A little over a year ago, when I was looking half a century in the face, I decided there was no better time to take on a different sort of project: A year-long meditation resulting in a 50th birthday book.

When I say meditation, I mean it — each of the 50 pages speaks to something I was thinking about at the time. I tried not to plan too much, and let it take me where it would take me. I started off last summer making 50 3×4 cards out of the glue-y paper bag-gy paper I use as the base for so many sculptural books. Each week, I worked on them here and there. Sometimes I traveled, and I tossed a few cards and embroidery floss into my bag. There are song lyrics and a quote from Middlemarch, which I finally read (and LOVED) in the spring. Sometimes I went wild with my Poscas, or pulled in bits and pieces from other projects (selections from a paper-making workshop I took with my son, or block prints I carved along the way, to name a few). At one point, I painted tiny portraits of myself, my husband, and sons. For the very the end, on the day after my birthday, I made a little envelope and wrote myself a letter. It’s all in there…here is a selection of a few favorite pages…

Binding this sucker turned out to be a fun challenge. I have sewn myself into corners many times in my life, and always found my way out — and this was no exception. I wanted the book to feel like a real chunk in my hands, and it does. I wanted it to fan out into a wheel of color and weirdness, and it does. I had an especially fun time creating the cover, sewing and coloring and running absolutely wild. (The cover paper is monsoon from Cave Paper, which I adore.) Nobody but me will know what much of it means, and that is okay. It feels very much like a me book — me at 50.