When the time comes to illustrate a book, Robbi does a whole lot of not drawing. While she’s not drawing, she frets and stews and churns and cogitates. It’s unpleasant for her and it’s unpleasant for me. I watch her like a pot that will not boil, and the weight of my expectation seems to slow down time. This goes on and on and on, her stewing and me pacing back and forth until suddenly, with no warning, she sits down and begins to draw.

Once it begins, the production is like a gushing river. I have to put on my hip waders and try to stay out of the swiftest part of the channel. Because she is a human being, Robbi needs to eat, though she often forgets that this is the case. Yesterday I noted that she had been drawing for hours without lifting her head or taking a bite of anything. And so I asked her what I might bring her. The suggestion was not unwelcome, and yet she seemed unable to describe whatever it was she might want to eat. I presented her a number of seemingly viable options (lasagne, pasta, sandwich), each of which was waved off with an odd mix of impatience and gratitude.

I pressed her to tell me what it was that she did want. After a moment of reflection, she replied, “Little snacky bits.”

I retreated to the other room, still largely clueless, but with a tiny scrap of information to guide me. I poked through the cupboard in search of something that might qualify as “snacky.’

My search identified osembe, Japanese rice crackers, as the most obvious candidates.

But once I had removed the osembe from their plastic wrappings, I questioned whether they qualified as “little” or “bits.”

And so I took out our biggest, sharpest knife and set to work.

When I was done, I arranged them artfully on a blue plate. Robbi is an aesthete, after all.

I presented my work and got a smile in return.

A good deal of Robbi’s and my collaborative success stems from our ability to know what the other is thinking, even the answer is technically unavailable.

Little snacky bits, indeed.