I Still Wonder

     I watched the crystals of frost form around my fingers on the cold window. My cousins oohed and aahed at the elaborate ice sculptures we were passing. “Maria! Look at that one!” Betty screamed in my ear, leaning out of her seat and across my lap to press her face against the window. Her chocolate curls were flying everywhere. I jerked my hand away. She was looking with sparkly blue eyes at a small bear lit by colored lights somehow frozen into the glass figure. It was cute, but really didn’t stand out in the maze of animals. I wondered what had caught her attention about this one. Sometimes I felt like all I did was wonder. I didn’t ask. I never asked. I just giggled as she pouted at the cloud from her breath blocking her view.

     I turned back to the open sketchbook in my lap once Betty returned to her seat. I made a rough sketch of the bear by the unsteady light, including details that I wanted to remember. I needed my full concentration to actually draw anything good, but I liked to do crude little doodles like this and fix them in my room later. My sketchbook was full of that kind of thing. I sometimes thought of it as the letter of my heart. I doodled everything I wondered about.