishers in 2003 and 2004.
The next two are soft-cover editions of self-published copies from 2009. The large one at the bottom right is the new hardcover edition now released by DownEast.

Some things take a while! I check my calendar and see that my book launch is two weeks away!

Recently at the delicious El Rayo, the dishy Kirsten Cappy and I went over our event plan, with her trusty calendar on her phone.

The vibrant colors there go well with my book, and we enjoyed their signature spicy lobster wrap to usher in the summer.

Pretty please, mark your calendars for June 18. Join me on the beach at PeaksFest or at a library later on in July. I'll also be at the Maine Lighthouse Museum on July 23 in Rockland.

Make every Maine summer day count!