Life in the Igloo Downunder

I didn't capitalize the word i

six years ago

in July 

in the photo book I made

to commemorate those months

filled with kangaroos and rock formations

All the trappings 

of our mini life in Australia

summed up in 26 pages of photos and captions

A life with kebabs from the Turkish place

where my sister charmed the owner 

into giving her free fries and chicken tenders

with her five-year-old adorableness 

and that unicorn horn she used to wear all the time

even to sleep

We called our house the igloo

because it was cold and white

and every other day

we would bake muffins

with jam or Kinder chocolate

and go shopping at the corner store

Five year old May lived mostly off muffins

Everything in Australia is made 

in a facility that processes nuts 

I would wake up to the smell of Vegemite

and being too cold

and head to the kitchen to warm up

Australia shouldn’t be cold

Vermont’s supposed to be the cold place

but it was southern winter, and heating makes a difference

none of this is in the photo book

it’s just a highlight reel of Australian things

and May doing parkour