The exact science of one molecule transformed into another – that Mabel could not explain, but then again she couldn’t explain how a fetus formed in the womb, cells becoming beating heart and hoping soul. She could not fathom the hexagonal miracle of snowflakes formed from clouds, crystallized fern and feather that tumble down to light on a coat sleeve, white stars melting even as they strike. How did such force and beauty come to be in something so small and fleeting and unknowable?

That is excitement. We catch only glimpses, a burst of movement, a flap of wings, yet it is life itself beating at shadow’s edge. It is the unfolding of potential; all of what we might experience and see and learn awaits us.

It is remarkable how we go on. All that we come to know and witness and endure, yet our hearts keep beating, our faith persists.

Ah, and this is the trouble with a diary. We are allowed to stand too long before its mirror and gaze at ourselves, where we unavoidably find vanity and fault.

No. Sometimes these things happen. Life doesn’t go the way we plan or hope, but we don’t have to be so angry, do we?

There is hope in our wanting to be something better, even if we never manage it. Maybe that is what I can hold to. The wanting.

Mabel was no longer sure of the child’s age. She seemed both newly born and as old as the mountains, her eyes animated with unspoken thoughts, her face impassive. Here with the child in the trees, all things seemed possible and true.

And yet, what Ada had written about joy was entirely true. When she stands before you with her long, naked limbs and her mysterious smile, you must embrace her while you can.

She slid her boot soles onto the surface and nearly laughed at her own absurdity – to be careful not to slip even as she prayed to fall through.

Now that I have been brought home by carriage and climbed into my bed, my fury has burned out, and I am left cold and tired. Why do we insist on inflicting more suffering on a world that is already fraught with it? It is here that I must part ways with Father’s romantic spirit, for I suspect that it is a curse of nature, some original instinct that we have failed to shed. And I am no better than others, for in the face of it, I would keep quiet and retreat.