I took my dog walk with Luna a bit early today. We had been to visit a friend in Fredericksburg and I needed to stretch my legs. The air was warm and the clouds grey on one side of the sky and the sun low on the other side. The trees were stark against the dark clouds, shadows rippled through the neighbor’s pasture, the pale green of a hillside was reflected in a still pond. As I tried to capture something of the moment in a photo, a group of five swans flashed bright against the dark clouds. Everything felt interconnected—the swans contrasted against the dark sky, resurrecting my memory of the family of swans that nested on our pond this year. All linked together—the moment, the memory and the future.
Speaking of memory, we have been digging through our archive of photos. First I sought images of my pregnant body for Zoe as she moved through her own pregnancy. Then I’m amassing pictures of her as a newborn to discern family resemblances with her son Larkin. Most recently we are gathering photographic evidence of our long friendship with Mikio Shinagawa who recently passed away. He was a true friend, mentor, a great connector and encourager in our life. These deep dives in images and memories remind me of the interconnectedness of our neighbors, ancestors, landscape, food and artwork. Mikio always tried to remind us of our connections, in New York, Virginia, Maine, Japan and beyond. While we often looked to our past, Mikio always asked us to look toward the children of our future.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from Cloud Cuckoo Land?
A: I hope readers are reminded of our myriad interconnections: with our ancestors, with our neighbors, with other species, with all the kids yet to be born. I believe that the more we can remember how much we’re all in the same boat—the more we can train ourselves to imagine, recognize, and remember our connections—with the bacteria in our guts, the birds outside our windows, the meals on our plates, and the children in our futures—the better off we’ll be.
–Anthony Doerr