Sometimes I am struck by the beauty of this place and sometimes I struggle with how cold it is.

Black charred stumps against red rock cliffs, tattered blankets of snow. River running, churning through and under thick ice creating ever-changing patterns

Downstream

remnants of warmer days seeping into cracks and fissures, infusing with a green hue.

I watch the brown grasses undulating in the breeze and I am sure I can see the hand of God.

“In winter I don’t think there is much that is more beautiful than these golden brown grasses,” I share with the 12-year-old, pausing to look at them this day, humbly bowing with snow along their spines.

Humph.

She is unimpressed.

“You are spec- al. Your Jay!” Reads the well-worn plate  beneath a bowl of Lucky Charms: 6 year-old Scarlett’s birthday breakfast.

Panda dress on with bright pink bow in her hair.

” I look pretty,” she declares examining herself in the mirror.

A simple, sweet recognition that I had never heard her utter.

Off to school with 18 mini blueberry muffins passed to her kindergarten pals and then the sharing of treasure box spoils with “The Birthday Girl”.

“I got six rings!” she exclaimed with delight.

At  home with her cheetah painted  face and friends: two puppies, one butterfly, one fish running, giggling, blowing  out candles all 6 atop her puppy cake.

Did she remember to make a wish?

Just now, I wonder this.

And then Ever so quietly it crept upon us. Stealthily, sneaking, I didn’t know the danger was there until it was gone. Scarlett and I for a moment, a mere moment were together where almost, Almost a severe accident occurred. The result would have brought serious injury or death to her. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. But it could have, might have. But it didn’t.

And then just like that, the evening unfolded for our family:

Off to see “Paddington”,

home for ice cream and sharing  moments of  the day She was Born.

Scarlett curled in my lap, mama arms wound tightly around her little 6-year-old self.

“Moments are the molecules that make up eternity” (Neal A. Maxwell)

And they are. Good and bad, for better and for worse.These moments, bringing joy and sadness, sadness and joy again and again and again

Round the circle we go.

“I just wanted to be happy” shared a friend amidst her prolonged unhappiness.

How we all seek

and yet it escapes the best and worst of us in dark and pleasant places.

Happiness.

Joy.

So bound and so intricately connected to the very fibers and sinews of sorrow and pain. Round and round we go on this exquisitely beautiful, Dreadful wheel.

Crazy.It seems.

And I am struck by the beauty and the cold of this place.

Inseparable.

One.

Struck by the beauty and the cold of this place.