“And Little Owl thought how he loved the word ‘we.’”
                -Divya Srinivasan, Little Owl’s Love

                My partner and I just got back home, pulling into our shadowed driveway and waking up our sleepy chilly house, after a long visit out to family in Washington State. We solved puzzles with our grandpa and great aunt. We cooked with both of our moms, and made pot holders with one of them and with our nieces. We played games with our siblings. Different collections of family went out for walks to a frog pond, and walks beneath evergreens, and somewhere along the way I started making friends with a cedar tree. A small one, probably a little younger than I am. It chuckles nighttime thoughts in nighttime whisperings.
                And oh yes, we read Divya Srinivasan’s Little Owl’s Love with our nieces. My partner read it first to the kiddos, and then found me on the couch and said, “You’d love this one,” And I did. That was the day before a whole family of raccoons went climbing along the fence, I think. So many of the stories I saw around me as I grew up told me that life was an individual thing. Remembering back through all these sweet collections of growing things, I do so love the word we.