HOW FAR WE’VE COME

Rachel Porter

RIGHTS AVAILABLE: All rights handled by the bks Agency

How Far We’ve Come is a picture book for parents; a meditation on one of life’s great adventures wrapped up in a poem about a simple walk. 

This is the book I went looking for, one midweek morning, in 2018. My baby and I were in the depths of those nerve-shredding months of sleeplessness, and our days were a rhythmless blur. I was convinced that what we really needed was ritual. I knew it was what I needed, at least. So, I set out with the buggy – grey-faced and unshowered – to find and treat us to the book I was certain someone must have written for us.  I was looking for words that would soothe us both, slow our hearts and steady our breath; a daily reminder to find comfort in the steady meter of life; the passing seasons, the rise and fall of the sun, and the knowledge that those long, exhausting days would, in fact, be all too fleeting. I needed a gentle nudge to keep things simple (and to feel okay about that), to relax, to follow my instincts, and, above all, to trust that love would see us through, even when it seemed we were getting nowhere at all. 

How Far We’ve Come is structured as a number of simultaneous circular journeys - around the lake, around the clock, around the sun - and its simple rhyming couplets are intended to set a pace for a contented heartbeat and easy breath. It borrows a little from the practice of mindful meditation; counting down, from ten to one, to immerse the reader in a short visualisation practice, and counting up again to signal the end of the practice and their return to the present moment (as well as to symbolise the speed with which years pass and children grow). 

This was the book I needed, conceived, and created as a new parent, and it’s my hope that many new parents will one day find comfort in it. “

We cup the water in our hands  And watch the droplets scatter I tell myself “remember this”
But memories aren’t what matter 

Rachel Porter is a writer, journalist, and Creative Director of an award-winning visual design consultancy. This is the first in a planned series of books for new mothers so that they might love and care for themselves with the same fierce devotion that they do for their baby. The perfect gift book for fans of Anna Mathur & Charles Mackesy.