March 2, 1916

I finished typing the diary of the man I love and now I wait. I know what he thought every day for eighteen months. Lord Ogilvy wrote a note, placed it inside the journal’s cover with Julia’s opened letter and then mailed all to me. He wrote with his surprisingly poor penmanship, among other things, “Your man has a lot of pluck”. That encourages me, even though I am married, that he considers Julius as my man. I truly hope so.

Entering my second quarter century, I reflect on what I have learned. That being, lips dazzle, eyes beguile, and brilliant smiles shine from behind the mask where the sharp teeth reside. Conversations are hard to read and disappear in a moment. Writing reveals the truth and lays the soul bare for all to read for as long as the paper and ink survive. Emotions, desires, passions, and goals leap from the words which we all arrange differently. Write to tell and read to learn. Do not be picky at the table of knowledge, devour and discover.

Two Months Later…

I stare out the still snowy March window at my bird houses placed along the tops of my front yard fence. I realize in the chaos of the fall season; I did not clean the them for new spring nests. One of many mental notes during a long winter of discontent. A Sharp Shinned Hawk waited quietly, camouflaged by color and bare trees on the corner fence post. An unfortunate nonnative English sparrow settled on to a sunflower seed feeder near the fence. In less than a lightening flash, the hawk smashed the sparrow to the snow, dug in its talons and lifted off with the prey, leaving only a feather swirling on the disturbed snow.

I am listless, reflective, and rudderless. Angela gave me Nellie’s address in San Juan, and I have written to Julius twice. My letters showed my enchantment with Little Julius, the protective devotion of Julius’s dog, Charlie, and the resulting absence of JJ. I am safe, secure, and bored senseless. Julius replied with informative travel logs, which lacked passion and seemly held a fragile, cracked cup of love dangling on a frayed string above a rocky road.