Print Day

After nearly 3 years, today is the day……my book is going to print. Lydie’s book.

From the first tentative draft, illustration roughs and numerous adaptions, to connecting with SANDS once more and being given the courage and support to keep moving forward, this book is taking me on an amazing journey. My friends and family have all travelled with me, through the ups and the downs, the twists and turns, the dead ends and the green lights.

I’ve come to watch the first pages come off the press and as I stand there waiting, I catch myself holding my breath. Everything around me seems on fast forward, it’s a day like any other day but for me this is a moment in time that will forever be etched in my memory, in Lydie’s memory.

Lithographic printing is strictly methodical but oddly poetical at the same time; each piece of paper rises and falls through a series of rollers and colours. Plain sheets of white gradually changing until they finish with a beautiful pattern of colour, almost like a dance.

And as I watch, I feel all the emotions that live within those pages, all the dreams, all the tears.

And I imagine Lydie is standing next to me, holding my hand and looking up at me and that familiar wave of emotion rises up in me and I close my eyes.